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Contributions from
the Column
Focus
Ownership and donor harmonisation: a brief introduction
Harmonisation: Donor pledges are steps in the right direction
How KfW Entwicklungsbank assesses budget support
Bangladesh’s PRSP and civil society
African opposition to neoliberalism
Political instability and programme-based approaches
07/2006
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Hierarchical approach glossed over again
Bangladesh’s Poverty Reduction Strategy Paper was prepared in a hasty top-down approach. It does not reflect the views of the poor and civil society. Even Parliament was not involved adequately.
[ By Palash Kamruzzaman ]
Poverty Reduction Strategy Papers (PRSPs) are the means by which the World Bank and International Monetary Fund (IMF) want to ensure broad-based policy ownership in developing countries. The proposition by the Bank and Fund is that this framework should be prepared by the respective governments with the participation of all major stakeholders in a country – including direct representatives of the poor, labour organisations, women’s groups, civil society organisations (CSOs), political parties, parliament (where applicable), sectoral ministries, regional banks and even international donor agencies. By March 2006, PRSPs of 52 countries and additional Interim-PRSPs (IPRSP) of 11 countries were available on the IMF web site.
The World Bank has made the approval of PRSPs conditional, in principle, on acceptable processes of participation. However, the Bank has not specified what constitutes an acceptable participatory process, and this raises questions about the intention of the Bank for ensuring participation by the poor and civil society. Moreover, the notion of PRSP and its ownership itself seems problematic. Because the idea has been generated by the World Bank and IMF, neither by the client countries nor the poor people concerned. PRSPs are probably no more than yet another top-down approach (which pretends to be from below), in an attempt to define the relations of lending institutions and client governments. The claims of “local ownership and “participation” could be seen as a legitimising efforts to cover up this objective.
“Ownership” of the PRSPs cannot rest upon the client countries, as ultimately the boards of the World Bank and IMF hold the power to reject or endorse any PRSP. Furthermore, the idea of “ownership” (by the client countries) is highly confusing and illusory as long as various publications of the World Bank and IMF outline the tentative contents, good practices and expected nature of participation.
Great emphasis has been put on the notion of participation by the direct representatives of civil society and particularly of the poor. But in reality, little attention has been paid to this matter. In 2002, the World-Bank affiliate IDA and the IMF revealed the following observation: “The role of parliaments in the preparation, approval, and monitoring of country strategies has generally been limited. Various concerns have been expressed about the lack of involvement of specific groups in the participatory process” (IDA and IMF 2002:9). While the patterns were said to differ across countries, those who were “not always fully involved in the PRSP process” included local government officials, private-sector representatives, trade unions, women’s groups, direct representatives of the poor and – most revealingly – “CSOs that were out of favour with the government”.
The same report also mentioned that many donors felt that the whole PRSP process was dominated by the World Bank and IMF. These donors pointed out that they were unable “to engage jointly in the dialogue with government during Bank and Fund missions”(IDA and IMF 2002:9-10). These missions, after all, were distracting governmental attention away from alternative views.
The case of Bangladesh
The process of preparing a PRSP in Bangladesh was no different from what IDA and IMF stated in 2002. The Government of Bangladesh decided to start the preparation of a PRSP in 2000. An IPRSP was prepared by December 2002, and the PRSP finalised in October 2005. Both documents emphasised “local ownership”. In both cases, the governmental bureaucracy was in charge.
Preparation of the IPRSP was the responsibility of a taskforce headed by the secretary of the Economic Relations Division (ERD) of the Ministry of Finance. The PRSP taskforce was headed by the Principal Secretary of the Prime Minister. Regarding participation from civil society, the IPRSP claimed to have included 21 consultation meetings with BRAC (Bangladesh Rural Advancement Committee), a leading NGO, as well as a few mid-term consultation meetings and dialogues with civil society representatives (ERD 2002).
Twenty-one meetings with a single – though important – NGO cannot be representative of a country of 140 million. Moreover, the meetings were convened over just two weeks in January 2002. A genuine process of participation in a country this big would definitely take more time. Obviously, it was a very urgent matter to meet donor criteria. The government needed something it could show the Paris Consortium (the forum of donors that run operations and assistance programmes in Bangladesh).
Only seven of these meetings actually involved consultations with the poor. The number of participants in these meetings was only 153, many of whom were beneficiaries or members of various BRAC programmes. 153 men and women cannot adequately represent Bangladesh’s 60 million poor. Moreover, their views are likely to differ from those of people not connected to BRAC. Those at the bottom of Bangladeshi society had no voice in the hasty PRSP preparation.
The PRSP also claims to have consulted development partners, civil society, academics, NGOs, media representatives, eminent persons, women’s spokespersons, and adivasis (ethnic minorities) “prior to finalisation of the PRSP”. But such meetings should have been held at an early stage. Involving these contributors late could do no more than close some gaps in a policy already set in the typical top-down mode.
It is striking that political parties and Parliament were not involved adequately. There was no in house debate and discussion about the PRSP, which indicates the disregard in which the political society as well as the elected policy-makers are held. The PRSP only proclaims that consultations were held with the members of parliament through the Parliamentary Standing Committees as well as three all-party special meetings organised through the UNDP’s project for “Strengthening Parliamentary Democracy” (GED 2005). These special meetings were probably held to justify that project’s budget as well as to mention them in the PRSP. However, the PRSP does not mention what it was that the MPs discussed nor what impact they had on drafting the poverty reduction strategy. The phrase “relevant suggestions from these consultations have been incorporated in the final document” is hardly convincing.
On the other hand, serious parliamentary debate would have been meaningful. After all, the current opposition alliance has promised to “formulate a national policy for poverty alleviation” if voted to power in next general election.
Bangladesh’s PRSP may serve the formal purposes of the World Bank, IMF, donor agencies and the Government of Bangladesh for continuing various debt and aid relationships. But it does not represent the voices of the poor and civil society on the country’s poverty reduction strategy.
Palash Kamruzzaman
is a PhD student at the School of Sociology and Social Policy at the University of Liverpool.
Kamruzzaman.md@liverpool.ac.uk
References:
General Economic Division (GED), 2005: Unlocking the Potential National Strategy for Accelerated Poverty Reduction (PRSP), Government of Bangladesh
Economic Relations Division (ERD), 2002: A National Strategy for Economic Growth, Poverty Reduction and Social Development (IPRSP), Government of Bangladesh
IDA and IMF, 2002: Review of the Poverty Reduction Strategy Paper (PRSP) Approach: Main Findings
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