COMMENTATOR (COMM.): Previously on Life. . .

MOHAMMED YUNUS: Poverty is not created by poor people. Poverty is created by institutions.

FAITH INNERARITY: Capitalism must be guided by ethics, by morality, by care for the weak.

GRO HARLEM BRUNDTLAND: There is a general political responsibility to empower people who don't have resources to help them move out of the poverty trap.

WANG ZHENG CUN(translation): I was born a slave. The work was very hard. The conditions were terrible.

YU GUI HUA (translation): I used to stay home by myself and I just did things by myself. . . Now that we've gotten together, when I am sad the group comforts me.

JIE KE REN DI (translation): Diet, Sanitation, Health, everything has changed. Most importantly I have learned to work scientifically.

COMM: In 1996 the Chinese Government, with support from the United Nations Children's Fund - UNICEF - created a model training and micro-credit, or small loan, programme. Known as the Social Development Programme for Poor Areas - or SPPA - the aim was to help some of the poorest women in China.

EDWIN JOSEPH JUDD (UNICEF Resident Representative in China): The great challenge in China which the Social Development Programme for Poor Areas addresses is that in addition to investing in institutions, it pays off to invest in people.

COMM: The programme is having a profound impact - not only on the women taking part, but also on plans for future development policies in China, and beyond. It is proving that extremely poor women deserve to have access to credit because they're worth it.

Lijiang County, in the south west of Yunnan Province, is the fabled Shangrila. Typical of many parts of China's mountainous west, it's isolated from the economic boom that's transformed the eastern coastal regions. Lijiang is a world class tourist destination. It's also the home of Naxi, Tibetan, Bai, Yi, Li Shu and Han peoples.

It's a long hard road to Wang San Ping Village near the Chinese border with Burma. The people in this village have all moved here within the last seven years - part of a steady migration up into the mountains fuelled by the villages lower down the valleys running out of land to cultivate to feed their growing populations. Yu Gui Hua is the oldest of 5 children. Her husband is the fourth of seven. She moved to Wang San Ping three years ago to join her best friend Hu Zang Hua who'd moved up the valley earlier.

When they first arrived in the village, the whole area was bustling with timber workers logging and milling wood from the dense surrounding forests. The timber workers were keen to buy village produce - so the women had no difficulty in finding a market for their meat and vegetables. But all that was about to change.

The forests of the Lijiang region play a key role in China's environment. Not only do they provide habitat for native species like the golden monkey and giant panda - they also protect part of the vital headwaters of the Mekong and Yangtse rivers. But in the wake of the devastating 1998 floods, the Chinese government passed strict new forestry laws. The mills in Lijiang were closed down, the loggers sent home. For China, and for the global environment, it was a much needed move. But for Yu Gui Hua and the other farmers of Wang San Ping it meant their major source of income had suddenly been taken away. The village's remote location and the lack of alternatives to farming hit the local economy hard.

Then, two years ago, the micro-credit programme came to Yu's village. With backing from UNICEF, the SPPA made small loans to the women taking part in the project - so they could invest in income-generating enterprises. Yu Gui Hua and Hu Zang Hua decided to pool their loans. With assistance from agriculture experts, they built plastic-covered greenhouses together. This enabled them to grow vegetables over all four growing seasons - and vastly increase their productivity. In the months before they got their loans, the women joined together in small groups to support each other. To introduce themselves to the skills of managing finances they saved small amounts of their own money. They discussed and developed a business plan outlining how they would invest their funds. The loans are for one thousand Chinese yuan - the equivalent of about a hundred and twenty five U.S. dollars. As long as they pay the first loan back, they're eligible for two further loans. Yu Gui Hua has already repaid her first loan and taken out another. She's used the second to finance a small store which sells everyday necessities to her neighbours.

YU GUI HUA (translation): In the two years since 1998 I've done these two things. Built the greenhouses and opened my store. Well. . . I wanted to earn a little money - and to solve the vegetable shortage in our valley. Before we built the greenhouse there were some times when we had problems raising enough. There is another village higher up that also comes down to buy my vegetables. I solved the difficulty of finding vegetables in our valley.

