Annual Appeal
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CHINA Appeal no. 01.66/2003 Click on programme title or figures to go to the text or budget 2003 20042 (In CHF) (In CHF) 1. Health and Care 914,255 960,000 2. Disaster Management 2,464,941 1,954,000 3. Organizational Development 185,134 195,000 Total 3,564,3291 3,100,000 Introduction The third largest and the most populous country in the world is divided into twenty-three provinces (including Taiwan), four municipalities, five autonomous3 regions and two special administrative regions which are directly under the Central Government. These administrative units, which are often the size of big to medium European countries, are further divided into prefectures, autonomous prefectures, counties, autonomous counties and cities which in turn are further divided into townships, ethnic townships and towns. While having predominantly a monsoon climate, the country sees at least six other types of climate due to its vast territory, complex topography and a great disparity in elevation. Being therefore more of a continent than a country, China has a significant variance from one administrative unit to another.4 Unlike the case in various transition countries, China followed an evolutionary course with respect to the role of the state.5 In the field of economy, the major challenges are associated with a shift from a centrally planned to a market economy and from a rural to an urban economy and with social implications related to this shift. China’s membership in the World Trade Organization (WTO) in late 2001 reinforced the pace of changes already gaining momentum. This important membership status involves significant opportunities but also challenges for the national economy. In addition, hundreds of laws and regulations have to be revised to become consistent with the rules of the WTO. Increasingly, strict regulations and mechanisms for law endorsement are seen as priorities of the Government of China. 1 USD 2,442,454 or EUR 2,422,114. 2 These are preliminary budget figures for 2004, and are subject to revision. 3 In this context autonomous means ethnical minority area 4 UNDP-China Human Development Report, June 2002 5 UNDP-China Human Development Report, 1999 2 A five-year planning system is proper to socialist economies and the related plan represents basically an overarching strategic document. In March 2001, the Government of China adopted a tenth five-year plan (2001-2004) which unlike the previous ones, focuses on quality of growth and sustainable development rather than on physical (or output) targets. Despite the global economic slowdown in 2001, the economy of the People’s Republic of China (PRC) remained one of the best performing in the Asia/Pacific region with the GDP expanding at a rate of 7.8 per cent per annum. However, any attempt to try describing China in terms of average, aggregate numbers run the risk of missing some of the crucial information.6 In the context of China’s booming economy, it is to be noted the recent wealth is very unevenly divided, not only among individuals but also geographically. While some of the administrative units in the eastern regions (i.e., Shanghai and Beijing) are relatively wealthy, in most of the western and central regions, development has lagged far behind. The slow pace of development of these regions is essentially due to an inadequate infrastructure, severe ecological problems such as desertification and soil erosion but also to lack of skilled human resources. Since 1999, a strategic priority of the government of the PRC was on promoting development in the twelve western regions where, in cumulative figures, most of poor people of the PRC live. In May 2001, the PRC adopted its new ten-year poverty strategy (2001-2010) with the focus on poor household and village activities. Based on income, social and physical conditions, some 592 counties located in remote, mountainous areas and minority areas, were selected to benefit from the national poverty funding. The poverty planning participatory methodology for county and village planning was developed with the support of the Asian Development Bank and adopted as a national policy. According to the latest UNDP Human Development Report (2002), China was ranked as 96th among 173 countries thus achieving a medium development in human objectives. Country Strategy In general terms, the most frequent vulnerability patterns in China are traditionally associated with the consequences of natural calamities, resulting frequently from environmental degradation on one hand and deprivation on the other. While efforts were made to address these vulnerabilities, increased attention needs to be paid to newly emerging vulnerability generated by socio-economic and demographic changes and health issues such as the HIV/AIDS epidemics. China’s population stands at 1.265 billion of which 36 per cent live in urban areas. The official estimate of urban unemployment in 2001 was 3.6 per cent, putting it slightly higher than in 2000. Increased urban