The formulation of a village poverty alleviation planning（VPAP）is a new approach we have adopted in our poverty alleviation efforts in the new century. Such a transformation helps us to better target towards the poor and encourages the poor to involve themselves more in the formulation of such a village poverty alleviation plan. By doing so we hope to better relate our poverty alleviation projects with the needs of the poor. This new approach has already produced profound impacts on our poverty alleviation efforts in China.

8.1 Impact on Targeting of the Poverty Alleviation Funds

In September 2001，the Chinese Government started to adopt the participatory village poverty alleviation planning as our guiding principle in order to focus our poverty alleviation resources more on individual villages and individual households. By 2002，148051 poor key working villages had been identified nationwide，accounting for 21.4% of all administrative villages in China. Among these poor villages，130827 are located in the central and western part of China，making up 88.4% of all the poor villages and 26.7% of all administrative villages in this region；17224 are located in the eastern part of China，making up 11.6% of all the poor villages and 8.5% of all administrative villages in the east. Furthermore，these poor villages are found in 1861 counties across the country，which account for 68. 8% of total number of counties in China. The poor population in these poor villages make up 83% of all the poor population in China. In contrast，when identified poor counties instead of poor villages in the past，the 592 nationally designated poor counties could only cover 61% of all poor population. So with the new village poverty alleviation plan，poverty alleviation funds can be c