Poverty Reduction Growth Facility - New Rules?

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The New "Rules of the Game" -

Adding Process to Outcome

 

Participation and monitoring and evaluation as essential components of a successful poverty reduction approach

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

a discussion paper by

 

Derek MacCuish,

 

Social Justice Committee of Montreal and Halifax Initiative Coalition, Canada

 

January 2000

Contents

 

 

 

 

Introduction: The “new rules of the game”                                                 1

 

Summary of recommendations on participation                                                 1         Summary of recommendations on monitoring and evaluation                                    2   Context                                                                                       3   What are meant by “poverty” outcomes? Potential challenges to ideological contexts              5   Learning from experience:

  Aspects of participation – the World Bank                                                  6

 

  Aspects of participation – the IMF                                                            9

 

  Aspects of monitoring and evaluation                                                            10

 

References                                                                                   12

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

With appreciation to Brian O’Neil and Gordon Walker for their helpful comments.

Introduction: The "new rules of the game"

 

   The IMF and World Bank emerged from their Annual Meetings at the end of September with a stated desire to provide a renewed focus on poverty in their programs.  At the IMF, the Poverty Reduction and Growth Facility is to replace the Enhanced Structural Adjustment Facility as the main lending instrument to poor countries. Working together, the World Bank and IMF are to play support roles as countries script "Poverty Reduction Strategy Papers" (PRSP), the documents which are to provide the main guidelines for their economic development.

   IMF Managing Director Camdessus summarized the new framework as centred on the creation of "a new comprehensive vehicle, the PRSP, that is government-led, poverty-focused, based on an open and consultative process". (Camdessus 1999, p2) The IMF regards the new framework has having three main components:

- debt reduction

- coordination between international financial institutions

- establishment of the Poverty Reduction and Growth Facility as a new IMF instrument, putting poverty outcomes explicitly into economic planning

 

   For the new framework to be effective, it is necessary that basic elements of participation and evaluation be in place at the outset:[1]

 

·           a participatory process that actively engages all stakeholders in program design and implementation, both at a policy level and at the country level

 

·           objective monitoring and evaluation of the new poverty framework as it is incorporated into the operations of the World Bank and IMF themselves.  These would provide an ongoing assessment beyond those to be conducted in-country, by looking at the new framework in terms of the effectiiveness of the institutions.

 

 

Summary of recommendations on participation

 

   Defining the participatory process should itself result from discussion amongst stakeholders which, if the process is to be successful, needs to begin as soon as possible and continue regularly as part of Bank and Fund operations in the poorest countries.

   Indeed, this discussion should rightly have begun immediately after the decisions on the poverty framework were announced. As it is, the Bank and Fund are following their custom of retreating to in-house conversation, with working papers provided by the staffs to their boards, and an assumption that at some point there will be an opportunity for outsiders to comment on the content. This should not be considered a participatory process.

 

   For the participatory process to be honest and effective, the Bank and Fund will have to move to actively ensure that the participation that is envisaged is one of more than just "consultation", but rather one that provides real influence in the policy formation process. This may include providing capacity-building support to stakeholders that are at a disadvantage with regard to being able to engage in the policy dialogue, especially those who may be vulnerable, yet may ordinarily be overlooked in a consultative process.

 

   Participation should bring another dimension, one of real dialogue with the aim of arriving at outcomes that are not largely pre-scripted and then presented for acceptance or minor modification.

 

    The participation of civil society should not be confined to limited aspects of project implementation[SK1] , but should be expanded to include a proper role in monitoring and evaluating program design and outcome.

 

    For a participatory process that is to provide real influence on policy, the new framework can not just be a subtle re-working of the old, with small modifications in response to the rhetoric of the Boards of Directors of the institutions. The institutions can not be the arbiters of the extent to which challenges to Washington Consensus preconceptions are provided or not, or whether challenges are deemed viable or acceptable.

 

   Later in this paper, there will be an exploration of the experience with participatory practice at the World Bank, and the lessons to be learned from these, including suggestions of how these might be effectively incorporated into project design and implementation.

 

 

Summary of recommendations on monitoring and evaluation

 

   Monitoring and evaluating the World Bank and IMF as they undertake the new framework for working with poor countries - the Poverty Reduction and Growth Facility - should be undertaken seperately  from the evaluation of in-country implementation of policy as guided by individual country Poverty Reduction Strategy Papers. For successful transition to the new framework, a system of objective monitoring and evaluation of the program process itself is necessary.