COMM: At monthly meetings the women of Wang San Ping discuss their situation and ways they can improve their lives. Yu has been made the Large Group leader, and supplied with teaching resources from the SPPA county office.

Many women in the project have now installed sanitary toilets in their homes. This reduces the risk of disease, improving their and their families' health, and making them the envy of their neighbours. For some villages, the next step is to combine the waste with pig manure to produce biogas for cooking and lighting. Yu Gui Hua has even bigger ambitions.

YU GUI HUA (Translation): My hopes for the future . . . here are so many . . . when the road is put in I want to have a guest house, a car park and a restaurant . . . I want to increase my greenhouse vegetables and to improve my grain crop.

EDWARD JOSEPH JUDD (UNICEF Resident Representative in China): This is a highly sustainable approach with a modest investment with enormous economic and social returns. No one should underestimate the abilities of motivated communities and particularly the women's groups in breaking the cycle of poverty that often is transmitted from generation to generation.

LIANG HONG, Deputy Division Director, Department of International Trade and Economic Affairs (Translation): The micro-loans are an important part of the SPPA programme. It helps to organise the women. They are interested in getting the loans and it makes them want to participate. Once they have joined it is possible to for them to access systematic training.

COMM: Tian Zhu means "Blessed by Heaven" .... but heaven has not equally blessed all the people of Tian Zhu county - and some are very poor. The women of Ben Kang Village have an especially heavy burden because seventy per cent of the working age men leave the village for between four and seven months each year. Part of China's vast, mobile work-force that can't find jobs in their home villages any longer - they migrate to wherever they can find work to send money back to their families. That leaves the women to look after the children at home and to tend the fields alone.

PART TWO

COMM: Wang Zheng Cun's husband has been away from home for two months now . . . looking for work in the neighbouring province of Xinjiang. When their oldest child, Ping, was three, she caught a bad cold. The village doctor prescribed strong antibiotics with the unintended consequence of severe hearing loss.

COMM: Desperate to find a cure, Mrs. Wang and her husband took their savings and borrowed money from relations and friends to pay for a medicine that claimed to be a thousand-year-old cure for deafness. The magic pills didn't work... leaving Ping still handicapped, and the family deep in debt.

WANG ZHENG CUN (translation): I want my children to be better off than I am. Especially my daughter. She is hard of hearing and . . . I don't know if it can be cured. I've done all that I can . . . but I don't know . . . I just want the best for her.

COMM: The project has come to fill an important role in Wang Zheng Cun's life.

WANG ZHENG CUN (translation) Before, I also raised pigs but wasn't making a profit because my investment was so small. Borrowing money from others is difficult. When I heard that I could get a loan from the SPPA, I decided to join. I got a loan for 1000 yuan and my business developed from there.

Before when we didn't get together so much, we didn't know what others were doing. Now that we have the large group meetings we know what every one is doing. And if someone needs help we make time to go help them.

COMM: A third of the interest the women pay on their loans is put into a Social Development Fund which the women themselves administer. They use the money to pay for the most urgent needs in the community, as they see them. It's a system that's effectively turned them from recipients into donors.

ZHANG YING HUA (translation): The group is discussing whether to donate money to children whose families can't afford to send them to school. These children's families are very poor, some of their parents are sick and they can't pay the tuition.

LEADER: How much money are we giving to each student?

WOMEN: Eighty yuan.

LEADER: Does everyone agree?

WOMEN: We agree.

COMM: The women also receive training in various subjects, provided by experts. Information on topics like the safe use of agricultural chemicals not only helps the women improve their productivity - it also safeguards their own health. In Gansu, and many other areas, there's a special need for education about micro-nutrients. Much of China's long farmed land lacks vital minerals like iodine. Without supplements, the entire population of affected regions is at risk of iodine deficiency.

