DEVELOPING AND IMPLEMENTING POVERTY

REDUCTION STRATEGIES AND NATIONAL PLANS

A Summary of First Day Proceedings

East Asia Forum on National Plans as Poverty Reduction

StrategiesVientiane, Lao PDR

April 4-6, 2006

Overview of the Presentation

Some highlights from parallel Some highlights from parallel sessions on:sessions on:

Transparency and participationTransparency and participation

Poverty focusPoverty focus

Results-orientationResults-orientation

Aid alignment and harmonizationAid alignment and harmonization

Transparency and communications—lessons from PRSPs for National Plans

Importance of communications campaigns in disseminating PRSs—Use of:

Media—press, TV, radioSummarized versions in local languagesThe webImportance of going to rural, remote, poor areas

Fiscal Transparency

More fiscally transparent countries have better credit ratings, better fiscal discipline and corruptionImportance of publishing timely and comprehensive:

Budget plansBudgetsExecuted budgetsFinal accounts

Participation

PRSPs broke new ground in increasing participation in planning processes from civil society at all stages:

DiagnosisPlanningImplementationMonitoring and evaluation

Participation

There were also interesting experiences in local level participatory planningSectoral working groups a key tool for continued participation in implementation and M&E phasesThe challenge is to draw lessons from PRSP processes for national plans

Poverty Focus

Pro-poor policy interventions identified through diagnostics and participatory processesPoverty alleviation efforts can be scaled up by:

engaging civil society in the task andallowing the private sector to thrive

Poverty Focus

Recipe for economic development and poverty reduction:

High and stable economic growthSound macro and structural policiesMake poverty reduction a key priorityEncourage participationExpand education, health and other services in rural and remote areasMake good use of financial resources and knowledge/skills from multilateral and bilateral donors

Links to sector strategies and budgets

Choose priority sectors and cross-sectoral areas and stick to them over timeEnsure proper funding for priority sectors/issuesInvest in poorer geographical areas

Links to sector strategies and budgets

Truly prioritizing a sector through policy and budget allocations can achieve impressive results in a short time-frameCritical importance of ensuring coherence between plans, PIPs, MTFFs, sector strategies and budgetsChallenges of decentralization in ensuring policy coherence and pro-poor focus

Results—Setting Targets and Indicators

Tailor MDGs to national contextHave political buy-in into goals, e.g. Parliamentary approvalMay need to localize MDGsIndicators should be SMART (simple, measurable, accurate, reliable, timely)

Results—Setting Targets and Indicators

Targets and indicators should be linked to public actionsInstitutional responsibilities for monitoring should be assignedNeed a complementary/supportive monitoring and evaluation systemKeep in mind institutional environment and capacity

Monitoring and Evaluation Systems

Importance of establishing a results chain: inputs-outputs-outcomes-impactsStatistical master plans as an example of how to think strategically and systematically on data needsBuilding sound systems for monitoring administrative dataProgram evaluations can lead to correcting policies and making them more pro-poor

Aid Alignment

Challenge for alignment—different and changing donor prioritiesAdvantages of SWAP—medium-term planning with donor resource backingAdvantages of collaborative assistance strategies—savings, shared analysis, trust-building, donor alignment

Harmonizing aid cycles and reporting procedures

Usefulness of setting planning and budget cycles and aligning donor reporting cycles to these national processesReporting on aid disbursements remains weakRecipient countries are concerned about the cost and weak knowledge transfer of technical assistance