The World Bank’S Poverty Reduction Strategy Paper Approach: Good Marketing Or Good Policy?

In 1999, the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund adopted a new set of processes to guide lending to some of the world´s poorest countries. This set of processes is known as the Poverty Reduction Strategy Paper (PRSP) approach. This study reviews the PRSP approach. The study begins with a primer of just what the PRSP approach is. In what ways does it represent a change in practices and in what ways is it a codification of business-as-usual? The paper then reviews the recent "mid-term" evaluations of the PRSP approach conducted both internally by the Bank and Fund as well as by external organizations. It is argued that neither the internal nor external reviews are asking the really hard questions. To really evaluate the PRSP approach, it is necessary to compare outcomes to what would have happened but for the PRSP´s implementation. That means evaluating the marginal impact of the approach. Knowing whether the PRSP process is really addressing the concerns of the poor means being able to identify the poor, measure changes in their well-being, and then analyse whether these changes are in fact due to changes in policy resulting from the PRSP approach.