The World Banks watchdog said on Thursday the Banks main poverty reduction program required poor countries to prepare too much paperwork that detracted from the main task of improving domestic processes, the Banks press review stated Friday.
The Operations Evaluation Department (OED), which reports directly to the Banks shareholders, said the World Bank should ease requirements for preparing documents for the Poverty Reduction Strategy (PRS) that countries need to qualify for aid, the story says.
The World Bank and sister organization the International Monetary Fund launched the Poverty Reduction Strategy initiative in 1999 to help poor countries tackle poverty.
The OED evaluated how the process is working and found it was “relevant” and had improved the poverty focus of government strategies, the story says. But there were gaps and the initiative had “not yet fulfilled its full potential to enhance poverty reduction efforts in low income countries,” it said in findings published on Thursday.
– Countries have focused more on completing documents, which give them access to resources, than on improving domestic processes, it added.
In the case of Tanzania, the OED report said, public spending had been increased in priority sectors and the bank and other donors had used the PRS to guide development assistance. At the other end of the scale, Albania had received large amounts of aid, owing to the geopolitical considerations of its donors, but with little regard to the PRS.
A bank official said management had agreed with the OED reports call for a greater focus in PRS on promoting growth and more efforts to link donor aid with country PRS. But it was the management view that there was already scope for countries to tailor their poverty reduction strategies to local conditions.
It was seen as necessary for the banks staff and board to evaluate countries PRS if they were to continue to be relevant.
In related news, Inter Press Service and All Africa report United Nations special adviser Jeffrey Sachs said at a briefing Wednesday that achieving the Millennium Development Goals will require more cooperation between developed and developing nations, targeted plans and less moralizing about the failures of poor countries and their governments.
While Sachs referred to the problems facing the worlds poorest nations in a general way – naming structural issues such as lack of skills and basic physical infrastructure, disease, low agricultural productivity and physical isolation – he suggested a specific plan to tackle them. Developing countries should develop national poverty reduction strategy papers (PRSP) soon, he argued.
Already used by the World Bank and IMF to prepare borrowing nations for aid, Sachs said he is suggesting the plans be based on the MDGs – and be bold enough to envision achieving the goals even if donor founding is unavailable now. At the same time, new PRSPs should not replace the work of the World Banks and IMF, he stressed.
Combined with an investment strategy and a financial analysis of what it would cost to carry out those plans, the PRSPs should be the basis of looking ahead to 2015, Sachs said. Among other things, they should make very clear how money is going to be invested, how investments will be monitored and how to ensure that women will benefit as much as men from development.
Kilde: www.worldbank.org
