Donors view Poverty Reduction Strategy Papers (PRSPs) as instruments to endorse government poverty alleviation policies and enable budget and sector-wide support. Recipient states are aware of pressures that force richer countries to give aid and know that the PRSP is likely to be endorsed ultimately. Donors need to persuade recipient governments to take the process seriously and assume responsibility for the PRSP.

A researcher from the UK Institute of Development Studies analyses Bolivia’s PRSP from the perspective of donors. The author argues that the PRSP document is of little long-term value but the process has broadened dialogue between government, civil society and donors. Donors understand their own role better and recognise that informal economy, such as traders, artisans and farmers can help economic growth. Both government and local communities are now aware about people’s right to hold the government accountable.

Sometimes representatives of bilateral donors stay only for a short time and mix with people they are comfortable with. In Bolivia, they do not completely understand the relationships between local communities, political parties and the government. Donors have their own coordination network to influence both the Bolivian government and the international financial institutions. Some observers see this as good PRSP practice but it may have actually undermined the basic principle that recipient states should have control over the PRSP process.

The researcher reports that:

• Many donor officials knew it was unrealistic to expect Bolivia to undertake a systematic effort to reduce poverty because the elites had a control over natural resources and indigenous population were always neglected.
• Local officials and political party leaders were cynical about the PRSP or saw it as an instrument for getting debt relief.
• Local people involved in the PRSP process and the donor community had a close relationship and socialised frequently due to their shared professional, racial and class background.
• Donors do not interact much with leaders of indigenous origin or trade unionists.

Donor representatives in Bolivia and elsewhere can foster pro-poor policy change. The researcher urges them to:

• learn about the history of the state, listen to local advice and make contact with poor people
• be realistic and set modest goals
• be prepared to pressurize and use conditionality when it can help to deal with non-representative political resistance to the much needed reform
• ensure that coordination between donors does not result in creating state institutions that would only serve donor demands
• support poor people to strengthen national governments and local people relations.

Source(s):
‘Who owns a poverty reduction strategy? A case study of power, instruments and relationships in Bolivia’ in ‘Inclusive aid: changing power and relationships in international development’, edited by Leslie Groves and Rachel Hinton, Institute of Development Studies, pp 57-55, by Rosalind Eyben, 2004

Funded by: Department for International Development, UK

id21 Research Highlight: 12 May 2005

Further Information:
Rosalind Eyben
Institute of Development Studies
University of Sussex
Brighton BN1 9RE
UK

Tel: 44 (0) 1273 606261
Fax: 44 (0) 1273 621202/691647
Contact the contributor: R.Eyben@ids.ac.uk

Institute of Development Studies (IDS), UK

Other related links:
'Tanzania – testing ground for new approaches in development?'

'Any change in policy-making? Assessing Benin’s Poverty Reduction Strategy Paper'

'Innovation and progress? The Poverty Reduction Strategy Paper process in Tanzania'

'Poverty Reduction Strategy Papers in Africa: are they really making a difference to policies?'

'The Poverty Reduction Strategy Paper in Mali: a matter of donor-recipient relations?'

'Poverty Reduction Strategy Papers – empowering poor countries or the World Bank?'

'The Poverty Reduction Strategy Paper in Rwanda: working together to fight poverty?'