PRSP Session at the World Bank/Africa NGO Committee Meeting, February 7-8, 2000 (Addis Ababa, Ethiopia)

The objective of the session was to inform members of the group on the PRSP initiative and get their feedback on the approach. The NGOs appreciated the opportunity to learn more about PRSPs and welcomed the emphasis of the approach on participation, but expressed skepticism on the extent to which participation would actually take place and on how this new initiative would link with existing ones. At the end of the meeting, the representatives agreed to engage in the process and set up a mechanism to disseminate information and interact with the Bank. 

More Detailed Account

The PRSP session started with two Bank presentations: Giovanna Prennushi covered the overall approach and how it had emerged, and progress to date; Shimwaayi Muntemba described the content of the participation toolkit and the emphasis on gender aspects. The Bank representatives distributed the December joint Board paper, the latest version of the Brochure (which was well received), the draft participation sourcebook, and a page on integrating gender aspects. The organizers distributed a couple of other documents, including the press release after the December Board discussion.

Robert Mills of the European NGO network Eurodad (European Network on Debt and Development) was invited to respond and bring the perspective of Northern NGOs. He welcomed the approach, which was seen as an opportunity, but expressed concerns on content and process. On content, he raised questions on whether: (a) countries would be really free to develop their own strategies; (b) the concept of poverty used would be as broad as in the WDR; (c) international constraints faced by poor countries would also be addressed. On process, he expressed concerns on: (a) the risk that linking PRSPs to debt relief may end up compromising the quality and process of PRSPs; (b) whether the Bank and Fund would really work together; (c) whether there has been enough consultation and coordination with other donors; (d) whether participation would really happen.

In the discussion that followed, the key concerns raised were on participation and ownership/ partnership:

• On participation, workshop participants were very skeptical of their governments being serious about participation, and questioned the ability of Bank staff to be participatory themselves, describing CAS consultations as a farce; one proposed that Bank staff be trained with the help of NGOs.
• On ownership and partnership, there was concern that the Bank/Fund had not consulted with other donor agencies.

The meeting organizer, Jalal Abdel Latif of the Addis-based Inter Africa Group, closed the session observing that NGOs had concerns on whether the process would be truly participatory, especially since it has not been very participatory so far, but were willing to engage. However, NGOs have capacity and resource constraints which should be addressed to make their participation meaningful. This commitment was followed up by concrete steps the NGOs agreed on:

• The Inter Africa Group would act as a clearinghouse for information and requested the Bank to make as much information available as possible, in particular the schedule of work for each country, so country NGOs could be alerted and give meaningful inputs.  More information can be found on the web site of the Africa Region NGO Working Group at http://www.afriline.net/index.html.
• The NGO INADES Formation was given the task to review guidelines on the content of PRSPs and inform members/give feedback to the Bank/Fund.

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