I- etat des lieux et positions en présence / Current

French civil society organisations position paper on Poverty Reduction Strategy Papers (PRSPs),

March 2001

In September 1999, under fire from critics who revealed the inefficiency of their policies, the international financial institutions announced a new initiative: poverty reduction strategy papers or PRSPs. These PRSPs mark a change in the direction of IMF and World Bank discourse which claims to :

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  make poverty reduction their priority;
  
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  ensure that strategies for fighting poverty are elaborated by the countries themselves, in association with local civil society organisations.
  

International solidarity associations for the promotion of human rights and for the protection of the environment welcomed the evolution of the international financial institutions’ standpoint whilst expressing serious reserves about a process which does not question the entire logic of structural adjustment and leaves the job of approving or not the supposedly national and participatory strategies to these institutions.

One year later these fears have proved to be founded: the elaboration of interim and full PRSPs in numerous countries (Bolivia, Cameroon, Honduras, Mozambique, Nicaragua, Tanzania, Zambia…) indeed show serious failings and a major discrepancy between speech and reality.
This leads us to denounce the following elements:
Civil society participation is not achieved in a satisfactory manner and most often consists of a summary consultation. The elaboration of “unofficial” PRSPs by civil society in several countries illustrates this insufficiency;
National parliaments are not sufficiently involved in the elaboration and validation of defined strategies;
International financial institutions are currently blatantly involved in drafting PRSPs. In these conditions, the principle of ownership of PRSPs defended by the IMF is nothing but an illusion;
Even if civil society organisations are invited to express their views on the nature or even the causes of poverty, they are kept away from discussions on economic policies. However, these policies are the only things which contribute in an effective and lasting manner in eradicating poverty and reducing inequalities. Moreover, in the PRSPs and interim PRSPs which have already been produced, definitions of the main macro-economic orientations have not been associated with fighting poverty.
The drafting of a PRSP is required in order to receive the debt reduction provided for in the Heavily Indebted Poor Countries (HIPC) initiative framework. Yet there is a fundamental contradiction between the urgency for an immediate cancellation of poor countries’ debts and the necessity for the elaboration of successfully completed national strategies. This contradiction, which has been partially recognised by the international financial institutions, has led to the adoption of a measure which, on the surface, appears pragmatic: the so called “interim ” PRSPs. Written hastily, without any real participatory process and copied from models of existing programmes, interim PRSPs do not as a result fulfil any of the established objectives.
PRSPs have to be formally approved by the boards of the IMF and World Bank. Since debt reduction and structural adjustment facilities, renamed “Poverty Reduction and Growth Facilities”, are conditional on the adoption of the PRSP, poor country governments in need of financing are driven to conform to the implicit or explicit demands of the international financial institutions.
Therefore, these days, the PRSPs which are elaborated do not get away from the structural adjustment framework which has been imposed for years: deregulation, privatisation, reduction of public expenditure etc, and content themselves with adding improved “safety nets” in order to try and soften the harmful consequences. Yet the risks of PRSPs are even greater because they do not only affect debt reduction, but also become the main framework for international bilateral and multilateral aid.
That is why we believe that, in these conditions, PRSPs do not allow poor countries to become actors in their own development. We reaffirm peoples’ inalienable right to determine their own development policy in the respect of fundamental human rights and international treaties and conventions.
In order to fight poverty, it is first necessary to stop producing it. Therefore, PRSPs should not be limited to poverty reduction strategies, but become real frameworks for sustainable human development.
1° We are thus asking the international financial institutions and their major shareholders:
To immediately cancel poor countries’ debts, to put in place the necessary reduction mechanisms for the other southern countries and to de-link these measures from the implementation of PRSPs;
To help the exercise of democratic control in the elaboration of PRSPs through the full participation of national parliaments as well as civil society organisations;
To end implicit or explicit pressure which aims to impose the structural adjustment model in the elaboration of PRSPs;
To make all elements of appreciation for PRSPs transparent.
2° In particular we are asking France and the European Union:
To instigate a real debate in France and Europe together with southern countries about French and European policies within the international financial institutions;
To ensure that their choices regarding development aid are not subordinate to the judgement of PRSPs held by the international financial institutions.
More generally, we are asking all overseas development aid decision makers:

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  to strongly support these propositions so that PRSPs can become real frameworks for sustainable human development. These frameworks should involve the full participation of national parliaments, governments and the different members of civil society, including with regard to the definition of macroeconomic orientations.
  

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  to engage in a thorough reform of the international financial institutions in line with modified regulation of the international economic system (international trade, financial markets etc).
  

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  to substitute lasting development logic for that of the harmful structural adjustment logic by taking care to promote fundamental human rights, respect for the environment and the reduction of inequalities on a national and global scale.