A Political Economy Approach to the PRSP

Process. Constraints and Opportunities

Rosa Alonso I TermeThe World Bank Institute

Joint Donor Staff Training on Partnership for Poverty-

ReductionJune 17-19, 2002

Overview of Presentation

IntroductionThe Origins of the PRSP processThe Origins of the PRSP process.

How did we get here?A Political Economy Approach to:

Data Production and Data UsageParticipation and Civil SocietyPro-Poor PoliciesDonor Coordination

The PRSP process: Overview

World Bank/IMF Annual Meetings, 1996 ⇒ approves the HIPC initiative for comprehensive debt relief.

Cologne Summit, 1999 ⇒ G-8 declares support for deeper debt relief within a framework of poverty reduction

World Bank/IMF Annual Meetings, 1999 ⇒ agreement to link debt relief to the establishment of nationally-owned participatory poverty reduction strategies that will provide the basis of all their concessional lending and for debt relief under the HIPC Initiative.

The PRSP process: Overview II

Core Principles of the PRSP based on the Comprehensive Development Framework:

Country-drivenResults-orientedComprehensive in scopePartnership-orientedLong-term in perspectiveParticipatory

The PRSP process: Overview III

In April 2002:60 PRSP countries (34 Africa, 7 East Asia, 10 ECA, 2 MENA, 3 South Asia, 4 LAC)

42 I-PRSPs completed9 PRSPs completed3 PRSP Progress Report

A PRSP, I-PRSP, or PRSP progress report supported by both the Bank and Fund Board within the preceding 12 months is a condition for:

HIPCs to reach a decision or completion pointApproval of the IMF’s PRGF arrangements or reviewsIDA (World Bank) concessional lending.

Introduction

From a political economy and a historical perspective, the PRSP process is a radical endeavor The only dramatic shifts in economic policy-making have historically come through:

Revolution from below External forces

Introduction (continues)

The PRSP process tries to combine both Can that work and how long will it take?Key to combine ambition with realismTaking account of political economy constraints and a sense of history is helpful

How did we get here?

Intellectual OriginsExperiences on the Ground (in the South)Experiences in the Street (in the North)Institutional Dynamics (in the donor community)

Intellectual Origins

Increasingly-broad conception of welfare and what constitutes development—A. SenNeo-positivist quantificationAnti-government neo-liberalism of the 1980s and 1990sPost-Modern psychological approaches to social sciences

Experiences on the Ground (in the South)

Governments that were neither representative of the population and, in particular, the poor, implementing policies that were neither good for growth nor for poverty-reductionThe traditional approach to development aid did not seem to be “working”—need to look for a new approach

Experiences in the Street(in the North)

Pressure for debt-relief--HIPCCriticism of conditionalityCriticism that structural adjustment policies are not pro-poorCriticism of lack of effectiveness of foreign aid

Institutional Dynamics

HIPC—Ensuring that resources freed by debt relief are used to benefit the poor Mission creep—increasingly broad functions of development aid institutionsLearning Process—fungibility of aidInstitutional allies—the initiative could find ready allies within the development community

The Political Economy of Data Gathering and Data Usage

The quantity, quality, and coverage of the data a country collects says a lot about its prioritiesKey to look at

Decision-making process on what data to collect and trackActual data production Publicity, and Usage (feed-back into policy-making)

Participation and the Role of Civil Society

Participation and good governance are not purely “instrumental”…

“…political liberty and civil freedoms are directly important on their own and do not have to be justified indirectly in terms of their effects on the economy.”(Amartya Sen, Development as Freedom)

Participation and Civil Society(Continued)

But….We should not expect civil society to be necessarily any more “representative” or representative of the interests of the poor than governments

Participation and Civil Society

M. Olson, The Logic of Collective Action:

The smaller and more homogeneous the group, the more likely it is to organizeThe larger the group and the greater the barriers to communication among its members, the less likely it is to organize

Participation and Civil Society

If the poor are geographically disperse, with bad roads and other communications, speak a variety of languages with no common language and constitute the largest group…And the non-poor are geographically-concentrated, with better communications and a common language…

Participation and Civil Society

The best organized among civil society will be civil servants, unions, the business sector, and other non-poor groups…And civil society (just like the government) will be heavily biased toward representing the non-poor

Participation and Civil Society

Thus, an unfettered aggregation of existing social interest groups will almost certainly not automatically yield a pro-poor coalition…therefore…Debatable Issues. How do we ensure that participatory processes provide equal access to poor groups? How representative have PRSP participatory processes really been?How can one foster the formation of pro-poor coalitions?

