DP; DEVELOPMENT AND THE POVERTY REDUCTION STRATEGIES

In my last discussion, i talked about development and where we need to start from. This is a very difficult question which can even affect the whole purpose, since development has got a different meaning for different people, society and even continents. For example the understanding of development from an individual from Africa will defenately be different from another person from Europe. To be able to work on the same table with the same goal, it will be better for countries, to think globally and act locally. This enable the societies to priotise their problems and act with the resources they have. However, there is need to have good strategies in place to achieve good results.

In the past, we have had different strategies like the strucural Adjustment prgrammes (SAP) and now we have the Poverty Reduction strategy Papers (PRSP), all these trying to acheive development. The SAP generally had a good purpose but they proved to have failed because of different reasons depending on the country.  Comparing the two, it is obvious that developing countries would prefer the later as it gives them the opportunity to identify their own problems and priortise them in a consultative process, and also with the focus on national ownership. The PRSP differ from the SAPs only because the SAP focused a lot on outputs. The PRSP describe the country’s macroeconomic, structural, and social policies in support of growth and poverty reduction, as well as associated external financing needs and major sources of financing. It is presumed to enhance implementation precisely because it is embedded in the existing institutional structure and culture rather than being an imposition from abroad. The PRSPs are that they are like the selling document by countries to donors; they try to portray the vision of a country but also the steps on how to get to that vision.

There are five core principles underlying the development of poverty reduction strategies, namely:
· Country driven – involving broad-based participation by civil society and the private sector in all operational steps;
· Results oriented – focusing on outcomes that would benefit the poor;
· Comprehensive in recognizing the multidimensional nature of poverty;
· Partnership oriented-involving coordinated participation of development partners (bilateral, multilateral, and    non – governmental);
· Based on a long-term perspective for poverty reduction.

PRSPs have been introduced as an official recognition that there is no single blueprint for development. However most actors, including the Bank and the Fund, have acknowledged that while PRSPs have improved diagnostics on the various dimensions of poverty and allocation of related social spending, they have not differed much from previous adjustment programmes as far as the core economic policies are concerned.

Despite all the good things above, there are some issues to be looked into critically like;

The ownership

Since the PRSPs will still need an approval from the World bank, should we say that they are country owned? There is a contradiction between the rhetoric on ownership and the request for WB/IMF Boards to endorse the PRSP. Many NGOs are concerned that this contradiction means that governments opt for programmes that they know will be accepted even if this conflicts with priorities identified through consultative processes. This works against the whole purpose of the PRSP in some countries and there is still need to improve the whole process.

The Conditionality

In principle policy targets and actions defined in the PRSP should be the basis of IMF and Bank conditions. However most of the time PRSPs build on loan agreements rather than vice versa. In addition it seems that little has changed in terms of the Fund’s and the Bank’s ‘negotiating style’. Loan negotiations are still conducted behind closed doors within Ministries of Finance and Central Banks, and lack disclosure, public involvement and oversight. While the IMF has engaged in the process of ‘streamlining conditionality’ (and the Bank claims to be doing this too, unofficially) there is little evidence to date that freedom of choice for borrowing countries has increased or that IMF conditionality will be strictly limited to macroeconomic issues, among other remaining issues.

Who and how is implementation monitored?

At the moment countries are required to submit annual progress reports to the Boards of the IMF and the Bank. I feel there is need for a strong civil society for effective monitoring of the implementation of the PRSP, otherwise, their implementation is questionable. This is because there is a lot of corruption, fraud e.t.c in most developing countries, which affects development despite the efforts done.

I feel we need to look at the three issues critically for us to achieve the best otherwise we will reach a point where we will again conclude that the PRSPs are not effective just as the SAPs

In addition to the above isses, the manner the strategies are developed matters a lot  for the ownership to be achieved since this might affect the actual implementation of the document. In this regard, there are some important things which countries need to seriously consider in developing these paper; i.e who should be consultated, which most of the times its affected by time since these documents are done within a specifid period. On the same issue, it can also be affected by the calibre of people who are consulted in the process. I was previledged in my past work to have used the Malawi Poverty Strategy Paper, my job involved creating awareness to the people on the ground about the paper and how they should monitor its implementation. I really liked the contents in the paper,  a very brilliant document with good vision, however i noticed that its implementation was being affected by several issues. Some of the people i met explained that they regard it as an office document since they dont know how it was developed. This obvious because in the process it is not everyone who can be consulted, since its time consuming and very expensive. It is therefore very important for the government to create awareness amongst all the pertinent stakeholders for the people to see the benefits.

On the other hand,  i noticed tht implementation might also be affected by the availability of local technical expertise  within the country. For example, the Malawi Poverty Reduction Strategy Paper, talks about improving the the increasing income of the poor malawians through fisheries, mall scale mining, tourism activities; these sectors needs special skills for them to grow. However, as a country we have the inadquate skill in these sectors, so this might affect the whole purpose. It is however good that the strategy also plans  to build the capacity of the local people through the introduction of  village Polytechnics, which is an important input for the achievement of the PRSP.

All in all i really feel the PRSPs if handled well can achieve more than we expect.

2 comentarios / 30 Dec 2011 por Tabithah Mkandawire Kaluwa
IMSD /

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