Previous Guidelines for World Bank & IMF Staff

Guidelines for Joint Staff Assessment of a Poverty Reduction Strategy Paper

When a Poverty Reduction Strategy Paper (PRSP) is presented by a government to the Executive Boards of the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund, it is accompanied by an assessment of that strategy by Bank and Fund staff--the Joint Staff Assessment (JSA). This note provides guidance to Bank and Fund staff on preparing JSAs of full PRSPs.

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Guidelines for Joint Staff Assessments of PRSP Annual Progress Reports on Implementation

The Poverty Reduction Strategy Paper (PRSP) approach is intended to be an on-going effort through which low-income countries improve public actions for poverty reduction and increase the effectiveness of both domestic resources and development assistance. It is envisaged that countries will periodically update their poverty reduction strategies, between two to five years. In each of the intervening years, annual progress reports on implementation should be prepared and discussed in country and presented, together with a Joint Staff Assessment (JSA), for consideration by the Executive Boards of the World Bank and IMF. With a view to minimizing the administrative burden on countries, it is expected that the reporting on progress could be integrated within regular government processes (e.g., annual budget, poverty, and/or development reports) and be presented as short summary documents. The exact timing of the annua l report is flexible, and could also change over time in order to become consistent with national reporting and decision making processes.

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Guidelines for PRSP Preparation Status Reports and Accompanying JSAs

If a country requests continued access to Fund concessional assistance, but has not completed its full PRSP within one year of its initial I-PRSP, it would be required to provide a report to the Boards of the Bank and the Fund indicating the progress that had been made in developing its full PRSP. These guidelines are intended to assist countries in the preparation of reports on status of PRSP preparation and staff with respect to the accompanying Joint Staff Assessments (JSA). The principle underlying these guidelines is that the administrative burden on both countries and Bank-Fund staff should be minimized, since priority attention should remain on finalizing the full PRSP.

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Guidance on IPRSPs and Joint Staff Assessments of IPRSPs

Since the two Boards' approval of the Joint IMF/World Bank Paper on "Poverty Reduction Strategy Papers: Operational Issues," a number of staff have asked for further guidance on the suggested common elements of Interim PRSPs (I-PRSPs) and on the expected content of the Joint (Bank-Fund) Staff Assessments (JSA) of I-PRSPs. This note provides such guidance, recognizing that I-PRSPs are country-owned documents for which the IMF and the Bank should not specify a rigid blue-print.

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