Poverty Reduction Cooperation Fund

TA 4680: Alternative Livelihood Options to Facilitate Coal Sector Restructuring – People's Republic of China

Financed by Poverty Reduction Cooperation Fund

Project Summary

This TA will assist the China National Coal Association (CNCA) with developing and applying a methodology for identifying alternative economic activities, and identifying support programs and policy options for mitigating the social and environmental impacts to the coal producing towns and villages that are experiencing sharply decreasing coal reserves. The decline of coal mining in these cities has already led to serious economic and social problems.

The TA will also assess general investments and identify support programs that will be required for this purpose as well as policy options for mitigating the social and environmental impacts that will occur with closure of these coal mines. The findings of the TA will also be used for developing national policies to enable timely economic restructuring in all cities that at dependent on decreasing oil reserves.

Major activities of this TA will include:

• Making detailed analysis of the economic and social structures in these cities and the impact of coal mine closures on the poverty incidence and the environment.
• Evaluating governments' efforts for economic restructuring of these cities within the framework of the PRC's overall urbanization program.
• Identifying the most probable increase in poverty and environmental degradation over the next 5 years due to the closure of the mines.
• Developing a methodology for identifying alternative economic and livelihood activities.
• Assessing the required investment and support programs.
• Identifying policy options for mitigating social and environmental impacts due to closure of the coal mines.
• Formulating possible restructuring strategies for these cities.
• Developing model job creation and training programs to assist redundant miners to find alternative livelihood following closure of the mines.
• Disseminating the results of the TA at the national level to promote their application in formulating corresponding national and provincial policies.

• TA Report [ PDF: 122kb | 14 pages ]
• TACR [ PDF: 37kb | 2 pages ]
• Consultant's Report