unemployment is partly resulting from the restructuring of state owned enterprises and limited opportunities for the reemployment of some seven million redundant workers, a factor to be taken into consideration when determining real proportions of urban unemployment. Each year six million jobs are needed to absorb new labor market entrants. The floating urban population and the urban unemployed are susceptible to fall into poverty in the absence of new job opportunities and a well-developed social safety net7. Rural to urban migration is another cause of the growing poverty in urban areas. Sustained, rapid economic growth and targeted 6 UNDP-China Human Development Report, June 2002 7 Asia Development Bank’s statistics, 2001 3 poverty interventions carried out by the Government of China significantly reduced rural poverty over the past few years bringing the number of absolute rural poor in terms of the official poverty line down from 80 million in 1994 to bellow 30 million (or about three per cent of the rural population) in 2001. However, the official poverty line at CNY 625 (about CHF 110) is much lower than the international standard of a dollar a day and only reflects subsistence food and clothing. By applying the above international standard for measuring income poverty, about 213 million people, or 23 per cent of the rural population still live below that level. A total of 120 million rural residents is underemployed. Land degradation affects 260 million hectares (or about 27 per cent of the PRC’s total land area). Nearly 90 per cent of rural poor live in areas suffering from land degradation, a major element of rural poverty. Changing demographics caused by the one-child policy and consequent population ageing will increase pressure on the health care, social security and pension systems. China had almost stayed safe from the HIV/AIDS pandemics for a long time. Unfortunately, at the beginning of the new millennium, the issue marked the Chinese society. With one million people already infected8 and a projected prevalence of 10 million by 20109, fighting HIV/AIDS was officially acknowledged as one of the priorities for the health authorities of China. According to the official statistics, 68 per cent of all reported cases are intravenous drug users (IDU). Other ways of transmission such as unsafe sex, blood collections, blood and blood products, transmission from mother to child were cumulatively reported in 18.6 per cent of cases while 13.5 per cent of the cases remain unclassified. Sixty-one per cent of reported HIV/AIDS infections were screened among young people under 29 years of age. Results of a study conducted by the state family planning commission showed a fundamental lack of knowledge about HIV/AIDS transmission, lack of knowledge about prevention and lack of awareness of risk and vulnerabilities among Chinese people.10 In response to growing HIV/AIDS infection rates, the Government of the PRC took measures by promulgating policies, laws and regulations regarding prevention, care, surveillance, education, testing and other related issues. An HIV/AIDS and sexually transmitted diseases (STDs) prevention and control coordinating committee was established under the auspices of the state council and roles and responsibilities were designated for each of the 34 member ministries and/or commissions. While implementation of policies and laws was uneven, efforts are being made to standardize the response from the central to the grassroots level of government and civil society. Early in the new millennium, HIV/AIDS began to take a higher profile in media and in government reports, including greater transparency about illegal blood collection procedures of the 1990s that resulted in thousands of HIV infections among blood donors. Publication of HIV/AIDS: China’s Titanic Peril (UNAIDS, June 2002) focused international as well as national attention on the successes and gaps in China’s anti-HIV/AIDS efforts and initiated a more strategic and inclusive national planning process for HIV/AIDS prevention and care. Most Chinese people are not yet aware of the disastrous impact of HIV/AIDS infection. In China, natural disasters such as floods and droughts as well as water-borne disease and epidemics are still perceived as the greatest threat to people’s lives.11 8 Official news media reports 9 PRC Ministry of Health 10XIV International AIDS Conference, Abstract WePeC6174, D. Holtzman et al 11RCSC/International Federation Baseline Survey in the Guangxi Province, July 2002. 4 Sudden and/or slow onset disasters, which could be of small, medium or large scale (and should be clearly understood in China’s context and proportions), are annual phenomena claiming thousands of lives, affecting at different degrees, hundreds of million people and causing economic losses and damages worth billions of US dollars. Since 1998, the government made considerable efforts and investments aimed at reducing disaster impacts in some of the most disaster prone areas such as the basins of the Yangze and Yellow Rivers.