By the end of 1999, 34 million Chinese, including women in rural areas, still lacked adequate food and clothing, the report says.

Poverty in China, especially among women, is a complex, multidimensional problem, stated the report, which calls for the implementation of the Beijing Declaration and Platform for Action, which were formulated by the United Nations Fourth World Conference on Women five years ago in the Chinese capital.

The report claims that the main causes of poverty for women are income inequality between genders and limited opportunities for women to earn a living.

Poverty cannot be eradicated by anti-poverty programmes alone but requires full and equal involvement and economic development, which China is doing now, says the report.

According to the report, local governments in China, in accordance with various local conditions, have integrated women's poverty relief into their overall relief programmes.

For instance, local officials in North China's Shanxi Province have set up a gender-based poverty-relief programme statistics system that gives priority to women. Under the system, poverty-relief projects that do not address the needs of women cannot be registered.

In order to help poverty-stricken households, the Chinese Government has arranged special loans every year for their development, and will provide small amounts of credit mainly to women in the rural areas. Financial institutions are encouraged to provide soft loans to poverty-stricken women.

In addition, the government calls on non-governmental organizations to get involved in special programmes for poor rural women.

In 1996, the All-China Women's Federation, the largest women's organization in China, started a "women eradicating poverty action," aiming to help at least 1 million women escape poverty by the end of 2000. With the help of the action, 580,000 women were freed from poverty by 1998, and 23 million women in rural areas were trained with farming skills.

(China Daily)