World Development Report 2009 “Reshaping Economic Geography”

Published on February 25, 2009 by brooks | This story has been viewed 1,376 views

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Part II.PDF

REPORT – Country Partnership Strategy Progress Report for the People’s Republic of China for the Period 2006-2010
In line with China’s good progress in implementing its 11th Five Year Program (FYP), cooperation under the World Bank Group 2006-2010 Country Partnership Strategy for China (CPS) is well on track to fulfill or exceed most strategic targets. Report

China’s 11th Five Year Plan so far — Progress in Several Areas, but Important Challenges Remain, Including on Overall Rebalancing, Says World Bank Report

Beijing, October 22, 2008 – The China Development Marketplace, an initiative of the World Bank to fund innovative projects of civil society organizations (CSOs) in China, closed today with 50 winners receiving over US$1.1 million. Each of the winners received RMB150,000 to 200,000 yuan to implement their projects.

Entitled “Supporting Grassroots Innovations for a Harmonious Society,” the 2nd China Development Marketplace reflects the World Bank and government’s efforts to identify and support innovations by CSOs and mobilize social resources to reduce poverty and address various development challenges towards building a harmonious society.

“China has taken an approach of government leadership and social mobilization in poverty reduction. We learn from successful international experience and encourage CSOs to participate in poverty reduction,” Zheng Wenkai, Deputy Director of the State Council Leading Office for Poverty Alleviation said in his remarks at the Award Ceremony, “this event is a valuable experiment in mobilizing and identifying innovative ideas and approaches from CSOs to improving the effectiveness in poverty reduction.”

“Civil society groups at the grass roots level often have the best knowledge of local needs, difficulties and possible solutions,” said Yifu Lin, Senior Vice President and Chief Economist of the World Bank. “Despite the great achievements, China is still a developing country with many remaining challenges in social, economic and environmentally sustainable development. To overcome these challenges, we need government leadership as well as participation of the civil society. As an international development institution, we are very happy to provide this platform to promote the role of Chinese CSOs in addressing development issues in China,” he added.

Almost 500 applicants from all over China submitted their ideas on how to best reduce poverty, illustrating the large numbers of innovative, local solutions. The 115 finalists with the best ideas were invited to Beijing for the two-day competition to showcase and share their unique ideas. In addition to a grant competition, finalists also participated in a Knowledge Forum to help these groups expand their skills and knowledge and to promote connections among these groups.

A diverse and eminent jury selected the winners during the event. Many of these judges came from China Development Marketplace partner organizations, including government agencies, Chinese and multinational corporations, academia, the nonprofit community, media, and the international donor community.

Representing China’s 21 provinces, municipalities and autonomous regions, these winners propose a range of different approaches to reducing poverty and addressing other development challenge. Some winning projects include creating nongovernmental monitoring stations to monitor the quality of water in the Yellow River and report on pollution; preserving Miao (an ethnic minority group in Guizhou) cultural heritage through school education and extracurricular cultural activities, particularly targeted at the migrant children; organizing a farmers cooperative to develop sunflower farming, reduce land degradation and biogas as a clean energy; and psychological counseling for primary school students in mountainous areas in earthquake-affected Sichuan.

“Through the China Development Marketplace, we CSOs, either mature or young, have received support from corporations and foundations, and recognition from the government. The grant will help us put our ideas to practice. It is great! ” said Yuan Xiaoxia, winner of a project that proposes organizing a mutual-help network of 100 poor rural women and teach them productive skills for income generation.

Primary partners are the State Council Leading Group Office for Poverty Alleviation and Development, Ministry of Civil Affairs and Ministry of Finance. Financial sponsors include major Chinese and multinational corporations such as Red Avenue Group Co, Ltd., Lenovo Group, KPMG, Wal-Mart and Ticketmaster; foundations such as Narada Foundation, China Social Entrepreneur Foundation and the Ford Foundation; and the international community, such as the governments of Norway, Canada, Sweden and the United Kingdom. Chinese media has provided support to the process, especially SINA, 21st Century Business Herald and City Pictorial. Other partners include China Foundation for Poverty Alleviation, China Youth Development Foundation and Nonprofit Incubator.

