by Ling Xin

DAVOS, Switzerland, Jan. 21 (Xinhua) -- The world should recognize China's "tremendous progress" in ending poverty and hunger in the last decade, David Beasley, executive director of the United Nations World Food Programme (WFP), has said.

"The world already recognizes, or should recognize, what tremendous progress China has made, with poverty down by more than two-thirds in the last five years, and hunger cut in half from the year 2000 to 2015," Beasley told Xinhua in a recent interview on the sidelines of the 50th annual meeting of the World Economic Forum in Davos.

"Even though China has only about nine percent of the world's arable land, it feeds about 20 percent of the world's population," Beasley added.

China has lifted over 800 million people out of poverty over the past several decades, representing over 70 percent of global poverty reduction.

China is poised to tackle the hardest phase in securing a full victory in the anti-poverty battle in 2020, as it enters the homestretch in achieving the first centenary goal of building a moderately prosperous society in all respects.

China's experience in fighting poverty and hunger benefits not only itself, but also other countries in the world.

"China will continue to play a positive role as it shares its experience and expertise with others, as it does with WFP and WFP's China Office to help facilitate knowledge-sharing," said Beasley.

It is not enough to simply feed people to solve problems like hunger, said Beasley, adding that the "dual mandate" of WFP is "to save lives, but also to change them, through development that can make countries stronger."

"The goal is focused more on the long term, on the root causes, and how we create a strategic transformation that enables a community, region or country to succeed on its own," he said.

"We have to help communities and nations create functioning markets, educate their children, improve the prospects for smallholder farmers," said Beasley, adding that "these are all areas where China's experience can help teach the world."

He praised China as "a leader in South-South cooperation" for its expertise on food security, nutrition and poverty reduction.

China worked with WFP on a training workshop in 2018 to share its experience in national grain reserve and food system management.

"In this project, participants from seven African countries learned about procurement from smallholders, how farmers link with rural and local grain reserves, and how smallholder farmers can tap into trading systems that enable them to have wider markets to sell grain and other products," Beasley said.

China also sent experts to places like Africa to offer technical training to agricultural officials and smallholder farmers, he added.