Lifting 800 million people out of extreme poverty: Lessons for South Africa from China

By Wiseman Magasela

President Xi Jinping of China hosts African leaders for the ninth Forum on China-Africa Cooperation Summit. President Cyril Ramaphosa is on a state visit to China and will participate in the Summit.

South Africa is a key strategic partner in this forum and there are important policy and policy implementation lessons to learn from the Chinese state. South Africa and China have a Ten-Year Strategic Programme of Co-operation covering the period 2020–2029.

High levels of poverty persist in South Africa three decades after democratic rule. South Africa’s six administrations since 1994 have all proclaimed commitment to alleviating poverty.

The newly formed Government of National Unity has made the commitment ‘to reduce poverty and tackle the high cost of living’ as part of three strategic priorities.

The two leaders issued a joint statement in which one of the points is that ‘China is committed to sharing with South Africa experience in poverty alleviation and rural revitalisation; in building poverty alleviation model villages and offering support for South Africa’s co-ordinated urban and rural development’.

South Africa adopted an anti-poverty strategy in 2008 with a national war on poverty campaign launched the same year. South Africa committed to both the MDGs and SDGs and the National Development Plan: Vision 2030 aims to eliminate poverty and reduce inequality by 2030.

South Africa is a member of BRICS. One of the objectives of the BRICS partnership, through the BRICS Think Tanks Council is, as captured by former minister of Higher Education of South Africa, Dr Blade Nzimande, to ‘form a platform for the exchange of ideas’, to present ‘policy recommendations’ as well as ‘policy insights and informed analysis on how we could navigate some of the key challenges that continue to confront us nationally, regionally and indeed on a global scale and develop national policies that are configured to address poverty, inequality, and high levels of unemployment within our own countries’.

Among BRICS members, China stands out as a country that made great strides in addressing deep levels of multidimensional poverty (lack of basic human needs such as adequate income, food, safe drinking water, sanitation, health, shelter, education, employment, etc). China offers important policy lessons that can be adapted to local South African conditions and context in the fight against poverty.

In 1949, at the founding of the People’s Republic of China under Mao Zedong, China was a backward, largely rural, agrarian country. These conditions persisted for decades until decisive action at political, policy, administration and implementation levels was taken.

As Martin Ravallion, an expert on international poverty analysis, mentions ‘China in 1980 was one of the poorest countries in the world’. Remarkably, by 2018, according to China’s National Bureau of Statistics, using the international poverty line of $1.90 per day, the poverty rate had declined to below 0.5 percent.

In the joint study ‘Four Decades of Poverty Reduction in China: Drivers, Insights for the World, and the Way Ahead’ published in 2022, the World Bank and China’s Ministry of Finance report that over a 40 year period, ‘the number of people in China with incomes below $1.90 per day – the International Poverty Line as defined by the World Bank to track global extreme poverty – has fallen by close to 800 million’.

On 25 February 2021 Chinese President Xi Jinping declared that China had achieved ‘complete victory’ in its fight against poverty. This has been described as a ‘miracle’ that will ‘go down in history’, a ‘major victory’, an ‘unprecedented’ achievement and ‘China’s battle against poverty has benefited the largest number of people in human history’.

China’s success echoes Nelson Mandela’s insightful comment in 2005 when he said ‘like slavery and apartheid, poverty is not natural, it is man made, and it can be overcome and eradicated by the actions of human beings’.

China is not South Africa. Globally, in policy choices and policy making at national level, lessons on policy success from other societies present powerful and convincing examples to learn from and adapt to the unique national environment.

China has become the world’s second largest economy described as ‘a giant workshop for the global economy’. Writers on China’s development remark that China today is a ‘powerhouse of the world economy’ as in 2009, China replaced Germany, Europe’s largest economy, as the number one global exporter.

A survey of writings on China’s success is clearly a study in unshaking political will, deep thinking, conceptual clarity, commitment, planning, institutional relations, execution, coordination, objective measurement of progress and uncompromising accountability.

An outline of the broad contours and characteristics of China’s approach that has brought about this monumental achievement points to observations that fall into several categories – political, administrative, implementation and coordination, accountability, rigorous monitoring and evaluation of impact of adopted policies.

At the political level, President Xi Jinping speaking at the Central Conference on Poverty Alleviation and Development in 2015, asserted that, in the battle against poverty there is a ‘firm resolve and solid goals’.

Tracing developments on China’s path in the fight against poverty, Dongxin Shu of the School of Marxism Studies, Yancheng Institute of Technology, speaks of ‘evolution of anti-poverty ideas’ that ‘emerged and developed from the battle against poverty since the founding of the People’s Republic of China (PRC) in 1949’ and ‘generations of top CPC leadership have enriched anti-poverty ideas in the war on poverty’ with a sustained commitment to the ‘development of a collective economy’.

In China’s Uniquely Effective Approach to Poverty Alleviation, Shu warns that in the fight against poverty ‘sloganeering and empty rhetoric must be avoided’. There is ‘strong leadership at all levels of government’ with ‘clear lines of accountability for results’ and leadership at all levels is ‘monitored under a rigorous annual evaluation’.

In a functioning state, policy decisions by the executive are expressed through official policy documents. In China, at the policy level, ‘poverty reduction is promoted as a national strategy’. The formulation of policy, strategies and plans to address poverty are based on ‘getting to the root causes of poverty’ which implies thorough, in-depth analysis, focus and commitment to appropriate and workable solutions.

Policy decisions and the policy process are routed and flow through the state’s established administration – ts institutions, agencies, departments and internal systems. At the centre of the administration are civil servants, government officials who carry out the actions towards the realisation of political and policy goals.

In South Africa government officials are at national, provincial, district and local levels. Writers on China’s progress tell us that ‘China’s state is endowed with high administrative capacity’ and a ‘capable and effective government’. At all levels of government there is good and effective governance and this is achieved through ‘a wide variety of mechanisms’.

Lessons from China show that striving towards a common goal is a critical element in relation to implementation and co-ordination as these are fundamental components of successful policy making with impact.

Highlighting the importance of implementation and co-ordination observation is made that the war on poverty ‘has been won through concerted, co-ordinated, and innovative strategies’. In 1986, the State Council’s Leading Group for Poverty Reduction and Development was established ‘to provide coherence to a large number of poverty reduction initiatives’.

According to the World Bank and Ministry of Finance of China, over the years, this body has helped to ‘facilitate interagency co-ordination within and across various levels of government in implementing policies, and mobilise non-government stakeholders to co-operate in achieving policy objectives’ and ‘greater horizontal co-ordination and synergy emerged among government departments’.

China’s elimination of extreme poverty benefited from international knowledge, harnessing global expertise in ensuring rigorous approaches and processes. China’s success is notable in that it fulfils the three aspects, human, social and economic development.

As South Africa enters its 4th decade as a democracy, poverty levels remain high, and this remains a potential threat to social and political instability.

In a 1997 judgement, 27 years ago, the Constitutional Court was apt when it affirmed that the aim and aspiration of the post-apartheid, democratic state is to ‘transform our society into one in which there will be human dignity, freedom and equality’, and South Africa was then, and still is, a society in which ‘millions of people are living in deplorable conditions and in great poverty’ and ‘for as long as these conditions continue to exist that aspiration will have a hollow ring’.

* Dr Wiseman Magasela holds a DPhil in Social Policy from the University of Oxford, a former deputy director general and adviser in the government of South Africa. He is current Executive Director of Clermont Analytics, a strategic research, policy development and policy advisory firm.

** The views expressed in this article do not necessarily reflect the ideas of IOL or Independent Media