“The dynamism and creativity of these grassroots CSOs are an inspiration to all of us,”said David Dollar, China Country Director of the World Bank. “Talking to them in the last two days, I learned a lot about challenges that the poor face and innovative approaches to overcoming them.”

Winner List

BEIJING,February 12, 2009 – The World Bank released a report today on its Mid-Term Evaluation of the implementation of China’s 11th Five Year Plan (5YP). The evaluation was conducted at the request of the National Development and Reform Commission (NDRC), in the context of the government‘s own evaluation.

The evaluation was undertaken to assess progress with implementing the 11th 5YP during the first two and a half years, draw preliminary lessons, and make suggestions for policy adjustments. It focused on seven of the nine main objectives of the 5YP: (i) stable operation of the macro economy; (ii) optimization and upgrading of the industrial structure; (iii) significant increase of resource utilization efficiency; (iv) coordinated urban and rural development; (v) improved basic public services; (vi) enhanced sustainable development; and (vii) improved living standards. A summary of the draft report was finalized and submitted in early July 2008 and the full draft report in early October.

“Significant progress has been made toward several of the major objectives of the 11th 5YP, but important challenges remain,” say David Dollar, the World Bank Country Director for China. Economic growth has far exceeded expectations. Considerable progress has been made toward the 5YP’s most important social objectives: improving basic public services in social protection, education, health, and conditions in rural areas (even though income disparities between rural and urban areas continue to widen). Progress on the environmental and resource use objectives has been mixed: insufficient progress has been made in reducing energy intensity, but improvements were seen in reducing air and water pollution, treating industrial solid waste, increasing the efficiency of water use, and expanding forest coverage.

“However, China has been less successful in rebalancing its overall pattern of growth, which has limited progress on many key objectives of the 5YP,”says Louis Kuijs, Senior Economist and Task Manager of the Mid-Term Evaluation. There has been little rebalancing away from industry and investment towards services and consumption. This, in turn, has made it difficult to meet the objectives on energy efficiency, the environment, and reducing China’s large external imbalance (the current account surplus). The lack of decisive rebalancing has also made further widening of urban-rural income inequality almost unavoidable, despite strong government efforts. The report notes that, going forward, ambitious rebalancing is needed to help meet these objectives and solidify the social gains that have been achieved. The policy agenda for rebalancing discussed in the report is broad ranging, involving macroeconomic policy adjustments and structural reforms.

Since the report was written, important changes have occurred in China’s macroeconomic environment. ” The impact of the global economic and financial turmoil on China’s economy intensified substantially since September 2008,” notes Mr. Dollar. ” Combined with ongoing weakness in China’s housing sector, this is putting downward pressure on growth.” The particularly pronounced slowdown in heavy industry led to a substantial decline in energy intensity at the end of 2008. However, this is an accidental, temporary development. Indeed, the government’s forceful macroeconomic policy response to the economic shocks aims at offsetting the slowdown, including in heavy industry.

The World Bank thinks that the thrust of the analysis and recommendations of the report remains valid and important in the current circumstances. ” Indeed, in several ways, current economic conditions strengthen the case for rebalancing,” says Mr. Kuijs. ” The subdued prospects for the global economy have increased the importance of boosting domestic demand and domestic consumption, which also is a key element of the rebalancing agenda.” Thus, several types of measures needed for rebalancing—such as increasing the role and spending of the government in health, education, and social security and measures to boost household disposable income, particularly of lower income people—are also good for stimulating growth in the short term. This is not true for all policies: some rebalancing policies will not stimulate growth in the short term and some policies to stimulate growth in the short term do not help rebalancing. However, given the underlying strength of China’s economy, the objectives of the 11th 5YP are important enough to keep rebalancing high on the policy agenda and to shape economic policy decisions in 2009 as much as possible by the rebalancing and long term agenda.

China has a good track record in basically achieving its medium and long term objectives. The World Bank believes that, with appropriate policy adjustments, China should be able to meet both the challenges of the current global downturn and meet the medium and long term objectives that feature in the 11th 5YP.

Download theexecutive summary (174kb pdf) and full text (1291kb pdf) .


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