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Appendix G

Snapshot of TA 4580-PRC: NGO-Government Partnerships in Village-level Poverty Alleviation

I. PROJECT BACKGROUND:

1. The People's Republic of China (PRC) has made remarkable achievements in poverty alleviation (PA). By2004 (the year dialogue on the project commenced), it had reduced rural absolute poverty from roughly 250million persons in 1978 to 26.1 million in 2004 (using the official annual per capita income line of CNY668).However it also faced persistent and emerging challenges, including a deceleration in poverty reduction despiterising government support—recorded poverty incidence actually rose marginally between 2002 and 2003, beforefalling again in 2004. Poverty is increasingly concentrated in hard-to-reach groups, requiring better targetingand innovative new approaches. The PRC Government has increasingly recognized the potential ofnongovernment organizations (NGOs1) as a partner in state-supported PA efforts, as demonstrated in numerouscountries, and requested Asian Development Bank (ADB) technical assistance (TA) in this area.

2. Under TA 4580-PRC: NGO-Government Partnerships in Village-level Poverty Alleviation, ADB supported theState Council Leading Group Office of Poverty Alleviation and Development (LGOP, the TA executing agency)and Jiangxi Province Poverty Alleviation and Development Office (PADO) to innovate village-level povertyalleviation efforts by introducing NGO-government partnerships. Strong support from the PRC Ministry ofFinance, Jiangxi Bureau of Finance, and other agencies was essential. The TA also involved cooperation withthe China Foundation for Poverty Alleviation (CFPA; implementing agency for the TA’s focal pilot test component)

and support by domestic and international experts, as noted below. The TA was approved on 20 April 2005 with$1 million ADB grant financing under the Poverty Reduction Cooperation Fund (funded by the United KingdomDepartment for International Development); Singapore-based RGM International later provided roughly $80,000for capacity building for NGOs selected under the TA’s pilot test , as the first-ever corporate sector parallelcofinancing for an ADB TA in the PRC. The project was implemented from late 2005 to mid-2008.

II. PROJECT SYNOPSIS:

3. Key innovations. While TA-supported policy dialogue was nationwide in scope, implementation focusedon a pioneering pilot test Jiangxi Province. Under the pilot, Jiangxi PADO channeled 8.0 million RMB in budgetaryPA funds through competitively selected domestic NGOs to facilitate (in close cooperation with localgovernments) the participatory planning process whereby villagers determine and manage government-funded

village-level PA projects.2

Importantly, rather than being an externally-driven intervention, LGOP and JiangxiPADO executed the pilot within the framework of the government’s flagship village-level poverty

program—“village-level poverty alleviation and development planning” (VPADP or  村级扶贫开发规划)—with the

role of facilitation essentially outsourced to selected NGOs, tapping their strengths in grassroots developmentprocesses. Independent monitoring and evaluation (M&E) demonstrated gains from NGO-governmentpartnerships in several dimensions of VPADP performance. Among these, quantitative comparisons3 versus acontrol sample of “government-only” villages pointing to increased:

• overall participation—e.g., a tripling in the share of villagers who participated in VPADP meetings;• local buy-in and perceptions of the planning process—e.g.,  a tripling to quadrupling of the share of

villagers “very satisfied”;

•  voice by & focus on the poor & women—e.g., a ten-fold increase in the share of villagers “verysatisfied” with the extent that VPADP processes listened to, engaged, and tried to meet needs of poor

households;•  transparency—e.g., a more than quadrupling of the share of villagers aware of how state poverty funds

for the village were allocated across sub-projects.4 

III. DESIGN OVERVIEW AND IMPLEMENTATION MILESTONES

4. Goal. The TA’s guiding, longer-term goal was reduced rural poverty, with NGOs mainstreamed within moreeffective, efficient, and well-targeted PA programs throughout the PRC.

5. Objective. The TA’s central objective was formulation and demonstration of replicable models and

1The TA principally, but not exclusively, focused on the role of government-recognized NGOs and other non-profit entities within apilot test which involved the first-ever systematic and sizeable channeling of state funds through competitively selected NGOs.

2While some definitions of community-driven development (CDD) require direct transfer of government funds to a village bankaccount, the pilot was essentially CDD in that state funds were used for a PA plan developed and implemented by villagers. SomeNGOs chose to transfer funds to a village bank account.

3While small sample sizes precluded precise estimates, the figures below were corroborated by qualitative analysis.

4Beyond village-level effects, in terms of overall governance, Jiangxi PADO also noted greater accountability vis-à-vis conventionaladministrative relationships, via a clear contractual relationship with NGOs, wherein funding was contingent on output delivery.

