Looking back on seven decades of sweeping change in this Yi community, a beam of light from the coast of the East China Sea has shone steadily onto Xiaoliangshan since 2017 鈥?Shanghai's Yangpu District and the Ninglang Yi Autonomous County forged a结对 pairing under the principle of "central requirements, Ninglang's needs, Yangpu's capabilities," and through nearly a decade of sustained effort 鈥?from building mechanisms to laying the foundation for people's livelihoods, from industrial blood-making to both aspiration and wisdom support 鈥?they injected powerful momentum into Ninglang's on-schedule victory in the battle against poverty and its solid push toward rural revitalization. This is not only a chapter of extraordinary weight in Ninglang's 70-year development journey, but also a vivid footnote to the strategy of coordinated regional development and common prosperity.
From one-way assistance to a full-domain network: collaboration mechanisms sinking down layer by layer and weaving ever denser
In recent years, Ninglang has always placed Shanghai-Yunnan collaboration in an important position within the county's overall development. A leading group co-headed by the county party secretary and county governor provides high-level coordination; a series of action plans and project management measures drive progress on two wheels; the two places' party and government officials exchange visits at high frequency, and dozens of joint meetings have jointly charted the course. Gradually they have built a comprehensive assistance system featuring "government-led, society-participated, market-operated, and people-benefiting." More critically, the pairing levels have continued to sink downward 鈥?from the initial school-to-school and hospital-to-hospital pairings, extending to street-to-street and village-to-village pairings, and then to the broad coverage of the "Ten Thousand Enterprises Revitalize Ten Thousand Villages" initiative, with the collaboration network reaching horizontally to the edges and vertically to the bottom. State-owned enterprises, private enterprises, and social organizations have joined in one after another, donating more than 40 million yuan in funds and goods cumulatively. This "full-domain network" pattern has allowed Yangpu's assistance strength to penetrate every corner of Ninglang, and has also transformed east-west collaboration from a "government solo" into a "society-wide chorus."
From livelihood shortcomings to a springboard for happiness: real money and silver invested, infrastructure and public services both leaping forward
Where the money is spent is where the people feel it. Since 2017, Shanghai municipality and Yangpu District at the two levels have cumulatively invested more than 480 million yuan in assistance funds, precisely tilting toward deeply impoverished areas and livelihood shortcomings, with over a hundred projects covering key fields such as industrial development, infrastructure, support for relocated communities, education, and healthcare. In the energy sector, an 8,200-kilowatt photovoltaic poverty-alleviation village-linked power station rose from the ground, installing a "sunshine passbook" for village collective economies; in education and healthcare, public service projects such as the Xiaoliangshan School comprehensive building and the upgrade of the county traditional Chinese medicine hospital were implemented one after another, letting children sit in brighter classrooms and allowing villagers to see better doctors "at their doorstep"; in follow-up support for relocation, standardized factory buildings, gig worker stations, and other employment service facilities were equipped in resettlement areas, enabling relocated people to "move out, stay stable, and get rich."
From blood transfusion to blood-making: making a difference along the industrial chain, as highland specialty agriculture grows "golden nuggets"
For assistance to be effective, the key lies in industry; for industry to endure, the core lies in blood-making. The two places did not sprinkle resources thinly, but instead kept a tight focus on Ninglang's highland specialty resources and cultivated deeply along the industrial chain. In seed potatoes, a cumulative 34 million yuan was invested to build a full-industry-chain project, forming a closed loop from breeding to promotion, and in 2025 it will drive 31,500 farming households to increase income 鈥?small potatoes have truly become "golden potatoes." In highland apples, more than 30 million yuan was used to build storage, preservation, sorting, and packaging facilities, cultivating well-known consumption-assistance brands such as "2700 Apples," which successfully entered Shanghai's "Hundred Counties, Hundred Products" catalog, with annual sales revenue exceeding 400 million yuan 鈥?"Ninglang apples" have entered the fruit plates of thousands of households in Shanghai. The highland chicken industry innovated a cross-regional closed-loop model of "born in Ninglang, raised in Ninglang, sold in Shanghai," letting ecological chickens from the mountains fly onto the dining tables of big cities. Today, the Ninglang highland specialty modern agriculture industrial park jointly built by the two places has become the core carrier of industrial collaboration, and the "government + company + base + farmer" interest-linking mechanism deeply embeds farming households into the industrial chain, achieving a profound transformation of the assistance model from "giving people fish" to "teaching people to fish."
From dual support of aspiration and wisdom to talent taking root: principals leading teachers, doctors following departments
If funds and projects are the "hard support," then talent is the "soft core." Over the past decade, the two places have continuously advanced two-way temporary post exchanges for cadres and talent, cumulatively selecting more than a hundred party and government cadres and specialized technical personnel for reciprocal training, creating a multi-level group-style assistance model. At the same time, the Shanghai-Yunnan employment collaboration alliance has cumulatively helped nearly ten thousand rural laborers achieve transferred employment, including more than a thousand person-times employed in Shanghai. Skills training empowerment and labor-brand-driven development have fundamentally blocked the intergenerational transmission of poverty and built a solid talent foundation for Ninglang's high-quality development.
From the first dividend to the village collective economy under the 8,200-kilowatt photovoltaic panels, to the exquisite gift boxes marked "2700 Apples" on supermarket shelves in Shanghai; from the smiling face of someone successfully applying for a job for the first time at a gig worker station in a relocation community, to the first batch of provincial-level backbone teachers trained by Shanghai volunteer teachers in Ninglang No. 2 Middle School classrooms 鈥?every step of Shanghai-Yunnan collaboration is imprinted with the deep friendship of "mountains and seas are not far apart; we join hands toward the future." Nearly a decade of vivid practice has not only powerfully boosted Ninglang's on-schedule victory in the battle against poverty, but also achieved a leap from one-way aid to two-way mutual benefit. On the occasion of the 70th anniversary of the founding of the Ninglang Yi Autonomous County, this piece is dedicated to Yangpu, to Shanghai-Yunnan collaboration! And to everyone on Xiaoliangshan who has turned their days into spring.
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