IFPRI images
Motivation
To improve the lives and livelihoods of its large poor rural population, the Chinese government has invested in agricultural productivity and nonfarm employment since the 1990s. IFPRI’s Priorities for Pro-Poor Public Investment in Agriculture program, active from 1998 to 2002, provided policymakers with the research-based evidence they needed to determine which investments to make and how to maximize their efficiency in reducing poverty and food insecurity.
Findings suggested that allocating public funds for rural roads, education, and agricultural research are fairly certain to reduce poverty and prompt rural economic growth while investing in irrigation projects and certain welfare programs were found to be less effective. In terms of infrastructure, research results revealed that low-cost roads, such as basic rural feeder roads, yielded economic returns that were four times higher than high-quality roads. Investing in these less expensive roads—in both rural and urban areas—was found to provide a more direct route out of poverty.
During the study, IFPRI staff members held nine training sessions at Zhejiang University to educate professionals—both from China and other countries—on China's experiences in promoting rural development and poverty alleviation.
Outcomes
After these results were published, used in the World Development Report 2008, and discussed by IFPRI's director general and China's then-President Jiang Zemin, the Chinese government implemented a number of policies consistent with IFPRI's recommendations. It increased spending on rural infrastructure and agricultural research and development, instituted free compulsory education, abolished agricultural taxes, and shifted regional resource allocations toward China’s poorer western regions. An external impact assessment found that IFPRI played “an important indirect role” in the development of China’s eleventh Five-Year Plan (2006–2010).
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In 2013, as a follow up to the earlier public investment work and with support from the Chinese Ministry of Agriculture and the Asian Development Bank, IFPRI completed the report Public Expenditure in Agriculture under a Rapidly Transforming Economy: The Case of the People’s Republic of China. Below are the recommendations from the report that were submitted to the Department of Planning under the Chinese Ministry of Agriculture:
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