Tackling rural poverty, together

Extract

This report is a contribution of German Development Cooperation for the 2005 PRSP Review and has been commissioned by the GTZ Poverty Reduction Mainstreaming Project on behalf of the German Federal Ministry for Economic Cooperation and Development (BMZ).

The purpose of this paper is to summarize the observations and experiences of 26 PRSP Processes supported by the German Development Cooperation around the globe in order to contribute to the overall PRSP review.

The purpose of this paper is to summarize the observations and experiences of 26 PRSP Processes supported by the German Development Cooperation around the globe in order to contribute to the overall PRSP review. The aim of this study and analysis was to identify promising ways to further improve and sustain the PRSP processes and content in future rather then to produce a balance sheet of gains and weaknesses to date.

German development cooperation has recognised the PRSP approach as a highly useful appraoch for establishing the basis for planning the distribution of development funds and resources to benefit the poor. It furthermore has placed poverty reduction firmly on the active political agenda since it has encouraged increased convergence, coherence and harmonization amongst development efforts, actors and their policies. It has cultivated the need for analysis and deepened understanding of poverty. Although shortcommings can be found both in its architecture and in the implementation of the PRSP processes, which are analysed and described in detail in this report, the authors conclude that none of these challanges is a fatal congenital defect of PRSP approach. The paper outlines examples, how the PRSP approach responded to conflicting imperatives and how and why things became critical in a number of countries. The authors conclude that the weaknesses in the national poverty reduction paradigm cannot be corrected solely within the PRS process and by the countries themselves. They advocate that it requires active involvement of the donors, as stakeholders of the process and can not be indifferent of its future since the flaws in the system that run counter to the political positions of the donors necessitate their action.

Finally they describe six  areas of action in detail which are required to take the PRS approach forward:

1. making PRS sustainable as a political instrument;
2. enhancing linkages and coherence between PRS and medium term expenditure frameworks (MTEF);
3. further alignment and harmonization of donor policies to support PRS
4. PRS monitoring
5. Participation in PRS processes and most importantly
6. capacity development for PRS.