Zhu Lizhi: Inclusive Development Should Take the Road of "Ecological Poverty Reduction"
Inclusive Development Should Take the Road of Ecological Poverty Reduction
zhu Lizhi
"Inclusive Development and Poverty Reduction" is the theme of the 2012 10.17 High-level Forum on Poverty Reduction and Development. The forum was hosted by the Poverty Alleviation Office of the State Council and the United Nations system in China, and Vice Premier Hui Liangyu attended the forum and delivered an opening speech, fan Xiaojian, Director of the Poverty Alleviation Office of the State Council of China, Professor of Harvard University (Thomas W. Lamont University) (1998 Nobel Prize winner in Economics) Amartya Sen (Amartya Sen), Assistant Director-General of FAO's Social and Economic Development Department Jomo Sundaram (Jomo) and Sir Richard Jerry (Richard Jolly), Emeritus Professor of the University of Sussex's Institute of Development, delivered keynote speeches. The following is an article sorted out according to the author's comments.
1. a comprehensive understanding of inclusive development
according to Professor Amartya Sen, inclusive development is about dealing with the difference between growth and development. In order to better understand Amartya Sen's point of view, the author changed the perspective of the analysis. The author believes that according to the theory of externality, the growth of industry, cities and some developed regions has produced many negative externalities, which have a great adverse impact on poor areas. It can be said that inclusive development is to internalize the mutual externalities between different industries, different regions and different levels of people caused by simple growth, so as to achieve common development.
We all know that a person grows fast, but he can't do it if he is not healthy. In addition, all parts of a person's body should be symmetrical, and the legs should not be very developed, but the arms are very thin. Inclusive development should not only pay attention to growth, let alone local growth, but also pay attention to internal health and coordination. Take the agricultural product industry chain as an example. It cannot be very detailed in the production of agricultural products, but other links are very thick. Such an industrial chain not only cannot stimulate the common development of rural areas, but the entire industrial chain will be broken after a long time. This crisis is already on display in some places. Therefore, even if it is an industrial chain, we should not only focus on growth, but also pay attention to the coordination and symmetry of all links in the chain, that is to say, we should pay attention to inclusive development.
On the one hand, through poverty alleviation and development, China can reduce the poverty problem caused by the non inclusive system in the past, and strive to pay off the old debts as soon as possible; on the other hand, it strives to innovate and improve the system and mechanism to reduce the possibility of poor people in the future. This shows that the Chinese government has recognized that the non-inclusive system is the main reason for the emergence of poor people.
In economics, there is also a Kaldor-Hicks improvement to the theory of regressive optimality, that is, in the process of social resource allocation, if those who benefit from the process of resource reallocation, as long as their increased benefits compensate for the benefits of those who suffer losses in the process of resource reallocation, this kind of resource allocation is efficient. In addition, from the theory of diminishing marginal benefits, the social benefit rate of funds in poor areas will be higher than in other areas. For example, a road, a library ......, placed in poor areas than in non-poor areas will produce better results. Based on theoretical analysis and practical exploration, the Chinese government has noticed that social resources should be tilted to poor areas, and a large amount of funds should be spread in poor areas through specific projects.
It is the same between countries. Since the beginning of the 21st century, the world economy has achieved considerable growth, but the inequality of income and development opportunities in many countries and regions has continued to deepen. With the in-depth development of globalization and urbanization, especially after the outbreak of the international financial crisis and the European debt crisis, the widening gap between the rich and the poor and the uneven development have gradually evolved into a common phenomenon in the world, leading to a series of conflicts around the world. Some scholars see growing inequality as the greatest challenge for the future of human society. More and more people are calling for expanding social inclusion and promoting inclusive development as the basic strategy to deal with this serious challenge.
Inclusive development is put forward as a countermeasure, emphasizing the establishment of an inclusive system, providing a wide range of opportunities, eliminating the rights, poverty and social exclusion faced by the poor, achieving equal opportunities and fair participation, so that all groups, including the poor, can participate in economic growth, contribute to it, and can reasonably share the results, so as to achieve everyone's own all-round development (Long Chaoyang, 2012).
It can be seen that equality of opportunity and sharing of results are the core connotation of inclusive development. "Inclusion" is the basic requirement for the process and results of economic growth. Specifically, it has three meanings: First, economic growth should benefit all people, especially the poor. This is an important goal of inclusive development and a necessary condition for achieving sustained poverty reduction. The second is to let everyone face the development opportunity equally. This is the institutional guarantee for inclusive development, and it can also fully stimulate the enthusiasm of all social strata and improve the efficiency of economic growth. The third is to improve individual development capabilities in the process of participating in economic growth to ensure the sustainability of poverty reduction.
