GDIO has been focusing on the poor areas, trying to improve product quality with industrial design and benefit more and more poor people. Design for Poverty Alleviation is a project launched at the 2018 World Industrial Design Conference. It is proposed to make full commitment to leveraging the power of design, creativity, and innovation for poverty alleviation, and to achieving the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) of UNIDO. To achieve impact, WIDC Committee, UNIDO, together with MIIT, jointly launched the initiative on the “Design for Poverty Alleviation Initiative” calling upon the joint action of the global industrial design community.

At present, the design poverty alleviation working groups have conducted a series of themed activities in the poor areas of China and yielded many products and programs to help eliminate poverty by the power of design. Especially an online public welfare platform of Design for Poverty Alleviation is built to exert a more extensive impact.