 

   Such monitoring and evaluation should be done through a semi-autonomous unit that adopts a "team" approach involving both Fund and Bank, along with (an) external participant(s).

   The team approach should provide a sense of ownership to both institutions, and contribute to the desire for effective follow-up on any recommendations that may be provided.  The contribution from one or more external participants would be necessary, since the new poverty framework deeply affects Bank and Fund policy. The assistance of external expertise would contribute to a sense of objectivity and fairness in the evaluation process.

   This unit should report to the Boards of Directors of the two institutions, and make its reports available to the public at large, providing unbiased assessments of how the new framework is operating, identifying successes and problem areas, and recommending more appropriate or more finely tuned policies where necessary.

   This unit should monitor the operations of the institutions as they implement the Poverty Reduction and Growth Facility framework, and provide frequent and regular evaluations of the extent to which the PRGF is contributing to creating conditions underwhich poverty reduction can be expected.  In the medium and longer term, the unit should provide evaluation of the extent to which poverty reduction in program countries actually takes place.

 

   Both process and outcome should be part of this monitoring and evaluation.  The Boards of Directors of these institutions should be provided regular objective assessments of the extent to which there is success at ensuring the process is participatory, and inclusive of civil society, at all stages of program design and implementation.

 

   The monitoring and review process should be transparent, with clear terms and explicit frames of reference.

 

 

Context

 

   The placing of poverty at the centre of the new framework for both institutions is a solid first step in the improvement of their programs in the poor countries. Making poverty reduction goals more explicit in economic planning is, of course, a laudable goal for the IMF and World Bank.

   The immediate question, now that the institutions have announced where they wish to go, is: how will they attempt to get there?  For the new framework, what are the new "rules of the game"?  (The phrase "rules of the game" was used by World Bank management in discussions with non-governmental organizations (NGOs) at the September 1999 Annual Meetings, where the first invitation was made to civil society representatives to engage in discussions of how, indeed, the new "rules of the game" were to be scripted.)

   There are several aspects of how the new "rules" should be crafted, and there will be substantial difficulties making the rhetoric of the 1999 Annual Meetings effectively operational. Only part of what will be wrestled with is the tension between the desire for effective implementation and the pressure for speed that derives from the human tragedy at the heart of the discussions.

 

   Although the poverty framework is to be driven by poverty reduction outcomes, the question of process arises as an important prerequisite to satisfactory outcomes, especially as it applies to the new framework and early efforts to block out what the new rules are to be.

   If the new framework is to be open and participatory from the outset, a brief look at Bank and Fund experience to date in the areas of process, participation, monitoring and evaluation should be of value.  Arguments for particular approaches are provided in an effort to reinforce broad objectives of participation, beyond any specific recommendations of how to proceed in the short term. Defining the participatory process should itself result from discussion amongst stakeholders which, if the process is to be successful, needs to begin as soon as possible and continue regularly as part of Bank and Fund operations in the poorest countries.

   Indeed, this discussion should rightly have begun immediately after decisions on the poverty framework were announced. As it is, the Bank and Fund are following their custom of retreating to in-house conversation, with working papers provided by the staffs to their boards, and an assumption that at some point there will be an opportunity for outsiders to comment on the content. This is not a participatory process. It may, at best, be considered a consultative one, but it is not participatory.

   The effective participation of civil society and other stakeholders is necessary at the outset of the new framework in order to maximize the effectiveness and long-term viability of poverty reduction efforts. This means going beyond extending an invitation to interested groups or providing public access to information, both of which are important aspects of participation It means actively providing support and building capacity in civil society, and ensuring that the participation that is envisaged is one of more than just "consultation", but rather one that provides real influence in the policy formation process.

   Efforts to reduce poverty are not, of course, going to provide outcome indicators for some years. This is a long-term undertaking that will not lend itself to evaluation of results and impacts before conclusion of the effort. On the other hand, there is every reason to ensure that there is an effective means of evaluating whether the implementation of the new framework is headed in the right direction, through the use of benchmark targets and short-terms indicators, including assessment of the process itself, at reasonable time intervals given the pressures for timely implementation. Evaluations should be as independent and objective as feasible, and there should be an ongoing monitoring of the process, which would include civil society participation.

