Poverty Maps of Yunnan Province, China Uses and Lessons for Scaling Up

The history of the Chinese government’s more recent poverty reduction programs may be divided into three stages. During the first stage, from 1978 to 1985, the government, through higher product prices, encouraged rural households to raise agricultural output. As a result, greater agricultural output translated into increases in the incomes of farm households. Official poverty incidence declined from 30.7 to 14.8 percent during this period. In the second stage, from 1986 to 1993, the State Council Leading Group Office of Poverty Alleviation and Development was established to provide coordination on targeted antipoverty interventions. This entity has since become the key agency responsible A B B R E V I A T I O N