The poverty evolution of typical countries along the Belt and Road and implications from China’s poverty reduction experiences

doi:10.1007/s11442-022-1953-1

摘要/Abstract

Abstract:

The world is facing a poverty crisis. Despite the great achievements that have been made in poverty alleviation over the past two decades, the extent of poverty in countries along the Belt and Road is still high. Successful poverty reduction in these countries is crucial to meeting the 2030 SDGs. Improving governance to eradicate poverty is a shortcoming that needs to be addressed urgently in poverty reduction pathways along the Belt and Road. In this study, the Standard Deviational Ellipse method was used to study the spatial trajectory of the poverty gravity center. Results showed that the poverty gravity center moved from east to west by 87.60 km annually, while the poverty population decreased by 1211.14 million along the Belt and Road from 2000 to 2020. In addition, the trajectory of the center has shifted due to the different effects of poverty reduction. Among the countries situated along the Belt and Road, China is the most significant contributor to poverty reduction. Accordingly, this study examined the implications of China’s successful poverty reduction strategies in order to understand how other countries can effectively respond to poverty. Ultimately, we propose that sustainable poverty alleviation development strategies should be established with the objectives of promoting social equity and improving the wellbeing of all people.

Key words: The Belt and Road Initiative, poverty gravity center movement, reduction experiences, targeted poverty alleviation, sustainability

. [J]. 地理学报(英文版), 2022, 32(3): 458-476.

SHI Linna, WANG Yongsheng, LIU Yansui, LI Yuheng. The poverty evolution of typical countries along the Belt and Road and implications from China’s poverty reduction experiences[J]. Journal of Geographical Sciences, 2022, 32(3): 458-476.

图/表 11

参考文献 73

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Name of region	Countries within the region	No. of countries
China-Mongolia-Russia	China, Mongolia, Russia	3
Southeast Asia	Singapore, Indonesia, Malaysia, Thailand, Vietnam, Philippines, Cambodia, Myanmar, Laos, Brunei, East Timor	11
South Asia	India, Pakistan, Sri Lanka, Bangladesh, Nepal, Maldives, Bhutan,	7
West Asia and North Africa	United Arab Emirates, Kuwait, Turkey, Qatar, Oman, Lebanon, Saudi Arabia, Bahrain, Israel, Yemen, Egypt, Iran, Jordan, Syria, Iraq, Afghanistan, Palestine, Azerbaijan, Georgia, Armenia	20
Central and Eastern Europe	Poland, Albania, Estonia, Lithuania, Slovenia, Bulgaria, Czech Republic, Hungary, Northern Macedonia, Serbia, Romania, Slovakia, Croatia, Latvia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Montenegro, Ukraine, Belarus, Moldova	19
Central Asia	Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Turkmenistan, Tajikistan, Uzbekistan	5

Year	Direction	Mean velocity (km/a)	Mean movement distance of gravity (km)	Change of oblateness
2000-2005	southeast	99.23	595.40	-0.01
2005-2010	northwest	63.28	379.70	0.10
2010-2015	northwest	42.63	255.77	0.03
2015-2020	northwest	101.47	608.79	-0.01
2000-2020	northwest	87.60	800.69	0.11

Year	Policy	Policy measures	Effect
2001	Development-Driven Poverty Alleviation in Rural Areas (2001-2010)	• List priority region • The entire-village advancement poverty alleviation • Abolish agricultural tax • Fully implement the subsistence allowance system	• Poverty population reduced by half • Poverty headcount ratio decreased from 40.3% to 9.92% from 2000 to 2010
2013	Targeted poverty alleviation	• Accurate identification • Register in information platform • Dispatch resident working teams • Targeted measures • Establish poverty exit mechanism	• Eradicated extreme poverty • Poverty headcount ratio deceased from 1.79% to 0.24% from 2013 to 2019
2020	Five-year transition period policy to consolidate poverty alleviation achievements	• Monitor and prevent population return to poverty • Build a system to provide regular aid to the poverty population	• Prevented large scale return of impoverished households to poverty • Poverty headcount ratio keeps within 0.2%

Country	Poverty population in 2020 (million)	Poverty headcount ratio in 2020 (%)	Challenges of poverty alleviation
Turkmenistan	1.61	26.56	Water shortage (Wang et al., 2012) Lower levels of economic development and weaker infrastructure (Qi et al., 2019)
India	31.74	2.30	Huge population Shortage of per capita resource (Rao et al., 2011; Cronin et al., 2014) Inequality in social class caused by caste group systems (Ravallion, 2011) Rural-urban disparity (Das and Pathak, 2012) Soil degradation (Bhattacharyya et al., 2015)
Indonesia	9.98	3.65	Laborers with limited levels of education (Novianti et al., 2020) High unemployment rate (Hafnati and Syahnur, 2018) Large gap between the wealthy and the poor
Bangladesh	7.05	4.28	Frequent flooding disasters (Dewan and Tanvir, 2015) Unequal social classes (DIBI, 2014) Lack of strong and efficient bureaucracy (Sarker et al., 2017)
Pakistan	1.90	0.86	Uneven allocation of resources between urban and rural areas (Tanveer et al., 2020) Unfair redistribution policies (Ahmed et al., 2015) Climatic drought (Anjum et al., 2012)
Vietnam	0.61	0.63	Rural-urban disparity (Le, 2020) Unsustainable poverty reduction policies and results (Chung et al., 2015; Tri, 2020) High unemployment rate
Uzbekistan	2.27	6.79	Risk of stagflation in economy Surplus laborers High unemployment rate among young people (Akhunov, 2021)