Report on an Audit of Government's Poverty Reduction Programmes ...

S. Guttal, A. Bendana,and H. Wanguza,“The World Bankand the PRSP:Flawed Thinking andFailing Experiences,”Jubilee South, Focuson the Global South,AWEPON, and theCentro de EstudiosInternacionales withthe support of theWorld Council ofChurches; Ottawa,16 November 2001• Security (p.10-11):o Formulating a modular approach to helping poor people manageriskso Developing national programmes to prevent, prepare for, and respondto macro shocks- fi nancial and natural.o Designing national systems of social risks management that are alsopro-growtho Addressing civil confl icto Tackling the HIV/AIDS epidemic• Dimensions of poverty include (p.19):o Income poverty measured by income and consumptiono Health and education important poverty/well-being indicatorso Vulnerability is the risk that an individual will experience an episode ofincome or health poverty over time. But vulnerability also means theprobability of being exposed to a number of other risks. Voicelessnessand powerlessness2001 • “In the name of poverty reduction, the World Bank and the IMF areseeking an expanded basis for sustaining externally driven structuraladjustment plans. Our review of the actual PRSP processes confi rms preexistingdoubts as to whether these processes represented fundamentalchanges in Bank-Fund programs and thinking. In every case examined themost important element of the PRSPs or interim PRSPs devised are themandatory policy matrices. These orientations detail the now standardizedBank-Fund assortment of policy reform, including liberalization, privatization,fi scal and administrative reform, assets management. Fighting povertybecomes the newest justifi cation for the aging prescriptions geared toincreasing the overall opening of the host country to external economicactors and free market rules.” (p.2)• “Reducing the discussion of poverty to poverty alleviation instead ofthe development model and economic globalization can be intentionallydeceptive. There are a number of elements that are not included in PRSPsbecause they do not fi t within the obligatory neoliberal parameters. Policyand political measures indispensable in many cases to effective povertyand inequality reduction mentioned included land and agrarian reform,progressive taxation, support for domestic markets and protection,food sovereignty, the protection of environment and labor vis-à-visinvestors, assurances of social rights and entitlements, and other forms ofgovernmental protection vis-à-vis the free market. In most offi cial iPRSPsand PRSPs these elements did not appear even in the diagnosis, and ifthe poverty diagnosis is incorrect, so too will the emerging strategy. Thisis why we believe that the policy matrices that appeared in most PRSPprocesses seldom show a demonstrable connection with actual povertyreduction.” (p.2)• “In practice, CSOs and governments came to complain, for different reasons,that the two dynamics –poverty alleviation and debt relief – becameintertwined, hopelessly confused and subject to different expectations”(p.3).65