Since most of the poor areas are located in remote regions, local governments have very limited financial ability to conduct large-scale antipoverty plans. Starting from 2004, Guangxi launched a mass antipoverty campaign, with the aim of collecting funds, materials and people to fight poverty.

Under the plan Guangxi would help to raise living standards in 4,060 villages by improving infrastructure and homes as well as building schools and hospitals.

By May 2008, some 2,896 villages had been raised out of poverty under the plan, which is due to end in 2010.

According to statistics from the local government of Guangxi, the number of people living in poverty has dropped from 1.5 million in 2000 to 650,000 in 2007.

Infrastructure

Su Yunsheng, Deputy Director of the Water Conservancy Bureau of Longan County, was born locally in the countryside. He has witnessed big changes since the poverty-alleviation project began.

Most of the poorest villages in the region are in hilly areas where it is hard to retain water. In some areas, the villagers survive by gathering rain, while in others they walk miles to fetch water from caves.

The Water Conservancy Bureau developed several plans to deal with water shortages, but they could not be implemented due to a lack of money. At the beginning of 2007, the regional government decided to spend two years working on infrastructure construction in five counties, including Longan.

Under the plan it allocated 280 million yuan ($41 million) as poverty-relief funds for Longan County. That is a huge amount for the poor county with annual revenue of only 200 million yuan ($29 million). The funds were used in 4,504 projects involving transportation, water conservation, education and other areas. Su said that he almost never rested because the work was so hard. They spent a lot of time locating water sources, testing water quality and drilling wells. Some of the wells had to be dug 70 meters deep. According to Su, in October 2008, two-thirds of the population of Longan County had drinking water.

Hu said that only after better infrastructure has been built can further plans for poverty alleviation be moved from paper to reality.

New skills

The next steps of the poverty-alleviation project will include developing local industry and resettling residents from areas with particularly poor natural conditions. Since 1995, Guangxi has resettled 290,000 people.

"Since they are given farmland after resettlement, most people find their living standards raised after moving to a new place," said Hu.

He added that the government must continue to teach farmers new skills or better ways to work their land. To date, Guangxi has trained 56,000 farmers.

The local government has helped children forced to drop out of school because of poverty by subsidizing classes in vocational schools.

"It is a strategy of the poverty-alleviation project that vocational education can help these children adapt to urban life and stay there for a long time instead of returning to the rural area," said Hu.

Xincheng County is also on the poverty-relief list. Of the county's 400,000 people, 60,000 live in poverty. The local government has been helping farmers develop an agricultural industry. Now many grow sugarcane and raise silkworms for sale.

The annual revenue of Xincheng County is just over 200 million yuan ($29 million), according to Lu, but in the past two years, 1 million yuan ($146,448) each year has been spent on training farmers. More than 10,000 farmers have benefited.

"It is easy to solve the problem of food and clothing, but difficult to help farmers get rich," said Hu. "Poverty-relief work needs to reach the higher goal of common wealth, not just focus on food and clothing."