Economic Cooperatives’ Participation In Poverty Governance

Since the foundation of People’s Republic of China, poverty governance has always been a critical development topic under discussion. Indeed, poverty governance has been carried out for over three decades ever since the Reform and Opening-up, during which the Party and state leaders have attached great importance to poverty issues and invested a considerable amount of human resources, materials, and financial resources; Poverty governance in China has thus achieved a globally remarkable success. Currently, people living in poverty are mainly concentrated in contiguous destitute areas that can be hardly driven by economic development or improved by regular poverty alleviation approaches. Specifically, these areas are geographically deserted and adverse with primitive infrastructures, a comparatively less educated population and a closed local culture; all these elements generate more challenges of poverty governance. Traditionally, poverty governance emphasized on administrative measures taken by the government, i.e. allocating more resources to these areas, and providing multiple types of aids for these areas including finances, development programs and human resources. However, this governance mode, dependent on government to pass on poverty reduction resources, actually limited the efficiency of resources; as a result, the effect of poverty governance was unstable. Moreover, conventional mode of poverty governance has a decreasing marginal utility; consequently, this governance mode should experience some transformation and introduce some market elements, in order to increase the strength and outcome of poverty governance. To be more precise, introducing some market elements consists of two perspectives. Firstly, market entity should be introduced to poverty governance, therefore economic activities within the market entity will drive the development of destitute areas and the local residents; secondly, market mechanism should be introduced to poverty governance, and particularly poverty alleviation resources should be deployed by market mechanism so as to raise the benefit of poverty governance. At the current stage, there are various types of market entities in destitute areas, including various types of enterprises, rural economic cooperatives, professional farmers, family farms, ordinary farmers and etc. From the perspective of poverty governance, economic cooperatives, characterized by their unique administration and operative mechanism, have become a very important organizational means for the disadvantaged to help each other in order to help themselves; additionally, economic cooperatives that are pro-poor in nature have always been considered as an ideal carrier to realize pro-poorness and poverty eradication. Economic cooperatives’ participation in poverty governance demonstrates the innovativeness of poverty governance and corresponds to the idea of participative development and inner-oriented development. Therefore, how economic cooperatives can participate organically in poverty governance emerge as a novel field of research, which will provide some inspiration and references for poverty governance in China.Based on the theories of multi-level governance, participative development and inner-oriented development, the current study presents the following two facets of content. Firstly, it analyzes the structure, route, resource allocation and effect of economic cooperatives’ participation in poverty governance among the multiple subjects involved in poverty governance; secondly, it explores the function and operative mechanism of economic cooperatives in poverty governance, existing problems and challenges, as well as strategic directions in the future. The current study adopts the methodology of case study and reveals the participation process and mechanism of rural economic cooperatives in the course of poverty governance. Five typical rural economic cooperatives in County J and County W located in the area of Wuling Mountain have been selected and further studied through literature review, detailed interviews, author’s participation and observation. Based on a profound analysis of the five typical cases, the following conclusions have been preliminarily drawn. Specifically:(1)Professional cooperatives’ participation in poverty governance has shown the interactivity of multiple subjects. Professional cooperatives’ participation in poverty governance includes not only internal bodies such as core participants, professional farmers and ordinary farmers, but also external bodies such as government, market, and society. The current study holds the view that the structure of professional cooperatives’ participation in poverty governance can be further divided into four levels of collaboration. Specifically, the first level refers to core members’ participation that acts as the starting point for professional cooperatives’ participation in poverty governance; the second level refers to the participation of professional farmers and ordinary farmers, which acts as a crucial parameter of the function of professional cooperatives; the third level and the fourth level refer to the interaction between professional cooperatives and external circumstances, in other words, how professional cooperatives as organizations interact with government, enterprises, and other professional cooperatives is also a critical indicator of the result of their participation in poverty governance.(2) Allocating poverty alleviation resources with professional cooperatives as the main carrier is the result of weighing and balancing multiple interests. The circumstances faced by professional cooperatives during operation are complex and the involved bodies are diverse; consequently, when it comes to handling the interrelationships between these different bodies, weighing and balancing multiple interests is inevitable. Government should effectively deploy poverty alleviation resources and enhance the effects of poverty governance through the platform of cooperatives; meanwhile, cooperatives should develop themselves through resources provided by government and poor farmers should obtain cooperative memberships and then participate in the cooperatives’ economic activities in order to increase their incomes. Allocating poverty alleviation resources to each farmer through the channel of cooperatives represents the comparatively ideal solution after weighing and balancing multiple interests in the entire process of resource allocation.(3) Collaboration among multiple subjects in an all-win way is the ideal mode for professional cooperatives to participate in poverty governance. Professional cooperatives’ participation in poverty governance involves multiple subjects from both internal and external circumstances; hence the ideal mode is to achieve the all-win collaboration among these multiple subjects. To be more detailed, it includes three sets of relationships:firstly, the all-win collaboration between core members, ordinary farmers, and poor farmers within the cooperatives; secondly, the all-win collaboration between government, market, and society from the external circumstances; thirdly, the all-win collaboration between government, cooperatives, and poor farmers. Overall, all-win collaboration is the continuous impetus for professional cooperatives to participate in poverty governance.(4) The operative mechanism of professional cooperatives’participation in poverty governance is still incomplete. From the perspective of participation structure, there are different issues in the four-level cooperation structure; these diverse issues thus cause dysfunction or a lack of efficacy during the professional cooperatives’ participation in poverty governance. From the perspective of resource deployment, deploying poverty alleviation resources lacks an organic combination of market competition and resource allocation by government, which results in the low efficiency of resource deployment. From the perspective of all-win mechanism, currently, professional cooperatives still lack the awareness of participating in poverty governance; the relationships between multiple subjects still require to be further reorganized; pro-poorness for poor farmers still needs to be strengthened; and all-win mechanisms in the long run are still not in place.(5) The idea of ’all-round governance for all to win’ stays the strategic direction of professional cooperatives’ participation in poverty governance; that is to say, the future of professional cooperatives’ participation in poverty governance must embrace the notion of ’all-round governance for all to win’. From the perspective that all-round governance should be carried out by multiple subjects, economic cooperatives’participation in poverty governance must be greatly promoted; the institutional structure of economic cooperatives’participation in poverty governance must be ensured; supportive policies such as inclusive taxation and finances should be enforced. From the perspective of coordinated governance, the functional boundary of government and market should be clarified; relationships between different market entities should be organized; relationships between ordinary members and poor farmers in the cooperatives should be handled properly. From the perspective of regulating operations, legitimate structure of governance by a legal person should be established; each member’s right of fair participation should be ensured; the principle that the competent shall govern the cooperative and democratic management should be combined. From the perspective of all-win mechanism, the idea of shared risk should be maintained; poverty-targeted mechanism should be completed; and proper mechanism of interest allocation should be established as well.