   None of this is revolutionary.  Indeed, the World Bank paper "Building Poverty Reduction Strategies in Developing Countries"  (Sept. 22, 1999) considered that implementation of the new framework would require "substantial capacity in (i) the analysis of poverty; (ii) the selection of monitorable indicators; (iii) the design of programs; (iv)the monitoring of indicators; and (v) facilitating widespread consultation and participation on all of the above." (p14)

   The paper continues on poverty reduction and participation:

 

"Participation is an important part of the development of national poverty reduction strategies with governments. This should not be limited to consultations with handful of NGOs, [sic] but should involve a range of stakeholders, including poor women and men, with documentation of priorities and recommendations of different groups, whether or not these are adopted. The Bank has accumulated extensive experience in carrying out and facilitating participatory processes. Where appropriate, Bank support could be provided to support the consultations in countries developing poverty reduction strategies. A number of external partners, including international NGOs would be well-placed to provide this type of assistance."  (p15)

 

   Yet the new "rules of the game" do not arrive outside of a historical or ideological context. They are to be implemented in institutions that have endured years of criticism of their programs in developing countries, amidst a substantial degree of suspicion and distrust about the extent to which the new rhetoric will translate into something effective and positive for the poorest of the world.  This paper will start with an outline of some aspects of the assumptions that may be challenged by the new process. Throughout, the paper relies heavily on previous discussions that have taken place at the Fund and the Bank themselves, in recognition that whatever comes to fruition in the "rules of the game" discussions will largely be built on what has gone before in these institutions.

 

 

What is meant by “poverty” outcomes? Potential challenges to ideological contexts

 

   As the institutions move to implement the new framework, one concern is the extent to which the efforts to "put governments in the drivers' seat" will be respected if a government's priorities do not reflect the "Washington Consensus" that still prevails, especially in IMF programs.[2]  Although recently there is a more open recognition that individual country cases require different sets of actions, the amount of flexibility that is available in policy choices is likely to remain limited.

   In discussing social issues, IMF staff consider that "macroeconomic adjustment generally benefits the poor", although "a tension may emerge, between stabilization and social protection objectives". (IMF 27 Aug. 1999, p8, 10)  There is a view within the institution that IMF policies to date are not generally in need of reform themselves, although there is an admission that in countries studied "staff monitoring of social safety nets has been infrequent... In only one third of the twelve countries reviewed was an assessment made of the coverage and incidence of social safety nets during the five year period." (p16)

   The IMF's staff person responsible for the efforts to improve ESAF based on the internal and external evaluations of the program, for example, argued that the Fund had little to correct in its assumptions:

 

"There is now an increasing consensus that ESAF supported programs do provide the right core policies. There are NGOs who are being left behind a little in terms of this consensus...  I don't think, frankly, that there is any reason, if you look at the accumulated evidence on experience of countries with economic growth and adjustment policies, there is no reason why people should still be questioning the importance of these policies." (IMF, 24 Sept. 1999) 

 

   He remains loyal to the trickle-down model by which economic growth is of benefit to the poor, and of value in itself:  "We know that pro-growth policies will usually benefit the poor [but also] pro-poor policies, by which I mean things like investment in health, education, rural infrastructure and so on, are a good way in themselves to boost the rate of economic growth."

   The extent to which the new framework builds positively on past practice, and the extent to which it carries over some negative aspects needs to be questioned.  World Bank staff have already indicated that there is much of the old in the new mix: "This framework is not entirely new... a number of countries, including Uganda, Mozambique, Bolivia and the South Asian region more generally, have moved in this direction... But no country has fully and systematically applied a poverty outcomes-based framework. The ideal vehicle to take this forward is the Country Assistance Strategy (CAS)." (World Bank 1999, p20-21)

    The effectiveness of the CAS process is questionable, however. As it is, barely half of CASs prepared in FY1998 were judged fully satisfactory in their integration of poverty issues into the framing of a forward-looking strategy. (World Bank, "Poverty..." 1999)  Is the new framework, then, to be a subtle re-working of the old, with small modifications in response to the rhetoric of the Boards of Directors of the institutions?   The answer may lie in the extent to which challenges to Washington Consensus preconceptions are provided or not, and deemed viable or acceptable or not.

