The village of Nanyu in Baoding City, Hebei Province in north China is only two hours' drive from capital Beijing. Yet in 2015, the distance seemed to be overwhelming, especially in terms of income.

The average annual income of the villagers was about 2,000 yuan ($285) that year. Nearly 26 percent of the families were impoverished and more than 100 people lived below the national poverty line. In sharp contrast, the per-capita annual income for rural residents in China was 10,772 yuan ($1,536) in the same year.

But by 2018, the village had undergone a transformation with its average income jumping to 7,000 yuan ($997). The change is primarily due to one industry that has cashed in on the beautiful natural scenery of the village and its proximity to Beijing: homestays.

The Republic of Korea (ROK)'s electronic giant Samsung assisted the village as part of its corporate social responsibility (CSR) in China and invested 15 million yuan ($2 million) to build high-end homestays. These are run by the village cooperative. Villagers buy shares in the cooperative at the beginning of a year and get a bonus by the year-end. The payment is doubled for those who are impoverished. They can also work at the homestays to make more money.

In 2018, the industry brought in a revenue of 2.85 million yuan ($406,000) and promoted other related industries.

Samsung has since replicated the model in 12 more villages. It has also organized a trip of the village heads to the ROK to learn industrial development strategies in rural areas and how to conduct e-commerce.

Samsung is one of the many foreign companies that have joined the fight against poverty in China. According to Chen Deming, Chairman of the China Association of Enterprises With Foreign Investment (CAEFI), foreign firms have a considerable role in improving people's livelihood. The association guides its member companies to different provinces to help develop education, healthcare and other industries. Since 2014, it has also been publicizing outstanding CSR practices by foreign companies in China.

Bridging the tech gap

In Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region in north China and Heilongjiang and Jilin provinces in the northeast, U.S. financial services company VISA and the China Foundation for Development of Financial Education, an NGO founded to tackle poverty through financial education, are undertaking a pilot project to provide inclusive finance and financial education in 33 impoverished counties. The project gives locals financial knowledge, including teaching them how to prevent risk and use digital finance. Thanks to the knowledge, more and more residents are now using online payment systems.

Zhu Fengrui, a loan officer at a bank in Inner Mongolia providing small loans to local herdsmen, is a witness to the change. In the past, less than 20 percent of his customers paid back their loans electronically. Today the figure has increased to 80 percent.

"I used to travel nearly 100 km a day to collect money from my customers. Now it has become much easier with online payment," Zhu said with satisfaction.

Since 1996 American consumer goods corporation Procter & Gamble (P&G) has been helping Project Hope, a charity project, with money and materials to the tune of over 100 million yuan ($14 million) to improve education in impoverished areas and promote youth development.

There are now over 200 P&G-funded primary schools across the country, where more than 300,000 rural children have been able to access better education facilities.

"As the hardware of Project Hope primary schools has been improved considerably, what do the children need most now? We found that children in impoverished areas have a strong demand for cultural products," Qiu Zhongqiang, vice president of the company, said at a forum in Beijing in December. "Therefore, we have come to a new stage to enrich their cultural lives."

P&G is working with the China Youth Development Foundation which launched Project Hope, and a Beijing-based children's theatrical group to promote children's plays in the primary schools it has funded. The students themselves take part in the plays that highlight local stories and initiatives. Spring Lily performed in Beijing, Shanghai and Guangzhou in south China in 2016 to mark the 20th anniversary of P&G's involvement in Project Hope, for instance, narrated the inspiring story of three sisters in Hunan Province in central China. The trio helped their parents sell lilies, a local specialty, online with the help of volunteers to change their destiny.

Challenges for samaritans

Foreign companies such as Apple and Starbucks have been working with the China Foundation for Poverty Alleviation (CFPA), a nongovernmental charity organization, to establish education industries and healthcare projects nationwide. Zheng Wenkai, chairman of the foundation, said nearly 700,000 people have benefited so far. The projects help increase people's incomes so that they can rise out of poverty and can be replicated in other areas.

The CFPA and CAEFI have also established a platform to facilitate foreign enterprises' participation in poverty alleviation by increasing exchanges and sharing poverty alleviation experiences.

However, the foreign-invested companies' work is hampered by several factors. On December 19, 2019, CAEFI released the Report on Anti-Poverty Action by Enterprises With Foreign Investment based on 42 cases of poverty alleviation by foreign companies. The report was authored by Deng Guosheng, Deputy Director of the School of Public Policy and Management of Tsinghua University. It said monetary donations are not a popular poverty alleviation model with foreign companies. They mostly prefer to implement educational projects, followed by programs to develop industries, healthcare and infrastructure. Improving drinking water safety and promoting culture are also their favorite ways of poverty alleviation, and so is organizing volunteers to carry out poverty-alleviation programs in poor areas.

Foreign companies' main motivation for participating in poverty alleviation is their CSR awareness and response to government policies. However, while undertaking poverty alleviation projects, these companies often face staff and capital shortages, as well as lack of experience and channels for poverty alleviation.

Deng said foreign-invested companies are becoming a new force in the cause. And they hope the government and industry associations can build more platforms and channels for them to participate better.