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Twenty years ago, China's non-governmental organizations (NGOs) specializing in poverty alleviation merely collected donations for the poor.

"Back then, we had very limited access to the utilization or supervision of donations," said He Daofeng, secretary-general of the China Foundation for Poverty Alleviation (CFPA) recently at theThird Conference of the foundation's Fourth Board of Directors held in Beijing.

Given that the role of the Chinese government in this regard has been reduced to market supervision and policy making, domestic NGOs are exhibiting unprecedented passion to explore the burgeoning humanitarian market in China.

Now, poverty-alleviation efforts target not only the basic living requirements of the poor, but also their education, employment and medical needs.

Broader exchanges with global counterparts also help increase the capabilities of domestic NGOs who have begun to devise their own poverty-alleviation projects, making them increasingly helpful to the government.

For instance, the Hope Project, initiated by the China Youth Development Foundation in 1989, the most influential public welfare project of the 1990s, has now brought 2.3 million rural dropouts back to school and built 8,000 Primary Schools across the country.

Last year, the CFPA launched the "Angel Project" to help modernize hospitals in less- developed central and western areas.

To date, the project has trained some 975 hospital directors in15 provinces and autonomous regions, and medical equipment worth 15.87 million yuan (about 1.91 million US dollars) have been donated to 104 hospitals.

In addition, computer equipment and management software, with a combined value of 9.66 million yuan (about 1.16 million US dollars), was provided to 20 hospitals.

The Action 120: Maternal and Infant Safety Project independently created and managed by the CFPA in 2001, arranged prenatal checks for 845 poor pregnant women last year.

A total of 88,900 yuan (about 10,711 US dollars) was given to 729 disadvantaged pregnant women for their medical expenses.

In 2002, some 60 million yuan (about 7.23 million US dollars) in cash and goods was collected by the CFPA, which was the third largest of all Chinese NGOs specializing in poverty alleviation.

With 50 million yuan (about 6.02 million US dollars) invested in various projects, the CFPA has helped approximately 400,000 people.

Wang Guoliang, deputy director of the Poverty-Alleviation Office of the State Council, encouraged NGOs to be more innovative in order to play a more significant role in poverty elimination.

"The humanitarian assistance market in China is becoming more competitive; domestic NGOs should redouble their efforts to catch up with their international counterparts," he said.