   The director of the World Bank Institute, Vinod Thomas, has argued that "the volatility and inequality of growth in the 1990s have been especially harmful to the poor, with external shocks throwing millions of near-poor back to permanent impoverishment."  (Thomas, p4) There is broad admission that the emphasis on growth was a "quantity-first quality-later" approach which Thomas called "costly for human welfare".  He called for a shift in emphasis, including "nurturing civil liberties, participatory processes, and capacity building to complement policy changes, replacing efforts to get only the government side of policies right, with a shift to quality that requires participation and civil outreach.. The implication is not to detract from government policy and capacity-building but to expand attention to consensus-building in civil society."  (p8)

   As to the interface between the market and social welfare, there is "no single mapping between the market and the set of non-market institutions required to sustain it", as Dani Rodrik put it at a recent IMF conference. (Rodrik 1999)

   The World Bank's Operations Evaluation Department, in the 1998 Annual Review, argued that "Growth and an outward orientation are keys to reducing poverty. But alone, they are not enough for sustainable progress. Better safety nets and better-targeted expenditures on those aspects of poverty for which markets do not work are essential." (World Bank 1999, p25)  Even beyond this, it went on to say that "more than safety nets and income growth are needed to achieve DAC's poverty goals."[3] (p36)

 

   Going beyond a "safety net" approach means recognizing social well-being for the poor as a objective in program planning, rather than attempting to deal with the negative impact of programs by adding on some form of social protection. It means trying to understand what poverty is, in all its complexity, and tackling problems by taking into account the perspectives of the poor themselves. The objective should be one of placing social improvement at the centre of program design and implementation, starting with meeting basic needs of the poor and providing income opportunities, rather than one of dealing with negative impact via secondary programs that attempt to mitigate the damage.

 

 

Learning from experience    Aspects of participation – the World Bank

 

   Efforts to include civil society participation have increased at the World Bank in recent years, and there is every indication that this is both welcome and positive for project outcome. NGOs were involved in 38% of Bank projects in 1998, up from 20% in 1989, according to the World Bank's Operations Evaluation Department (OED). The OED considers that this meant an improvement in gender equality, environmental protection and poverty alleviation, but noted that NGO efforts were plagued by erratic funding, lack of financial independence, and low government capacity to work with NGOs and community-based organizations. (World Bank 1999)

   On the other hand, there is a criticism that the Bank has used the word "participation" loosely in practice, dealing with borrower governments but not with the people who are affected. In her 1996 book on the World Bank, Catherine Caulfield states that Indian diplomat Sunil Roy, a critic of the Narmada dam, argued that "the claim that the Bank cooperates with NGOs is a hoax. They only cooperate with respectable NGOs, the ones who will tell them what they want to hear". (Caulfield, p310)

   To a great extent, participation should be understood as a process in which all parties take part with something of an equal footing, rather than one where those who actually control the process are undertaking to "consult" with others, who do not themselves have the capacity to influence policy except to the extent that their suggestions are assessed and deemed acceptable.  Participation brings another dimension, one of real dialogue with the aim of arriving at outcomes that are not largely pre-scripted and then presented for acceptance or minor modification.  This dialogue implies that there is a dynamic of flexibility, mutual respect and capacity to learn in participatory processes

 

   Effective participation also means doing more than providing access to information and broad invitations to provide input from the outside of the decision-making structure.  Policy decisions should not be restricted to those conversations that are held in the Bank and Fund offices in Washington, but should be based on dialogue with stakeholders wherever the programs are to have an impact.  Consultations, if they are to be effective, may well be difficult, time-consuming, and expensive, especially if there has to be a strengthening of capacity on the ground level, but they are a necessary component of participatory processes if poverty reduction efforts are to be successful. These efforts must include those who may be vulnerable, yet may ordinarily be overlooked in a consultative process:

 

"Reaching and engaging the poor requires special arrangements and efforts by the sponsors and designers that go beyond those used to involve government officials and other relatively powerful stakeholders in participatory processes." (p6)

 

   It may be helpful to recognize two or more levels of consultation or participation: at the level of national strategy, which may involve delegated representatives who speak on behalf of the poor, for example, and the local level, with more direct participation. The success of both relies on ensuring adequate stakeholder representation. In all cases, the local context must be taken into account, of course, recognizing that national or local governments may be resistant to the kinds of participatory processes this paper is discussing.

