II. Helping Improve People's Livelihood

One of the important objectives of China's foreign assistance is to support other developing countries to reduce poverty and improve the livelihood of their peoples. China prioritizes supporting other developing countries to develop agriculture, enhance education level, improve medical and health services and build public welfare facilities, and provide emergency humanitarian aid when they suffer severe disasters.

1. Promoting Agricultural Development

Agricultural development is crucial to poverty reduction in developing countries. Through establishing agricultural technology demonstration centers, dispatching agricultural experts to provide consultations and conduct technical cooperation, and training technical and managerial personnel on agriculture in other developing countries, China has taken proactive efforts to help other developing countries raise their agricultural productivity to effectively cope with food crises. From 2010 to 2012, China assisted 49 agricultural projects, dispatched over 1,000 agricultural experts to recipient countries, and provided them with a great quantity of machinery, improved varieties of grain, fertilizers and other agricultural materials.

Assisting the establishment of agricultural technology demonstration centers. Such centers provide an important platform for China's foreign assistance in agriculture. From 2010 to 2012, China-assisted agricultural demonstration centers were completed in 17 countries, including Benin, Mozambique, Sudan, Liberia, Rwanda, Laos, and East Timor. China passed on advanced and applicable production technologies to local farmers through experiment, demonstration and training. The demonstration center in Liberia promoted hybrid rice and corn planting in areas of nearly 1,000 hectares, and trained over 1,000 local agricultural researchers and farmers. The demonstration center in Rwanda researched, experimented on and demonstrated the adaptability of paddy rice and fungi in the context of the local traditional agriculture, and provided technical training to women's associations, paddy rice growers' associations and other organizations in Rwanda.

Dispatching senior agricultural experts and expert teams. Chinese agricultural experts took an active part in the agricultural planning of the recipient countries. The expert team dispatched to Benin provided expertise to the drafting of the country's Agricultural Law and Agricultural Administration Law. The expert teams sent to Botswana and Guinea-Bissau participated in the formulation of the two countries' agricultural development plans. Chinese experts assisted recipient countries in promoting their agricultural development. The expert team helped Lesotho with its application to the World Health Organization for FMD (foot-and-mouth disease) free membership. The expert team to Mauritania assisted the country in drawing up the plan for building its central laboratory for agricultural comprehensive analysis and testing. Chinese experts actively disseminated easy-to-learn agricultural techniques suited to the conditions of recipient countries. The expert team to Botswana promoted the use of plastic mulch in crop production. The expert team to Mali devised and promoted the use of iron harrows as a means of intensive cultivation in the paddy fields.

Training technical and managerial personnel on agriculture. Taking the characteristics and actual needs of agricultural development in developing countries into consideration, China provided nearly 300 research and training programs of various forms for almost 7,000 agricultural officials and technicians from the recipient countries. These programs covered a wide range of sectors, including management of crop cultivation, forestry, animal husbandry and fishery, national policymaking on rural development and poverty reduction, food security, and agricultural cooperation among developing countries, and issues concerning the agricultural chain, such as technology dissemination and the processing, storage, marketing and distribution of agricultural products.

2. Improving the Level of Education

From 2010 to 2012, China continuously intensified its efforts of foreign assistance in education by way of constructing and maintaining school buildings, providing teaching facilities, training teachers, offering more government scholarships for foreign students to study in China, and assisting with the development of vocational and technical education, for the purpose of helping other developing countries improve their educational level and support their balanced and equitable development in education.

Improving teaching and learning conditions. China assisted over 80 projects in relation to educational facilities, including the construction and maintenance of primary and secondary schools, universities and colleges as well as libraries, and has effectively improved the teaching and learning conditions in the recipient countries. China provided large amounts of free educational facilities and materials to the recipient countries, including computers, teaching tools, stationery and sports equipment, and established university online education networks and distance education systems. In this way, China facilitated the efforts of recipient countries to diversify their means and expand the coverage of education.

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