Qinba Mountains Poverty Reduction Project

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The principal objectives of the Qinba Mountains Poverty Reduction Project are to: (a) demonstrate the effectiveness of a focused multisectoral rural development project approach to poverty reduction; (b) facilitate a "market-friendly" increase in labor mobility from the poor areas to better-off rural and rapidly growing urban areas; (c) upgrade poverty monitoring at the national and local levels; and (d) significantly reduce absolute poverty in 26 of the very poorest counties in the Qinba mountains region. The project will also stabilize or even reverse upland environmental destruction through land and pasture improvement and soil conservation works, and encourage greater local community participation by enabling households to make key decisions during project design and implementation. The project will comprise the following six components: 1) labor mobility; 2) rural infrastructure; 3) land and farmer development; 4) township and village enterprise (TVE) development; 5) microfinance; and 6) institution building and poverty monitoring.