Civil society participation in the PRSP:

Author(s): Camilo Villa
Publication date: Monday 28 August 2006

Most of the analyses written on the participation processes of the first wave of PRSPs have been critical of the superficial nature of the consultations. However, many civil society organisations (CSOs) did mobilise around PRSPs and, in many cases, had unprecedented access to the policy making process. Taking the examples of Bolivia and Tanzania, this paper looks at more detail at the evidence used by CSOs in the PRSP discussions and examines whether the arguments and recommendations made by CSOs were taken on board by the government and included in the final PRSP documents.

A number of common themes and issues emerged from the case studies. The paper concludes with some observations including that the PRSP offers an excellent opportunity for CSOs to engage in the policy process. For many CSOs, this was their first experience of advocacy work on policy issues and the process itself contributed to strengthening their capacities. However, this potential was often not fulfilled and many CSOs felt that their views and recommendations were not listened to or integrated into the final documents. While there are some examples of CSOs having an impact on policy choices, there is an over-riding sense that there is not much of a link between the consultations and the final documents and, furthermore, that many issues are not put on the table for discussion in the first place. The reasons for this are many but include the political nature of policy processes, the influence of donors and IFIs in the PRSP process and the limited capacity in many CSOs to conduct rigorous analysis on highly technical issues.

As the PRSP approach moves into its second and third waves, the interest in civil society?s role in policy processes will increase. The PRSP does provide an excellent entry point into the policy process but there is work for CSOs to do to make sure that their contribution to the process will continue to improve. An important part of this will be for CSOs to invest the time and resources in carrying out thorough research at the local and national level to ensure that evidence-based advocacy work around the PRSP process has a positive impact on the policy choices and content of the PRSP.

Poverty Reduction Strategy Papers (PRSPs) were formally endorsed by the Executive Boards of the World Bank and IMF in September 1999 as the mechanism for distributing HIPC (or debt relief) funds and as the basis for IFI concessional lending. Since then, PRSPs have been on the agendas of around 70 low-income countries around the world and have stimulated much debate and some controversy. The PRSP approach was developed out of best practice on how to tackle poverty and includes some innovative practices; most significantly the requirement that the PRSP must be nationally owned and drawn up in consultation with national stakeholders. This opening up of policy processes to new forms of participation resulted, in practice, in a variety of consultation processes, with civil society organisations (CSOs) ? usually NGOs ? as the main non-government actors, during the formulation phase of the full PRSP.

A great deal has been written on civil society?s participation in the first round of PRSP processes. The main criticism of the participation in this first wave of PRSPs was that they were poorly conceived, very narrow (only certain issues ? usually ?safe? social sectors - were open for discussion), exclusive (the governments decided who was invited) and rushed. In many countries, the processes were rushed because governments were in need of the debt relief funds linked to the PRSP but in other instances, governments were not interested in including civil society in policy discussions so did the minimal amount of consultations required. The general conclusion of most of this literature is that in the first round of PRSP formulation ?participation? consisted of rather superficial ?poverty diagnostic consultations? that did manage to contribute to expanding the definitions of poverty but, broadly speaking, were not able to alter the substance of policy choices.

To some extent the participation processes in the first round of PRSPs were superficial due to a lack of capacity in both the governments and CSOs. For some governments, this lack of capacity prevented them from conducting meaningful processes. It also hindered the possibilities of CSOs recommendations being translated into policies. For CSOs, a lack of capacity among some organisations to understand complex policy processes and economic arguments meant that they were unable to engage effectively in discussions. While many CSOs were able to present information on the negative impacts of government policies, many did not have the capacity to put forward viable alternatives.

However, the analyses on civil society?s engagement in the PRSP highlight that many Southern CSOs did actively mobilise around the PRSP, either in the official consultations or in parallel CSO-led participation processes. Furthermore, a number of strong networks were formed specifically to engage in the PRSP process. For many CSOs in PRSP countries, this was their first experience of engaging directly with the policy process and it was viewed as an important opportunity to present evidence on the impact of policies on reducing poverty and to influence the policy content of future national poverty reduction plans.

This synthesis study takes the examples of the PRSP processes in Bolivia and Tanzania. The paper looks at the consultation process itself and the types of evidence used by CSOs. A recent study by Pollard and Court (2004) looks at how CSOs use evidence to influence policy. The study argues that in order for the evidence to have an impact on the policy process, it must be relevant, appropriate and timely as well as valid, reliable, convincing to its audience and communicated in an effective way. The issue of what evidence was used by CSOs in PRSP consultations is not often discussed in commentaries on the process. This paper will set out the evidence used by some CSOs that participation in these PRSP processes in an attempt to understand the role of evidence in influencing the policy content of the PRSPs.

Related links:

http://www.sarpn.org.za/documents/d0002121/index.php