The apartment building complex that Gao Shiquan lives in (ZHENG YANG)

Living in a remote mountain village in one of China's least developed regions in the northwest, Gao Shiquan was used to hardships. The 50-year-old farmer, struggling to survive on an annual income of less than 3,000 yuan ($448), couldn't imagine things could get any worse—until a landslide buried his adobe home in 2013.

The disaster-stricken man tried to salvage whatever he could from the debris, but the light had gone out of his life. The catastrophe had made other villagers homeless too and thrust them deeper into poverty. And then, the silver lining appeared.

This year, the government of Gansu Province unveiled a relocation project for the struggling villagers. Gao and other residents were resettled in a nearby village in a block of modern apartments built for them by the government.

"I had never thought I could ever own such a pretty apartment," Gao said, relaxing in his new living room.

While Gao's story has a happy ending, the challenge for the local government remains. In 2013, one third of Gansu's population—6.9 million—was living in poverty.

According to the Chinese Government's classification, people with an annual income of less than 2,300 yuan ($344) are deemed to be living below the poverty line, while internationally, it is regarded as a daily income of less than $1.25.

So the challenge to uplift the status of Gansu's impoverished is a steep and protracted one. However, a variety of measures has seen progress since 2013, with 4 million people lifted out of poverty.

Xu Dehua at the hostel she runs in Huaqiao Village on June 29 (ZHENG YANG)

Targeted measures 

In China, relocation has been an important measure to alleviate poverty since the 1980s, especially for the geographically disadvantaged regions in northwest China. The mountainous central parts of Gansu, for example, which were regarded as unfit for human habituation by visiting UN officials, are plagued by drought and have limited arable land. Besides the economic hardship, the threat of frequent geological disasters hangs over villagers' heads.

Since 2012, over 630,000 people in the province have been relocated to safer places with better infrastructure. Another 50,000 will be added to that number by 2020.

Across China, altogether 2 million people will be relocated this year. The exodus, among other things, provides an opportunity for the impoverished villagers to move into modern apartments from their shanties.

"Housing is a critical indicator for anti-poverty efforts," said Bao Xiaowei, head of the People's Congress of Niangniangba Town in Tianshui City where Gao lives, who has been leading anti-poverty initiatives in Gao's village.

Since the Chinese Government put forward the concept of "taking targeted measures to help people lift themselves out of poverty" in 2014, over 80,000 people's congress deputies at different levels, together with 400,000 Party members and government officials, have been assigned specific tasks in Gansu.

Yang Zixing, Vice Governor of Gansu, said the first task was to launch an investigation into the impoverished families. The investigators profiled each household, detailing their financial condition and the cause of poverty. Then solutions began to be tailored for each family.

For example, families with college-age students were earmarked for education loans, while those with members undergoing medical treatment received extra medical subsidies.

"Without such targeted measures, it's hard to ensure that individuals benefit from the government's anti-poverty policies," Yang said.

The new neighborhood that Gao has moved into has two kinds of apartments. The three-bedroom ones cost 115,000 yuan ($17,000). Gao paid 65,000 yuan ($9,713) from his savings. The rest came from an interest-free government loan.

Families with less money can choose the one-bedroom apartments, which cost half the price. They have to pay only 10,000 yuan ($1,495), and the rest comes through a state loan. As for the aged and people without the capability to work, the housing is free.

In addition to the housing loan, villagers can receive another 50,000 yuan ($7,500) free of interest to explore means of generating an income.

"It's good that people can move into a new apartment. But after that, they still need to find a way to feed themselves," Bao said.

According to him, the community will soon have a commercial center with investment from a local enterprise. The project will provide jobs to villagers from its construction, and once the center opens, there will be commercial and maintenance jobs for the entire village.

"We might have to find more laborers from the outside," Bao said.

An invaluable lesson 

Xu Dehua has never gone to school in her life. The 42-year-old comes from a poor rural family in southeast Gansu, in which only the youngest of her two siblings got an opportunity to go to school. As the eldest daughter, Xu used to think it was her destiny to be a farmer and then a farmer's wife, spending every day tending to her land and living on a meager income.

But things began to change four years ago when she was told her village would become a tourist resort. Xu received a loan of over 200,000 yuan ($30,000) and became the owner of a hostel.

"I had no idea how to do it in the very beginning, but I felt like trying, to make a change," Xu said. "Those who refused to do so now regret it a lot."

The gross profit of the hostel over the past three months has crossed 200,000 yuan ($30,000), and the establishment provides jobs to impoverished villagers. Thanks to her new income, Xu now sends both her daughters to college to study English and music respectively.

Located in a mountainous region in the eastern tip of Gansu, Kangxian County has been grappling with poverty due to its limited arable land. Over 80 percent of the householders live on hills or in deep mountain valleys, where developing either agriculture or industry is difficult.

In 2012, the local government decided to explore a new path of rural tourism, inspired by the county's location at the junction of three neighboring provinces and its green surroundings.

"We are going to turn the green mountains into gold mines," said Li Tingjun, Party Chief of the county. According to Li, 75 percent of the 350 villages in the county have adopted the same or a similar model to develop their tourism or cultural industry. Over 10,000 families have benefited from the development.

Villagers in neighboring Chengxian County are also making their own way. Since 2013, over 900 online shops have been set up on e-commerce platforms and social media to sell local agricultural products. To build logistics channels, the local government has invested in road construction, increasing 4G mobile broadband coverage and personnel training.

Since then, sales via e-commerce have reached 469,000 yuan ($70,080) and created 4,000 jobs. In poverty-stricken Caotan Village, for example, the poverty rate has been slashed. It was 73 percent in 2011. By 2015, it had shrunk to 4 percent.

No resting on laurels 

By the end of last year, Gansu's poverty-stricken population had decreased to 2.89 million—nearly 20 percent less than in 2013—but much needs to be done still.

"Honestly, the progress achieved is fragile and unstable," Yang said. "Children's education or a serious illness, any one of them could easily draw people back into poverty."

As a safeguard, a data platform has been established to monitor the progress of the anti-poverty work and the situation of each household. To spur the efforts, while evaluating government officials' performance, the provincial government is taking into account the improvement in the lives of poverty-stricken groups instead of just economic indicators, as in the past.

According to Liu Xiaoshan from the Poverty Alleviation Office under the State Council, China's cabinet, 700 million people have been lifted out of poverty since China started reforms and opening up, an unprecedented achievement that was applauded by the UN in a report last year.

But Liu also admitted that the nation confronts challenges and difficulties to continue the progress.

"The more progress we achieve, the bigger the challenges we will face," Liu said.

Of Gansu's 2.89 million people remaining in poverty, nearly half are unable to work, according to Yang,

"We will continue to explore better measures to lift them out of poverty," Yang said.

Copyedited by Sudeshna Sarkar

Comments to zanjifang@bjreview.com