In 1999 the World Bank and IMF introduced a Poverty Reduction Strategy (PRS) approach to development management. A 2005 review of this approach highlighted a need for renewed focus on core principles, including country ownership. This paper from Development Policy Review examines how such principles are put into practice in Uganda. While Uganda’s Poverty Eradication Action Plan (PEAP) has improved development management, its performance against some principles is disappointing. This finding is likely to apply to other countries implementing a PRS.
Uganda’s government launched its PEAP in 1997, with subsequent revisions in 2000 and 2005. The PEAP established a poverty focus throughout government and brought significant positive changes to policy-making. It laid foundations for the alignment of development-partner contributions with national objectives. However, development-partner practice in formulating and implementing the PEAP has in some respects undermined PRS principles.
Uganda has had different experiences of the five principles underlying the PRS approach:
- Country ownership: The original 1997 PEAP, predating the PRS approach, was more strongly locally owned than subsequent partner-dominated versions.
- Results orientation: After initial problems with accountability and dissociation, it is hoped that the 2004 introduction of the National Integrated Monitoring and Evaluation Strategy (NIMES) will improve the evidence base for the PEAP.
- Comprehensive approach: Consecutive versions of the PEAP show increasing comprehensiveness. This demanding breadth of scope, however, creates challenges for prioritisation.
- Partnership framework: While development-partner co-ordination has improved, some partners are not fully aligned with the PEAP. More attention is sometimes paid to PEAP documents than to implementing poverty reduction measures.
- Long-term outlook: The PEAP contains medium and long-term targets through to 2017. Solid expenditure frameworks have helped, but to some extent constrained, planning. Capacity to assess the likely impact of policy alternatives is limited.
Lessons from Uganda’s experience centre on a renewed focus on PRS principles:
- Poverty reduction should be viewed as a political rather than technical exercise. A PRS should involve politicians and be integrated into domestic policy processes. Development-partner requirements should be secondary.
- Strengthening domestic accountability is essential to PRS implementation. PRS practitioners should recognise and build upon links between results, accountability and politics.
- Partnership can be a costly endeavour. Directing local resources towards serving the partnership agenda can come at the cost of addressing important implementation challenges.
- Development partners need to be realistic in their expectations of the quality of the PRS, with more emphasis on process than products. The timeframe and standards for reporting progress should reflect capacity to do so.
- Comprehensiveness should be balanced with prioritisation of achievable targets. Budgets should focus around priority areas to facilitate PRS implementation.
- A strong expenditure framework provides a good basis for PRS formulation. Planning would be enhanced by considering scenarios with various levels of resources and different prioritisation of targets.