COMM: Women of child bearing age are especially vulnerable. UNICEF studies show that children born with iodine deficiency have IQs around 10 points lower than children whose mothers received adequate iodine. Here, women are taught that iodized salt is the best way to ensure they get enough iodine in their diet. It's the type of health education that's crucial if future generations are going to be able to break down the barriers currently isolating them from the mainstream.

WANG ZHENG CUN (translation): In the past when I got back from meetings . . my husband just sat down and told me to make dinner. Now that I make a little money, he encourages me to go to the large group meetings and when I get home, he's already made dinner! All I have to do is eat. (all laugh)

NG SHUI MENG (UNICEF Programme Officer): This programme has demonstrated quite clearly that women's social position in the family improves after participation. And this is demonstrated by the fact that women not only earn money but they also are able to take better care of themselves, of the members of their family and more so of their children.

ZHANG FU, DOFTEC Programme Officer (translation): The mother is the first teacher and completely irreplaceable. If she undergoes training in Sanitation and has access to more education then she will give the child a great environment to grow up in.

COMM: Mei Gu means 'Beautiful Girl'. One of the most remote places in China - and a Yi nationality autonomous county - Mei Gu still maintained a clan-based, slave society until 1956. Education and hygiene levels still lag way behind more developed Chinese regions. In this culture women, were traditionally subservient to men. At the same time, women did most of the work in the fields. Now the project is helping these women and their communities overcome centuries of discrimination. In the old society, there was a rigid caste system. Eighty three year old Jie Ke Ren Di is of Bai Yi Nationality. She started life as a slave.

JI KI REN DI (translation): Our living conditions were terrible. But the worst part of slavery was when we were sold to different masters our family was broken up. Now each day is a little better.

COMM: For Jie Ke Ren Di's forty descendents, spread over four generations, life is improving. Her grandson E Er Wei Bu does simple carpentry and works in the fields. He is married and has two children. His wife, E Zhu Jin Zi, is a member of the micro-credit Programme. Since joining, she has blossomed. She used her loan to buy pigs to raise - she now has four sows and thirty piglets. She's already repaid her initial loan, and taken out another. As her confidence grew, she started up a small restaurant business opening three days a month to feed the crowds that flock into the township on market days.

E ZHU JIN ZI: I wasn't afraid to take the loan because I know how to raise pigs. I had confidence that I could return the money.

QUESTION: Do you think women and men are equal?

E ZHU JIN ZI: Yes.

QUESTION: But I asked him.

HUSBAND replies: Yes, I also think so.

QUESTION: Who is in charge of the household finances?

E ZHU JIN ZI (Translation): I am.

HUSBAND: She uses money more wisely . . . so she is in charge of our family's finances.

COMM: Many women in Mei Gu are illiterate. Traditionally, boys were encouraged to study - while girls were neglected. Zhu Jin Zi couldn't even write her name when she joined the project.

E ZHU JIN ZI (Translation) : I want my daughter to go to school so that she can find work in the town when she grows up.

COMM: Her daughter E Er Bu Xue is already in preschool. She has the opportunity to advance her education and develop a career besides subsistence farming.

Jie Ke Ren Di (Translation): I have lived a long time. I was born a slave and was forced to live in a grass shed... now we live in a solid house. I don't think that I can live much longer but I have lived long enough to see my family free . . . now every day is a little better . . . a little better.

COMM: In December 1999 there were 42,517 women taking part in China's SPPA programme. 90 per cent of all the women who took out loans repaid them. And they also pledge to underwrite the loans of any of their group whose businesses fail.

EDWIN JOSEPH JUDD (UNICEF Resident Representative in China): Women in rural areas from poor families who desire to succeed and are given the chance to acquire the knowledge and skills are a great source of human investment. It seems to me that financial institutions, if only looking at the situation from their own interest would want to have such responsible customers.

COMM: Not everyone shares equally in the new global economy. Many are separated by more than just geography. By combining education and health services with small loans the SPPA project is giving poor people the tools to overcome ignorance and isolation and so begin the long journey out of poverty.

END