IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/bwp/bwppap/14311.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Evaluating ten years of ‘strategizing’ for poverty reduction: a cross-sectional appraisal of the Poverty Reduction Strategy Paper (PRSP) initiative

Author

Listed:
  • Richard Marshall
  • Bernard Walters

Abstract

In late 1999 a joint meeting of the IMF and World Bank announced the introduction of Poverty Reduction Strategy Papers (PRSPs) as a means of securing comprehensive development, alongside a framework for the provision of increased financial support (specifically via debt relief). PRSPs were pathbreaking in at least two senses. First, because poverty reduction rather than other economic objectives became the focus of policy-based lending; and second, in bringing strategic planning back into the mainstream development agenda. As the decade progressed, PRSPs became the primary framework through which economic and social policy was crafted and managed in low-income countries, and there are now 67 PRSP arrangements in place. Yet, in spite of the passage of ten years, there remains no authoritative evaluation of the initiative’s impact. This paper aims to fill this lacuna, by offering a cross-sectional appraisal based on sound counterfactual analysis. It makes use of a series of quantitative methods, including exhaustive econometric evaluations, of two specially constructed panel datasets. The analysis also employs Bourguignon’s (2004) discussion of the poverty-growth-inequity triangle, and the role played by policy in mediating the core relations. The objective is to appraise performance in terms of poverty reduction, but also to disentangle the separate impacts of distributional change and economic growth. The results provide some evidence of a positive PRSP treatment effect in relation to poverty reduction, but with this operating exclusively via the growth channel. While this lends support to PRSPs as enhanced growth strategies, it undermines their claims to secure more widely balanced, and hence, pro-poor, growth. A number of evidential issues are also addressed, which cast doubt on the strength of the apparent performance gains.