2. Ecologically Fragile Areas-The Core Fortress of China's Poverty Alleviation
ecologically, the ecologically fragile zone refers to the transitional area at the junction of two different types of ecosystems. The ecological fragile area has poor ecosystem structure stability, weak anti-interference ability, low ecological carrying capacity and easy to be destroyed, which is the key area of ecological protection. In this paper, it refers to the area where the change of ecological environment or human production and life will cause the obvious decline or even disappearance of land productivity, which will lead to serious economic recession (Chen Jiansheng, 2008). China's ecologically fragile areas are mainly distributed in the northern arid and semi-arid areas, the southern hilly areas, the southwestern mountains, the Qinghai-Tibet Plateau and the eastern coastal water-land junction areas (Ministry of Environmental Protection, 2008). The ecologically fragile area is highly overlapped with the concentrated contiguous areas with special difficulties. It is the most concentrated area of poverty and the main target area of poverty alleviation work. Natural disasters occur frequently in ecologically fragile areas, the ability to prevent and resist disasters is insufficient, and the carrying capacity for economic growth and social development is low. It is very difficult to reduce poverty and stabilize poverty.
From the founding of New China to the early stage of reform and opening up, poverty was a common phenomenon in China. Driven by a series of reform measures such as household contract with output, China's rural economy has developed rapidly and poverty has been greatly alleviated. However, there are still some areas that have not been able to get rid of poverty, and it is difficult to maintain even the most basic survival needs. With the gradual reduction of the poor population, the regional characteristics of poverty are becoming more and more obvious, and the problem of poverty in ecologically fragile areas has attracted widespread attention. A study at the end of the last century showed that about 75.92 per cent of the counties classified as ecologically fragile areas were classified as poor; about 43.33 per cent of the land area classified as ecologically fragile areas was within the scope of poor counties; about 67.96 per cent of the cultivated land classified as ecologically fragile areas was within the scope of poor counties; and about 75.86 per cent of the population classified as ecologically fragile areas lived in poor counties (Li Zhou, 1994). It can be seen that the correlation between poverty and ecological fragility in China is high, and the poor population in ecologically fragile areas is relatively concentrated.
In recent years, with the deepening of rural reforms and the continuous increase in poverty alleviation and development, the geographical characteristics of the distribution of the poor population have become increasingly obvious, concentrated in the deep mountainous areas, stone mountainous areas, desert areas, alpine mountainous areas, and Loess Plateau areas in the central and western regions., High-incidence areas of endemic diseases and reservoir areas, and most of them are old revolutionary areas, minority areas and border areas. According to the monitoring of the National Bureau of Statistics, in 2009, 65.9 per cent of the country's poor were distributed in the western region; the incidence of poverty in the eastern, central and western regions was 0.5 per cent, 3.3 per cent and 8.3 per cent, respectively. Seven western provinces (regions), including Guizhou, Yunnan, Tibet, Shaanxi, Gansu, Qinghai and Xinjiang, had a relatively high incidence of poverty (all exceeding 5 per cent). Obviously, these are the so-called ecologically fragile areas. Their common characteristics are: remote location, inconvenient infrastructure, ecological imbalance, slow economic development, backward culture and education, difficult drinking water for humans and animals, and extremely poor production and living conditions.
3. Ecological Poverty Reduction -- The Inevitable Choice of Inclusive Poverty Reduction
at present, China is implementing a new round of poverty alleviation and development plans. The targets of poverty alleviation are mainly ecological poor people. Poverty alleviation and development have shifted from the stage of solving food and clothing as the main task to consolidating the results of food and clothing, accelerating poverty alleviation and prosperity, improving the ecological environment, and improving development. Ability to narrow the development gap. In a sense, the problem of poverty in ecologically fragile areas is an ecological problem, and the occurrence and degree of poverty are closely related to the ecological environment (Liu Yanmei, 2005). Therefore, the inclusive poverty reduction strategy in ecologically fragile areas must start with improving the ecological environment, increasing the carrying capacity of regional resources and environment, coordinating ecological improvement and poverty reduction goals, and implementing ecological poverty reduction strategies.
The so-called ecological poverty reduction is aimed at the predatory poverty reduction and development of resources and environment, that is, by protecting and restoring the ecological environment of poor areas, changing the mode of economic development in poor areas, and ending the vicious circle of poverty and ecological destruction. taking into account the strategic goal of ecological improvement and poverty reduction, it is a poverty alleviation and development model aimed at ecologically poor areas and drawing lessons from the concept of inclusive development. Considering the problems existing in the past ecological projects, such as the low participation of residents in the project area, the restriction of economic development by ecological protection policies, and the difficulty of benefiting the poor population from the results of ecological improvement, and taking into account the characteristics of China's current poverty alleviation work, we believe that the ecological poverty reduction strategy should include the following points:
improvement of (I) ecology is the foundation of poverty control and development
the bottleneck of economic and social development in ecologically fragile areas lies in the low carrying capacity of resources and environment. Rational use of resources and improvement of ecological environment are the only way to achieve regional sustainable development. There are many causes of poverty in ecologically fragile areas, including income poverty with insufficient access to resources, capacity poverty with low development capacity, and rights poverty caused by long-term inequality of opportunities. In the process of ecological deterioration, the poor suffer more losses and suffer more directly than the rich, because ecological deterioration will further compress the living space of the poor, make them have less access to resources and development opportunities, and deepen the degree of poverty. In other words, ecological improvement is the fundamental measure to alleviate poverty.