   The Bank and Fund can be encouraged in their move to participatory processes in the new framework given the results from the Bank's Participatory Poverty Assessment (PPA) process.  This technique was used in 45% of the Bank's completed poverty assessments in the last five years. The stated desire was to use a variety of flexible methods for the assessments, rather than a pre-determined set of questions, taken from a philosophy of trying to "understand poverty from the perspective of the poor". (Robb p.xiii)  Analysis of these indicate that "experience from past PPAs have shown that the poor have the capacity to appraise, analyze, plan, and act to a far greater extent than has heretofore been acknowledged". Further, PPAs "enable the poor to highlight dimensions of poverty, explain the processes of impoverishment, and rank their priorities". (Robb, p.xiv)

   While these are encouraging in themselves, there is more to the picture, however.  It should be noted that the same study of PPAs also found that while most "appear to have achieved the objective of data collection and analysis, some have achieved the objective of capacity building, but only a few have affected the formulation and implementation of policy, which is necessary if they are to have a wider impact". (Robb pxvi)

   It is this conceptual leap, from participation as the providing of information to participation as inclusive of some level of control over program design and implementation that may be difficult to achieve in practice.  In this, both the pressure for speed and some old institutional habits at the Bank and Fund will operate against desire for real participation.

   There have been lessons learned with the PPAs that may be of value to consider as the new framework takes shape:

 

At the Bank, acknowledgement that "good practice" includes:

- wide ownership across departments, and a team approach

- the integration and balancing of various sector interests

- a commitment to poverty reduction

- management support

At the country level:

- government support

- ownership and commitment of stakeholders[4]

At the community level:

- timing

- methods used

- time allocated for fieldwork

- researcher skills

- degree of institutional linkage

- follow-up and resulting community action

  

   The evaluation of PPAs also pointed to two questions to be asked in a participatory process targeting poverty:

1) who will determine the indicators of success?, and

2) whose values will they reflect?  (Robb pxvii)

   Other suggestions for how to proceed with the kind of wide participation that might be pursued come in the World Bank's Participation Sourcebook:  "When the primary objective is to learn from and collaborate with the poor, a different kind of dynamic is involved that calls for a different approach to facilitating participation. These methods should engage poor people and build their confidence, knowledge base, and capability for action" (for example, using visual methods, in local settings, calling on local knowledge as inputs).  (p7)  These recognize that "constraints exist at the policy level that impinge on the rights of people to organize, access information, engage in contracts, own and manage assets, and participate fully as members of civil society."  (p7)

   The Sourcebook provides four steps for participation:

- analysis (of existing policies and systems)

- setting of objectives

- creation of a strategy

- development of project policies and blueprints

   These are best placed in a context in which it is understood that "key to a participatory approach is the collaborative stance the project sponsors and designers take in carrying out those steps so that stakeholders influence and share control over the decisions that are made". (p2)  This is contrasted with an approach that might be considered more "traditional", in which stakeholders are viewed as sources of information and opinion.  Note that although the Sourcebook provides these suggestions for participation, and these may be guidelines to consider for inclusion in discussions regarding participatory processes in the new framework, they are not yet effectively part of normal Bank operation as it is.

   Another view of what might be considered "key elements" in a participation process for the new framework is provided by Rajesh Tandon and Cordeiro Atreyee, who point to:

- information sharing

- consultation

- joint assessment

- shared decision making

- collaboration

- empowerment

plus ongoing monitoring of process. (Tandon & Atreyee, 1998)

    The participation of civil society should not be limited to project design and implementation of themselves, but should be expanded to include a proper role in monitoring and evaluating program design and outcome. The Committee on Development Effectiveness (CODE), in its report included in the OED 1998 Annual Review, "stressed the critical importance of stakeholder participation in setting development goals and in the design and implementation of appropriate monitoring and evaluation (M&E) systems at the project, sector and country levels." (World Bank 1999, p50)

 

   Aspects of participation: the IMF

 

   Aspects of participation are much less visible on the IMF side, and there is every reason to suppose that engaging with civil society in a real way under the new framework will be a challenge for the institution.

