BM and FMI invite a joint review of the Poverty Reduction Strategy Paper (PRSP)

The moment has arrived to evaluate the progress made in the Poverty Reduction Strategy Papers (PRSPs), the initiative launched in 1999 to help the poorest countries together with the development actors co-ordinate their forces in the war on poverty. At present, some 20 countries have completed this paper oriented at describing the macro-economic situation of the country, including the policies as well as social and structural programmes aimed at promoting growth, reducing poverty, and acquiring foreign financing. The PRSP is prepared by each government through a participative process involving civil society and the actors of development.

With this aim, at the end of January 2002, the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund met with some 200 representatives of developing countries, donors and civil society to establish the state of the situation.

This was to determine to what degree the governments have effectively led the development of the PRSP, which type of participative methodologies have been followed and how much this has affected the content of the paper, in what way the PRSP has affected the co-ordination between donors and beneficiaries of the project, in which cases this has been accompanied by quantitative calculations on the application of the policies proposed, and to what degree the urgency of entering into the initiative of the Heavily Indebted Poor Countries (HIPC) has affected the quality of the paper.

During the conference in Washington, a general agreement was reached on the opportunity offered by the PRSP to open national political dialogue in many countries concerning the importance that this dialogue attract broad participation, from the poorest strata in the countries to the governments, including civil society, universities and international organizations.

One of the most latent challenges continues to be, it was assured in Washington, the need to provide more resources and technical assistance so that the countries can apply their strategies of the fight against poverty, as well as the urgency of sharing information and the lessons learned in the process of preparing the PRSP from one country to another. It was also pointed out that donor's assistance must be better coordinated, and PRSP must be used as a framework for coordinating donor's requests in order to avoid duplication of efforts. There was also agreement that donor assistance should be linked to the budget cycle in developing countries to ensure that it is in line with the priorities set forth in the poverty reduction strategy.

Developing countries made a concerted call to rich countries to accompany their donations with fairer access to the market for exports from poor countries. "The true test of the credibility of wealthy nation's efforts to combat poverty lies in their willingness to open up their own markets and phase out trade-distorting subsidies in areas where developing countries have a comparative advantage", assured Horst Köhler of the IMF.

Finally, the participants agreed that there needs to be more innovative approaches to the fight against poverty and reiterated the importance of understanding the gender implications in poverty reduction.