In February 2021, Chinese President Xi Jinping declared the elimination of absolute poverty, after the final 98.99 million rural Chinese residents living under the then national poverty line had all been lifted out of poverty. It marked the end of a four-decade campaign. 

Data from the Chinese government and the World Bank shows that approximately 800 million people were raised above the extreme-poverty threshold over the period, accounting for more than 70% of global poverty reduction. 

That declaration was followed by a five-year transition period intended to consolidate gains and prevent people from backsliding into poverty. It concluded at the end of 2025 with the establishment of regularized anti-relapse mechanisms. International observers were taking note. 

Building risk-prevention mechanisms

There's no guarantee that people who emerge from poverty will stay out of it. Illness, crop failure, job loss, or a single large expense can push a household back below the threshold. China's response has been to build a follow-up system that tracks those risks. 

It relies on various channels: self-reporting by rural households, routine assessments by local officials, and data screening for sudden changes in income, medical spending, housing and school attendance. When a risk is flagged, a verification and assistance process kicks in, with local officials organizing support for the household. Official readouts after the 2025 central rural work conference indicate a shift toward regularized anti-relapse mechanisms, rather than temporary fixes. 

John Bailey, chief executive of South Africa's Sunday World media platform, has visited northwest China's Ningxia Hui Autonomous Region four times. He wrote after his most recent trip that China's program is highly targeted and coordinated with rural revitalization in a way that reflects systematic planning and long-term vision. Poverty, he says, can be eliminated when leadership, policy frameworks, accountability and sustained investment in people are all present. 

Treating the cause, not just the symptoms 

China's strategy changed decisively when they recognized the rising tide of national development didn't lift all boats and started asking why some were still trapped in hardship. 

By 2013, the people still living in poverty were concentrated in remote areas. Kenyan commentator Eric Biegon noted after visiting southwest China's Guizhou Province that these communities faced "structural barriers" that broad economic growth simply couldn't remove. 

So, China developed a targeted poverty alleviation model. Rather than adopting a one-size-fits-all approach, officials collected information on millions of households, including their income, education and health conditions, as well as the specific factors contributing to their poverty. Assistance was then tailored to the needs of each household.

Robert Walker, a fellow of the British Academy of Social Sciences, points out that conventional poverty-reduction programs often fail because they just hand out cash without fixing the underlying problems. 

China's experience offers a massive, real-world example of how this approach can work. Take Juncao, a hybrid grass developed in southeast China's Fujian Province to support mushroom cultivation. Introduced to Rwanda in 2006, it provided rural households with a low-cost, locally manageable means of generating income and improving nutrition.

Citing official reports, the Chinese Embassy in Rwanda said the technology had helped lift more than 37,000 local farmers out of poverty, thanks in part to its "low cost, ease of application and short growth cycle." The technology also required neither large-scale infrastructure investment nor a complex administrative system.

Approaches that empower 

Speaking at the 2026 Global Poverty Reduction and Development Forum in Beijing, Vongsey Vissoth, Cambodia's permanent deputy prime minister, said the real lesson from China isn't copy-pasting what they did, but understanding how they did it and adapting it to local conditions. 

Former Peruvian Prime Minister Javier Velásquez Quesquén agreed. He said the most important part of China's success in lifting 800 million people out of extreme poverty is designing public services with people's right to development built in. 

For Ayak Awer Chan Liol, who works at the Office of South Sudan's Vice President Benjamin Bol Mel, the lesson is deeply personal. After attending a training program on poverty reduction in Ningxia in 2025, Liol said it's inspiring to see that "if Ningxia can do it, Africa, South Sudan, specifically, can do it too." 

For other developing countries looking for their own strategies, China's experience is extremely valuable. Global progress against poverty has slowed in many regions, and solutions require flexibility. Perhaps China's most useful contribution isn't a beaten track for others to follow, but rather a light shining on what's possible through hard-won experience.