Anti-Poverty Policy Laboratory (APPL)

Since 2014, the Survey and Research Center for China Household Finance has conducted two policy experiments in poor areas, the Labor Income Reward Program and the Youth Education Promotion Program. The Labor Income Reward Program (LIRP) targets low-income individuals with work capacity and seeks to strengthen intrinsic incentives for poverty reduction by rewarding labor earnings. Since its implementation, the program has achieved significant impacts in promoting employment, increasing income, and boosting consumption. It has been scaled up to four prefectures in Sichuan Province and now covers more than 70,000 low-income households.

The Youth Education Promotion Program (YEPP) provides cash rewards to students or teachers who meet specified learning or teaching targets, with the aim of strengthening students’ learning incentives, increasing human capital accumulation, and breaking the intergenerational transmission of poverty. Since its implementation, the program has significantly improved student academic performance and education quality in poor areas. It has been expanded to multiple locations within the province, reaching more than 66,000 students, and received the Targeted Poverty Alleviation Best Practice Award by the China Foundation for Poverty Alleviation.

In 2019, as part of the Global Call for Poverty Reduction Cases jointly launched by the World Bank, the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations, the International Fund for Agricultural Development, the World Food Programme, the Asian Development Bank, the China International Poverty Reduction Center, and the China Internet Information Center, both programs, the Labor Income Reward Program and the Youth Education Promotion Program, submitted by the Anti-Poverty Policy Laboratory were successfully selected.

Learn more about these projects on their website here.



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