This paper outlines how PRA can be of value to the policy making process by drawing on practical examples from around the world. The paper argues that not only is PRA important in providing poor people with a voice but that it can also challenge the perceptions, behaviours and attitudes of those in authority. The paper warns of the dangers of rapid scaling up of PRA.
In a new approach announced by the World Bank and IMF, civil society is being offered a part in shaping and implementing national anti-poverty strategies. In order to trigger debt relief, countries are being asked to produce a Poverty Reduction Strategy Paper (PRSP) drawing on inputs from all sections of society. This Policy Briefing details what a PRSP actually is, who should be involved, how to build participation into the process, what can be learnt from previous efforts to build participation into policy, where problems lie and how to monitor the process. It argues that learning from previous experience is vital if this new approach is to live up to its ambitious rhetoric.
This synthesis offers a review of experiences in applying participatory approaches to macro-level policy formulation, implementation and monitoring in poverty reduction. The participatory experiences are drawn from research initiatives, donors' country strategies, aid coordination processes, policy advocacy campaigns, institutional change processes, budgetary analysis and formulation and citizens' monitoring mechanisms. The review highlights significant challenges that must be overcome in order to establish participatory, sustainable, country-owned poverty reduction strategies.
This IDS working paper examines the role of knowledge in the process of making and implementing poverty reduction policy. It focuses on the production of poverty knowledge through measurement and assessment, providing an overview of contemporary poverty assessment approaches, and the issues and dilemmas involved in applying them in the context of poverty reduction policy processes. The first section examines the policy process in order to understand the relationship between poverty knowledge and policy change. It looks at how legitimate knowledge is traditionally framed in the policy process as the domain of technical experts who reduce complex phenomena to measurable variables, and how this frame changes if policy is understood as a more chaotic process with multiple actors involved. Section Two discusses the broad questions of what poverty actually is and how it can be measured, focusing on the fact that a consensus appears to have emerged which then obscures the many debates centred around poverty measurement. Three policy events are examined in order to show how different objectives shape the methodological choices policy actors make. The third section focuses on a range of methodologies available for poverty assessments, with a focus on household surveys and participatory poverty assessments (PPAs). Lastly, the World Bank and Oxfam are examined in order to understand how two international development actors with different objectives made use of acquired poverty knowledge in constructing policy messages. The argument is proposed that the agency and objectives of the policy actors themselves are most important in shaping policy narratives.
Effective poverty reduction requires narrowing the gap between words and actions, making trust and accountability real within and between organisations, at all levels and between all actors. Aid agencies today are shifting emphasis from projects and service delivery to a language of rights and governance. They have introduced new approaches and requirements, stressing partnership and transparency. But embedded traditions and bureaucratic inertia mean old behaviours, procedures and organisational cultures persist. This Policy Briefing looks at how current practices maintain such cultures, and at how they can be changed by achieving consistency between personal behaviour; institutional norms and the new development agenda.
This is a study of efforts to improve the responsiveness of public services providers to the needs of service users, particularly the poorest service users. This paper examines over sixty case studies of both public-sector reforms to foster stronger client focus in service delivery; and civil-society initiatives to demand improved services. The work was concerned to identify means of amplifying citizen 'voice' such that engagement with the state moves beyond consultative processes to more direct forms of influence over policy and spending decisions. The case studies upon which the research is based are drawn from around the world, from developing and developed countries such as the UK, USA, India, Brazil, Ghana, Philippines and Tanzania. They are organised into 14 different types of 'voice' or 'responsiveness' mechanisms, and are available on: www.ids.ac.uk/ids/govern/citizenvoice/annexcs.html The study concludes with policy-relevent findings on ways of enhancing citizen-voice in decision-making, planning, and monitoring of public services. Individual case studies are available in full-text at http://www.ids.ac.uk/ids/particip/research/socpol.html
This paper explores the dynamics of the making and shaping of poverty policy. It takes as its starting point a critique of linear versions of policy-making, highlighting the complex interplay of power, knowledge and agency in poverty policy processes. We argue in Section One that the policy process involves a complex configuration of interests between a range of differently positioned actors, whose agency matters, but whose interactions are shaped by power relations. Making sense of contemporary poverty policy requires a closer exploration of the dynamics within and beyond the arenas in which policies are made and shaped. It also requires an understanding of how particular ways of thinking about poverty have gained ascendancy, coming to determine the frame through which poverty is defined, measured and tackled. To do so calls for an historical perspective, one that situates contemporary poverty policy with regard to antecedent visions and versions. Section Two of this paper thus provides an overview of differing narratives on the causes of and solutions to poverty, especially as they have emerged in dominant development discourses. Making sense of participation in the policy process requires that we identify and explore policy spaces in which alternative versions of poverty may be expressed by a variety of voices, and the dynamics of inclusion and exclusion that surround them. In Section Three of this paper, we examine two broad kinds of policy spaces - those that are found in invited forums of participation created from above by powerful institutions and actors, and those more autonomous spaces created from below through more independent forms of social action on poverty related issues. By examining how different narratives of poverty and different actors interact in such spaces - as well as how they may be excluded from them - we can better understand the ways in which power and knowledge frame the policy process.
En un nuevo enfoque anunciado por el Banco Mundial y el FMI, se ofrece a la sociedad civil un papel en la definición y puesta en práctica de las estrategias nacionales en contra de la pobreza. Con el fin de tener acceso a reducciones en sus deudas, se pide a los países que prepaen un documento de Estrategia de Reducción de la Pobreza, fundamentado en contribuciones de todos los sectores de la sociedad. Si bien las experiencias previas muestran que es mucho lo que se puede hacer para que los procesos de diseño de políticas respondan más a las necesidades de los pobres, esas experiencias también indican que esto implica muchos retos y dificultades. Es esencial tomar en cuenta estas lecciones para que el nuevo enfoque esté a la altura de su ambiciosa retórica.
This paper proposes a framework for how empowerment can be conceptually understood and operationally explored. It makes recommendations for forthcoming areas of work within the POVNET Work Programme on empowering poor women and men to participate in, contribute to and benefit from growth. In responding to our terms of reference the authors have sought to introduce ideas and evidence from latest publications on this theme, combined with findings from our own research.
Meaningful accountability can shift power imbalances that prevent sustainable development for people living in poverty and marginalisation. Accountability consists of both the rights of citizens to make claims and demand a response, and the involvement of citizens in ensuring that related action is taken.
However, for the poorest and most marginalised people accountability is often unattainable. This briefing draws on research by the Participate initiative to highlight the key components necessary for processes of accountability to be meaningful for all.