The Next Generation of Poverty Reduction Strategy Papers in Africa: What is the Role for Capacity Buiding?

In the late 1990s and at the early path of this century, most African economies embraced poverty reduction strategy papers (PRSPs) as a policy prescription out of the poverty abyss into which their economies had sunk since the early 1970s. The results from the first generation of PRSP processes have been encouraging and have acted as a stimulus for the second generation PRSPs. However, capacity constraints have tended to create difficulties for many of these countries, slowdown the pace of implementation of the PRSP, as well as undermine the achievement of objectives. This study, focusing on a sample of countries in Africa, attempts to identify and characterise the nature of capacity building constraints in the formulation and implementation of PRSPs and suggests capacity building efforts for dealing with these constraints. Four major areas of capacity constraints were identified: capacity for poverty and social impact analysis, monitoring and evaluation, absorptive capacity, public expenditure management, and constraints on prioritisation. Given funding constraints, the paper concludes by prioritising areas of capacity building interventions by capacity building institutions and donors in a bid to strengthen capacity building in Africa.