   For example the process of "transforming" the IMF's ESAF program, following on the internal and external evaluations, was to have included aspects of "enhancing ownership" at the country level.  The ESAF Status Report, provided to the Board of Governors in late August 1999, states that the Fund responded to the desire for ownership with an increase in the frequency of "contacts" in 85% of countries covered, with business contacts taking place in 90% of countries covered, and labour and NGO contacts taking place in half.  The report also indicated "an increase in the authorities' own efforts to foster wider program ownership has also been reported... in more than 95% of countries. For example, mission teams consider that governments are now generally more actively engaged in dialogue with civil society than in the past." (IMF Aug 30 1999, p8)

   It is unclear what exactly constitutes a "contact" in this context, and the degree to which this adds to a sense of country ownership.  Poverty monitoring units were established in three of the eleven countries reviewed, but little information was provided on these. Considering the degree to which the Bank has progressed in defining the participatory process, it is probably best at this point for the Bank to take more of a lead on this issue.

   Indeed, the Fund seems to regard participation in the more limited sense already discussed - that provision of information after decisions have been taken is sufficient.

   The limits of the Fund's institutional understanding of these issues is indicated in the 1999 ESAF Report, which stated that, regarding IMF encouragment of a participatory process, "there is a marked increase in the frequency with which countries publish their program documents - an important means of fostering wider program ownership". (p7)  (Information on participation that was provided in the ESAF Report derived from the Internal Fund Staff Survey done in August.)  Although publication of documents is of great value, it is not in itself a strong indicator of either "ownership" or participation, but only a first step in building informed popular participation in decision making.

   Finally, the relationship between the Bank and the Fund is, in itself, another aspect of partnership and participation that is open for monitoring and evaluation.  Six countries were to serve as "pilots" for basic IMF/Bank  joint work on social impact of adjustment policies "and to address this impact in the design of the countries' IMF-supported programs". (IMF 27 Aug. 1999, p34)  Possible points of evaluation were to include Bank/Fund interaction (including in-field consultations), and interaction with regional development banks and the UN system (eg. ILO representation, including in-country representation, and the WHO on health-related issues).  Preliminary results are to be provided in a Board paper in early 2000.

 

 

   Aspects of monitoring and evaluation:

 

"The Committee was concerned that monitoring and evaluation capacity development are receiving too little attention. Evaluation in the Bank cannot be a substitute for an effective system of evaluation in borrowing countries.  Evaluation capacity development must be a priority for Bank operations." (emphasis in original) (World Bank 1999, p51)

 

   Poverty and social improvement have not had a strong enough role in the evaluations that have been done of World Bank programs. The OED considers that "evaluation efforts should give more emphasis to social aspects of Bank operations." (World Bank 1999, p36)  The lack of emphasis has meant a weakness in the data available for proper assessment of poverty situations and in the monitoring of poverty reduction programs:  "Systematically addressing poverty alleviation requires making the poor visible through better data and monitoring systems." (p37)

   Evaluation of Bank projects is done with the use of a "development effectiveness index", which looks at outcome, sustainability, and institutional development. Prominence is given to outcome, in accordance to the desire of the Bank to continue implementing a Results Based Management approach in the effort for better project effectiveness.

   With regard to the implications for Country Assistance Strategies in the new framework, World Bank staff have suggested that "CASs aligned with poverty would need to report briefly on the main characteristics of poverty and its determinants; on trends over time; on linkages between growth and poverty reduction; on the impact of macroeconomic policies and of government programs on the poor; on access to services and programs; and on the main dimensions of vulnerability... Among the elements could be a self-assessment by country departments of the impact of past Bank activities on poverty and social development in the country and their contribution to poverty reduction". (p17)

   To be effective, this reporting would have to be expanded much beyond what is suggested there, so that the poverty concerns that are central to the new framework are provided more than a brief mention in a report. Similarly, poverty reduction outcomes from Bank projects should be evaluated in ways that provide better information than what would result from a process of self-assessment by country departments.

   The IMF Board has been assessing how it may establish a permanent mechanism for evaluation of its programs, following on the ad hoc external evaluations that have been done in recent years. It is expected that recommendations will be ready for discussion at the Spring Meetings, 2000.  Given the positive response generally that accompanied the publication of the external reviews, the ESAF review especially, there is much to be hoped for in this effort. It should be expected that the discussions on a permanent evaluation body at the Fund will incorporate both lessons from the Bank's experience and the expectations that are arising with the new framework.

