skills. Thirdly, enterprises are encouraged to make direct donations, set up poverty alleviation public welfare funds, grant poverty alleviation public trusts or carry out poverty alleviation through public welfare organizations. In order to help impoverished villages, enterprises ought to engage in projects of infrastructural, medical, educational, social and cultural development. As part of the “10,000 Enterprises Help 10,000 Villages” project, companies like the Alibaba Group have been very visible in poverty alleviation in recent years. Alibaba has lent over 100 billion RMB (US$14.3 billion) to more than 2 million users in poverty-stricken counties in the PRC. Between 2017 and 2022, the holding plans to invest 10 billion RMB (1,43 billion USD) into poverty alleviation projects in the fields of education, e-commerce, health, women empowerment and environmental protection. One of Alibaba's biggest initiatives is the establishment of Taobao Villages that are named after Alibaba's online shopping website Taobao. These villages are transformed into e-commerce hubs to encourage farmers to sell their products online. Annual e-commerce transactions of over 10 million RMB and more than 100 online stores qualify a village for the title Taobao Village. Taobao Villages were established in cooperation with villagers who had returned from bigger cities with entrepreneurial skills and the support of local governments providing infrastructure, e-commerce training, finance and subsidies for specialized e-commerce service providers and companies. A tool for direct participation of citizens is the website “Social Participation in Poverty Alleviation and Development in China” run by the China Social Poverty Alleviation Network. On this website, people that are classified as poor can ask for donations for medical, educational or housing purposes. By donating on this website, people can directly support poverty-stricken households. Moreover, people can buy products from poor regions and crowdfund poverty alleviation projects. Preliminary Achievements and Criticism According to Liu Yongfu, director of the State Council Leading Group Office of Poverty Alleviation and Development, nearly 100 million people were recognized by the Chinese government as poor people. But from 2012 to 2016, more than half of the population living under the poverty line has been lifted out of poverty. An average of 1.3 million poor people cleared the poverty line per year during the five-year period. The Targeted Poverty Alleviation Campaign and the fast allocation of resources have quickly raised the living standards of many households in rural China. From 2015 to 2019, 68 million people were lifted out of rural poverty.