Suggested Citation

  • Richard Marshall & Bernard Walters, 2011. "Evaluating ten years of ‘strategizing’ for poverty reduction: a cross-sectional appraisal of the Poverty Reduction Strategy Paper (PRSP) initiative," Global Development Institute Working Paper Series 14311, GDI, The University of Manchester.
  • Handle: RePEc:bwp:bwppap:14311
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://hummedia.manchester.ac.uk/institutes/gdi/publications/workingpapers/bwpi/bwpi-wp-14311.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Ravallion, Martin & Chen, Shaohua, 1997. "What Can New Survey Data Tell Us about Recent Changes in Distribution and Poverty?," The World Bank Economic Review, World Bank, vol. 11(2), pages 357-382, May.
    2. Shaohua Chen & Martin Ravallion, 2010. "The Developing World is Poorer than We Thought, But No Less Successful in the Fight Against Poverty," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 125(4), pages 1577-1625.
    3. Ravallion, M. & Datt, G., 1991. "Growth and Redistribution Components of Changes in Poverty Measures," Papers 83, World Bank - Living Standards Measurement.
    4. Datt, Gaurav & Ravallion, Martin, 1992. "Growth and redistribution components of changes in poverty measures : A decomposition with applications to Brazil and India in the 1980s," Journal of Development Economics, Elsevier, vol. 38(2), pages 275-295, April.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Meg Elkins & Simon Feeny & David Prentice, 2015. "Do Poverty Reduction Strategy Papers reduce poverty and improve well-being?," Discussion Papers 15/02, University of Nottingham, School of Economics.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Bluhm R & Crombrugghe D.P.I. de & Szirmai A., 2013. "The pace of poverty reduction - A fractional response approach," MERIT Working Papers 2013-051, United Nations University - Maastricht Economic and Social Research Institute on Innovation and Technology (MERIT).
    2. Facundo Alvaredo & Leonardo Gasparini, 2013. "Recent Trends in Inequality and Poverty in Developing Countries," CEDLAS, Working Papers 0151, CEDLAS, Universidad Nacional de La Plata.
    3. Azevedo, Joao Pedro & Inchauste, Gabriela & Sanfelice, Viviane, 2013. "Decomposing the recent inequality decline in Latin America," Policy Research Working Paper Series 6715, The World Bank.
    4. Augustin Kwasi Fosu, 2009. "Inequality and the Impact of Growth on Poverty: Comparative Evidence for Sub-Saharan Africa," Journal of Development Studies, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 45(5), pages 726-745.
    5. Fosu, Augustin Kwasi, 2017. "Growth, inequality, and poverty reduction in developing countries: Recent global evidence," Research in Economics, Elsevier, vol. 71(2), pages 306-336.
    6. Azevedo, Joao Pedro & Inchauste, Gabriela & Olivieri, Sergio & Saavedra, Jaime & Winkler, Hernan, 2013. "Is labor income responsible for poverty reduction ? a decomposition approach," Policy Research Working Paper Series 6414, The World Bank.
    7. Samuel Fambon, 2005. "Croissance économique, pauvreté et inégalité des revenus au Cameroun," Revue d’économie du développement, De Boeck Université, vol. 13(1), pages 91-122.
    8. Ravallion, Martin, 2001. "Growth, Inequality and Poverty: Looking Beyond Averages," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 29(11), pages 1803-1815, November.
    9. Meng, Xin & Gregory, Robert & Wang, Youjuan, 2005. "Poverty, inequality, and growth in urban China, 1986-2000," Journal of Comparative Economics, Elsevier, vol. 33(4), pages 710-729, December.
    10. Tarlok Singh, 2022. "Economic growth and the state of poverty in India: sectoral and provincial perspectives," Economic Change and Restructuring, Springer, vol. 55(3), pages 1251-1302, August.
    11. Bluhm, Richard & de Crombrugghe, Denis & Szirmai, Adam, 2018. "Poverty accounting," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 104(C), pages 237-255.
    12. Azevedo, Joao Pedro & Sanfelice, Viviane & Nguyen, Minh C., 2012. "Shapley Decomposition by Components of a Welfare Aggregate," MPRA Paper 85584, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    13. Martin Ravallion, 2018. "What might explain today’s conflicting narratives on global inequality?," WIDER Working Paper Series 141, World Institute for Development Economic Research (UNU-WIDER).
    14. Richard Bluhm & Denis de Crombrugghe & Adam Szirmai, 2016. "Poverty Accounting. A fractional response approach to poverty decomposition," Working Papers 413, ECINEQ, Society for the Study of Economic Inequality.
    15. Martin Ravallion, 2018. "What might explain today's conflicting narratives on global inequality?," WIDER Working Paper Series wp-2018-141, World Institute for Development Economic Research (UNU-WIDER).
    16. Juan Luis Londoño & Miguel Székely, 2000. "Persistent Poverty and Excess Inequality: Latin America, 1970-1995," Journal of Applied Economics, Universidad del CEMA, vol. 3, pages 93-134, May.
    17. Desire Avom & Fabrizio Carmignani & Abdour Chowdhury, "undated". "Four Scenarios of Poverty Reduction and the Role of Economic Policy," MRG Discussion Paper Series 3109, School of Economics, University of Queensland, Australia.
    18. repec:pru:wpaper:21 is not listed on IDEAS
    19. Montalvo, Jose G. & Ravallion, Martin, 2010. "The pattern of growth and poverty reduction in China," Journal of Comparative Economics, Elsevier, vol. 38(1), pages 2-16, March.
    20. Kalwij, A.S. & Verschoor, A., 2004. "How Good is Growth for the Poor? The Role of Initial Income Distribution in Regional Diversity in Poverty Trends," Other publications TiSEM 199ed5a4-ad69-4cf9-81d7-b, Tilburg University, School of Economics and Management.

    More about this item

    NEP fields

    This paper has been announced in the following NEP Reports:

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:bwp:bwppap:14311. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Rowena Harding (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/wpmanuk.html .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.