China Is on Its Way to End Extreme Poverty

China seems to be beating one of the biggest issues in the large country – poverty. Extremely poor residents went from 56 million in 2015 to 5.5 million last year.

“It’s so much better now,” says Luoba Nijinmo – who now lives the new housing estate “Gratitude Community” located in Southwest China – on a government-organized trip to showcase China’s poverty alleviation efforts in Sichuan province. “Living on the mountains, it was inconvenient for the kids to go to school. On rainy days, it was scary because the houses were so old.”

Since 2016, the Chinese authorities have relocated about 10 million people in government-built housing. To qualify as an extremely poor person, one must earn less than 11 yuan ($1.63) a day. The government also focuses on providing their poorest with enough money to buy clothes and food, and to have access to basic healthcare, education, and housing: according to China, all these criteria must be met for someone to be considered out of poverty.