The Chinese government and the United Nations Development Program (UNDP) have agreed on a project to provide innovative technologies and expertise to poverty-ridden rural areas in China.

With US$3 million from the Ministry of Science and Technology (MOST) and US$1million from UNDP, the four-year project, titled "Alleviating Rural Poverty through Innovative Technologies Transfer," will set up technical task forces to introduce to farmers both better technologies and innovative organizational methods for farmers to receive tailor-made technological services to increase their income.

MOST Vice Minister Liu Yanhua said, "The UNDP is the first international organization that helps China to develop and enhance technical task forces to extend technologies to rural China."

Nanping City, southeast China's Fujian Province, piloted a scheme in 2002 to send technical experts to help rural people raise their earnings with appropriate technologies. Since then, 598 counties in 24 provinces nationwide have followed suit.

Khalid Malik, UNDP resident representative in China, said, "We hope that the project will help generate new job opportunities in local communities and allow agriculture technology experts from government agencies, academies, research institutes, and other organizations to participate more effectively in lifting farmers out of poverty."

(Xinhua News Agency April 21, 2006)