A study on NGOs' program for poverty alleviation with environmental protection in rural China: The case of Mother-River Protection Operation.

摘要

This paper is a case study on an environmental and poverty alleviation program, namely Mother River Protection Operation (MRPO), launched by China Youth Development Foundation (CYDF) in 1999. CYDF hopes to address environmental concerns and alleviate poverty through the implementation of this program in poor rural regions of China. The study, based on a survey of 833 persons in four projects of MROP and interviews with 25 farmers and project staffs, evaluated the performance of the program, and analyzed the factors influencing the program outcomes. The four projects respectively lie in four provinces of China, which are Hebei province, Mongolia province, Sichuan province and Guangdong province.; The research found that MRPO is helpful for environmental protection and poverty alleviation in rural areas. The poor get pay through working for the project of MROP, but it is too little to help them move out of poverty. However, owning some forestry land may give them sustainable income and help them move out of poverty. The project can raise the public environmental consciousness, and improve the natural environment observably, but do not work well in pollution reduction.; The study identified different types of public participation and asset ownerships which have different impacts on the success of the program. There were two participation modes (market-oriented participation and official-led participation) and two types of asset ownership (household ownership and the common ownership). We found that market-oriented participation and household ownership was more effective for poverty elimination and environmental protection than official-led participation and the common ownership. This study suggests that for improving the performance of the program, NGOs should use market-oriented participation when implementing the program, and distribute the asset ownership of the project's outcomes to the poor family when the program is finished. Finally, this study puts forward some specific recommendations in relation to social welfare policies, social work practice, and project implementation to promote the development of NGOs in environmental protection and poverty alleviation in China.