   If the Bank and Fund truly move into the new framework, the goals will have to become more clear, and the process itself will also need to be one that is transparent and faithful to the rhetoric that accompanied the September meetings.  To ensure these, we will need a way or ways to monitor the process, and ways of evaluating the outcomes on several levels, in several time periods. What these will be and how they will be shaped remains to be seen but, as has been repeatedly emphasized in the work cited in this paper, there must be be civil society participation, in the most active and empowering sense of the word, from the outset of the PRSP process as a whole. In this way, we can expect the programs of the Bank and Fund to shift in a way that may indeed put poverty at the front of the agenda of these institutions, so that we may see effective and sustainable improvement in the lives of millions of the world's poor.

References:

 

 

 

Acreage, Maria. "Participation and the World Bank: Successes, Constraints, and Responses". Discussion paper, Nov. 1998.

 

Camdessus, Michel. "Strengthening the Link Between Economic and Social Policies Within the Framework of a Globalized Economy". Remarks to the Confederal Board of the World Confederation of Labour. 26 Oct. 1999.

 

Caufield, Catherine. Masters of Illusion: The World Bank and the Poverty of Nations. New York: Henry Holt & Co., 1996.

 

Clark, John D. and Winona Dorschel. "Tackling the Issues: Civil Society Participation in World Bank Country Assistance Strategies- Learning from Experience, FY 97-98. April, 1998.

 

IMF.  "Communique of the Interim Committee of the Board of Governors of the IMF". 26 Sept. 1999

 

______. "Concluding Remarks by the Chairman. Review of Social Issues and Policies in IMF-Supported Programs; HPC Initiative - Strengthening the Link Between Debt Relief and Poverty Reduction; and Transforming ESAF". Executive Board Meeting 99/102, 13 Sept. 1999.

 

______. "ESAF in the New Millennium".  Transcript, IMF Economic Forum 24 Sept. 1999.

 

_______. "Review of Social Issues and Policies in IMF-Supported Programs". Fiscal Affairs and Policy Development and Review Departments. BBS/99/171, 27 Aug. 1999.

 

_______. "Statement by the Managing Director on Reform of the Enhanced Structural Adjustment Facility and Poverty Reduction Strategies".  Statement to the Executive Board Meeting, 13 Sept. 1999.

 

_______. "Status Report on Follow-Up to the Reviews of the Enhanced Structural Adjustment Facility". Policy Development and Review Department. 30 Aug. 1999.

 

IMF and World Bank.  "Heavily Indebted Poor Countries (HIPC) Initiative - Strengthening the Link Between Debt Relief and Poverty Reduction", 26 August 1999.

 

______.  "Modifications to the Heavily Indebted Poor Countries (HIPC) Initiative", 23 July 1999.

 

Robb, Caroline M. "Can the Poor Influence Policy? Participatory Poverty Assessments in the Developing World".  World Bank, 1999.

 

Rodrik, Dani. "Institutions for High-Quality Growth: What They Are and How to Acquire Them".  Paper delivered at the IMF Conference on Second Generation Reforms, 1 Oct. 1999.

 

Tandon, Rajesh and Cordeiro Atreyee. "Participation of Primary Stakeholders in the World Bank's Project and Policy Work: Emerging Lessons". Synthesis of cases studies presented at the conference "Upscaling and Mainstreaming Stakeholder Participation", Nov. 1998.

 

Thomas, Vinod. "The Quality of Growth". Paper delivered at the IMF Conference on "Second Generation Reforms", 1 Oct. 1999.

 

Wolfensohn, James. "Coalitions for Change". Annual Meetings Speech, 28 Sept. 1999.

 

World Bank. 1998 Annual Review of Development Effectiveness. Rober Buckley, ed., Operations Evaluation Department. 1999.

 

______. "Building poverty Reduction Strategies in Developing Countries". Staff paper prepared for Development Committee, 22 Sept. 1999.

 

_______. "Comprehensive Development Framework (CDF) Progress Report". SecM99-642, 4 Sept. 1999.

 

_______. "Comprehensive Development Framework: Questions and Answers - Update". CDF Secretariat, 13 Sept. 1999.

 

______. "Managing the Social Dimensions of Crisis: Good Practices in Social Policy". 14 Sept. 1999.