Research and piloting to promote healthy urbanization in China through the provision of essential social services : A Brief Introduction on Project and Piloting Initiatives

China is experiencing an accelerated urbanization process. By the end of 2010, the urbanization rate in China had reached 49.7%, an increase by 13.5 percentage points compared to that in 2000 and a faster increase than the 9.9 percentage points for the period during 1990-2000. This represents a population of 660 million now living in the urban areas of China, an increase of over 200 million compared to that in 2000. Migrants, especially the rural migrant workers in urban areas, are the major source of newly-added urban population in China. The project will focus on the vulnerable groups most affected by urbanization, especially incoming migrants and local farmers (many of whom are land loss at the same time) who have already been counted as urban population but have not local household registration. Speci cally, the project target groups include: (1) Incoming migrants, (2) Local farmers and, (3) Urban poor (low-income people in cities).