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mechanisms for NGO participation in government-funded village-level poverty alleviation (PA) efforts. Morespecifically, the TA will formulate and build consensus behind a comprehensive framework for mainstreamingNGOs’ role in national poverty reduction efforts.

6. TA Scope. As detailed below, the TA had 4 components, with the principal outputs/deliverables and mainimplementation responsibilities shown to the right:

Component and Key Output Lead implementationresponsibility 

(1) Context Analysis, Mechanism Design, and Framework Formulation   – Consensus oncomprehensive framework for NGO-Government partnerships in reducing poverty, incorporatingdemonstrated models and mechanisms and concrete recommendations for institutional and policyreform.

 A group of individualconsultants, jointly selectedby ADB and LGOP 

(2) Capacity building for NGO-Government Partnership  – Key capacities built among governments for effective cooperation with NGOs in village PA work, framework development and initiation of a capacitybuilding program for local NGOs, and dissemination of guidelines and core resource materials to supportpost-TA replication of NGO and government capacity building.

Sub-team 1 of a firm-basedconsultant team 

(3) Pilot Test Support and Implementation  – NGO capacities for participation in PA efforts built, andsuccessful pilot test completion, with new mechanisms proven viable in 16 pilot and 3 hybrid villages byproject end. 

CFPA 

(4) External Monitoring and Evaluation (M&E)  –  An objective and externally credible assessment of the efficacy and impact of NGO-implemented projects, including quantitative and especially qualitativedimensions, as well as comparisons to government-implemented PA projects in small control and hybrid

samples of villages.

 An independent sub-team 2,under the consultant firm 

III. IMPLEMENTATION MILESTONES

7. Principal milestones included: policy environment and local context assessment, M&E baseline, and selection of pilot villages in 3 counties

of Jiangxi (Le’an Ningdu, and Xingguo) completed by Fall 2005; drafting of Guidelines for Competitive Selection of NGOs , and formal launching of the competitive selection

process (for six Phase 1 villages) at the Great Hall of the People on 19 December 2005; selection (announced 21 February 2006; based on assessor panel rankings) of 6 NGO consortia to facilitate

participatory VPAPD selection and implementation of sub-projects in 6 Phase 1 villages5; launch of first-round parallel capacity building programs for NGOs and local officials in early April, followed by

NGO-government-villager roundtable during visit of ADB Vice President L. Greenwood; formal kick-off on 16 April (Shaziling Village) of NGO fielding to begin participatory needs assessment and

facilitation of participatory VPADP processes, working with local governments; launching of the competitive selection process for Phase 2 NGOs on 1 December 2006; panel bid review and press conference (19 January 2007) to announce of NGO selection and National

Interim Policy Forum on NGO-Government Partnership in Village-level PA, including LGOP Vice DirectorGao Hongbin, ADB Vice President Greenwood, and other senior officials, as well as domestic andinternational experts, NGOs, and the media;

following initiation of capacity building programs for Phase 2 NGOs and local officials in March, NGOsentered ten Phase 2 “pilot model” and three “hybrid model” villages to begin participatory VPADP process:draft plans completed in most villages by July 2007;

pilot assessment workshop in Jiangxi in end May 2008 (most micro-level projects under pilot village plans

completed) reviewed findings of third (final) post-baseline M&E sweep; Final Policy Forum on Mainstreaming NGOs in Government Poverty Alleviation on 22 September 2008

reviewed pilot’s achievements, and forward-looking policy recommendations.

IV. DISSEMINATION AND REFERENCES

8. A CFPA-hosted project website (full Chinese site at http://www.cfpa.org.cn/new/default.asp ; partial Englishsite at http://www.cfpa.org.cn/new/English/default.asp ) supported transparency, and extensive media coveragerecognized the pilot test as a breakthrough in NGO-government partnerships to support participatory povertyreduction.6 Other summary documents, M&E findings, and capacity building materials to support post-TAreplication in the PRC or beyond were widely disseminated in Chinese and/or English.7 

5NGOs in each Phase 1 village managed 500,000 renminbi of state PA funds, with the TA providing another 50,000 renminbi forNGOs’ staff and travel costs and other overheads: in Phase 2, the latter ranged from 7-11% of the amount of state PA funds.

6See for example Reuters coverage at http://uk.reuters.com/article/featuresNews/idUKPEK1450620070411.

7These include a bilingual monograph at http://www.adb.org/Documents/Produced-Under-TA/38234/38234-01-PRC-DPTA.pdf , thefinal M&E report (English version) at http://www.adb.org/Documents/Produced-Under-TA/38234/38234-02-PRC-DPTA.pdf  , andthe lead chapter of an ADB book at http://www.adb.org/Documents/Books/Ground-Up-Community-Empowerment/default.asp  .Others materials may be requested by email to Chris Spohr at cspohr@adb.org .