Participatory Processes and Representative Democracy

The relationship of participatory processes with representative democratic institutions (or simply, with the State) is difficult to articulate because…

Civil society is not uniform and thus does not have one voice, but several—Voices of the Poor, plus other voices in society—thus, aggregation problem

Participatory Processes and Representative Democracy

Debatable Issues:How does one deal with the aggregation of voices in civil society?

And…Once aggregated, how are they integrated with government views?

Sustainability of PRSPs

Importance of involving not just governments and civil society but also Parliaments in the PRSP processIf Parliaments are not involved, PRSPs are viewed as “government” and not “state” documents and thus subject to change with changes in government

PRSPs as Economic Constitutions

PRSPs can be viewed as “Economic Constitutions,” setting a country’s basic development values, objectives, strategies, and operational rules of the game about which there is a societal consensus

But, What Type of Constitutions?

Three types of Constitutions:“State” constitutions--lasting (US)“Government” constitutions—changing (19th century Spain)“Semantic” constitutions—unchanging because irrelevant (Latin America in earlier part of 20th century)

Participation—Pro-Poor Policies and Pro-Growth Policies

Participation—Pro-Poor Policies—Pro-Growth Policies “triad.” We assume/hope they go together…but what if…Debatable Issue

A country implements growth-enhancing, pro-poor policies designed without adequate participation? (East Asia model)A country implements, following the PRSP process, policies that are pro-poor but not pro-growth (policies a la Kerala, Cuba)?

Pro-Poor Policies

With increased attention to data and participation, less attention being paid to policies…But, ultimately, the key to poverty-reduction are improved, more pro-poor policies…And we know quite a bit about what policies are pro-poor

Debatable Issue

So far, there has been more progress on the data and participation fronts than on changing policies…Why?

More and better data is collected that sits on shelves and more voices are being heard and then ignoredThere is a lag. It takes less time to start improving data and to initiate consultative processes than it does to change policy-makingUntil there are substantial changes on the governance side, policies will not improve

Donor Coordination—The Historical Background

Long history of: Colonial tiesCold War prioritiesBureaucratic dynamics leading to competing projects and programs and weak coordination(Often) lack of poverty focus

The role of the donor community

Old approachDonor-drivenProject-dominatedNon-coordinatedOften politically-motivatedWeak accountability

New approachCountry-drivenProgram-dominatedCoordinatedOverriding motivation—poverty reductionEnhanced accountability

Incentives for Donors to Stick to Project Financing--Projects

Appear to be easy to plan, design, control and superviseHave clear visibilityAccountability is easier to establishCan easily tie to procurement from donor goods and servicesAllow by-passing national authorities and pursuit of donor objectives

(A. Birgsten, S. Wangwe et al.)

Incentives for Recipient Countries to Prefer Projects

Those employed in project implementation units benefit Projects allow bidding one donor against anotherA full move to budget support:

Can lose sectoral/institutional development richnessIs risky--Makes the whole budget dependent on donor financing

Incentives for Donors and Recipient Countries to Move to Program and Budget Financing

Build-up of national institutionsIncreased ownership of government policiesAllows focusing on overall quality and pro-poor character of recipient country policiesIncreased effectiveness of aid

How can donor coordination under PRSPs make foreign aid more efficient and pro-poor?

Alignment of donor practicesComplementarity of donor actionLightening of burden on recipient country Joint financing mechanisms helping to overcome:

Pressure from the local “development industry” and Bureaucratic impediments to budget support within donor agency

How can donor coordination under PRSPs make aid more efficient and pro-poor?

Focus on recipient country priorities--joint donor action makes it easier to focus on recipient rather than donor country goalsJoint donor approaches encourage collective risk-taking…AND coordination among some donors may have spill-over effects onto others through peer pressure

The donor community and the PRSP process what is expected?

Debatable issues:Who assesses and how do we assess whether policies are pro-poor?What are the down sides and risks of country “ownership” of PRSs for the donor community? How do we weigh the quality of policies versus institutional/political considerations in evaluating poverty-reduction strategies?

Making donor coordination happen

Debatable issues:Focus on progressive donors committed to the PRSP process—forget about others?How does one ensure coordination on the side of the IFIs?What role can governments in PRSP countries play to push along donor coordination?