In the absence of continuous ecological improvement, "blood transfusion" poverty alleviation can only maintain the survival of the poor at a lower level, but the government will carry a heavy burden for a long time, which is inefficient and unsustainable. The way of poverty alleviation; "development-oriented" poverty alleviation may continue to destroy the ecological environment and fall into a vicious circle of poverty and ecological destruction. Before the carrying capacity of resources and environment in ecologically fragile areas is not significantly improved, the means to reduce poverty and promote economic growth and regional development will be water without a source and without a stable foundation.
Equal participation of the (II) poor is a prerequisite for sustainable ecological improvement.
Intuitively, the reason for the occurrence of ecological poverty is that the population pressure is too large, which leads to the continuous destruction of the ecological environment and the deterioration of the ecological environment, but the deeper reason is the existence of "policy defects". It is an unfair policy that excludes part of the population with poor development capacity from the development process, resulting in the aggravation of regional development imbalance. It is precisely because of the fear that the participation of the poor will affect the effect of ecological improvement. In large-scale ecological construction projects such as natural protection projects, wildlife protection and nature reserve construction projects, local residents are often regarded as the burden of project construction. Arrange subsidy funds to solve their livelihood problems; residents also naturally regard ecological projects as poverty alleviation projects and demand compensation for the losses caused by the interference of project construction on their economic activities. Obviously, the exclusion of residents from ecological construction projects will increase the cost of project construction, but it can not fundamentally reduce the pressure of local population survival and development on resources and environment, which is caused by the lack of inclusiveness of engineering policies.
To implement the ecological poverty reduction strategy, the most important thing is to base on regional resources, including natural and human resources, fully mobilize all positive factors, strive to improve the ecological environment, and build a solid foundation for poverty reduction and development in ecologically fragile areas. In fact, the poor are more active in improving the ecological environment, because they are the direct victims of ecological deterioration, and they hope to expand their own development space and enhance their development ability from the continuous improvement of ecology, so they are the lasting driving force of regional ecological improvement.
(III) Eco-economy as a Driving Force for Ecological Improvement and Poverty Reduction
rapid economic growth is a necessary condition for poverty reduction and a central driver for ecological improvement. The economic development of ecologically fragile areas must first start with improving the ecological environment, giving priority to the development of ecological industries and making them the pillar industries of ecologically fragile areas. The construction process of ecological economy is the process of economic structure transformation and production and life style transformation in ecological poverty-stricken areas to protect and build the ecological environment in poverty-stricken areas (Huang Songwen, 2004). The development of ecological economy will not directly damage the regional ecological environment, and the dependence on the direct consumption of natural resources is low. It is a sunrise industry suitable for the development of ecologically fragile areas.
The advantage of ecologically fragile areas lies in their characteristic products and landscape resources. Relying on these characteristic resources to develop ecological economy can promote regional employment, and have competitive advantages. It can attract foreign investment. It is an economic development that takes into account the goals of promoting regional economic growth and ecological environmental protection. way. There are many ecological industries that can be developed in ecologically fragile areas, such as ecological agriculture, agriculture, forestry and animal husbandry, eco-tourism, etc., which are suitable for the participation of the poor, quick results in poverty alleviation and beneficial to ecological improvement.
(IV) Ecological Compensation is the Feedback of Ecological Improvement Achievement Sharing
the deterioration of the ecological environment in ecologically fragile areas not only leads to local poverty, but also spreads throughout the ecosystem. If the deteriorating ecological environment is not managed in time, under the action of various natural forces (wind, water flow), it will inevitably lead to the destruction and deterioration of the surrounding ecological environment. At present, China's ecological projects mainly solve the ecological problems of national or key areas, such as the project of returning farmland to forest and the project of controlling the source of wind and sand in Beijing and Tianjin. The positive externality of ecological improvement in the project area to the surrounding areas is very obvious. As an ecological barrier, ecologically fragile areas should be compensated, as a feedback for the surrounding areas to share good ecological services, and also a support for ecological governance in ecologically fragile areas.
Ecological compensation is an economic means to balance the interests of ecological protection related subjects, and it is also an important part of ecological poverty alleviation strategy. It is the guarantee for ecologically fragile areas to benefit directly from ecological protection and ecological improvement, and it is the basic requirement of inclusive development. China's ecological compensation mechanism is still in its infancy, with central financial investment as the mainstay, symbolically subsidizing forests, grasslands and wetlands that are important in ecological locations. Therefore, ecological compensation can be used as a key area for the exploration of ecological poverty alleviation strategies. Through the establishment of ecological compensation mechanisms at different levels, ecologically fragile areas can obtain external economic support, further promote the improvement of the ecological environment, and better achieve inclusive development.