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Children first in the poverty battle!
A Review of Poverty Reduction Strategy Papers in the Southern African Region
- from a Child Rights Perspective
by Shirley Robinson
Contact: shirley.robinson@treasury.gov.za
March 2003
Posted with permission of Save the Children (Sweden). Website:
www.rb.se
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Executive Summary
PRSP
Reducing poverty and improving levels of social and economic wellbeing are
broadening policy and resource debates in developing and developed countries.
The Poverty Reduction Strategy Paper (PRSP) approach forms the basis of the
redefined anti-poverty framework of the international community, and is a prerequisite
for access to a broader range of concessional and developmental assistance for low-income developing countries.
The PRSP is therefore a development strategy that places poverty reduction first, in
the context of sustainable growth and development. It describes a country’s
economic and social policies and programmes over a three-year or longer horizon,
integrated into a broader macro-economic framework and developed through a
process of extensive consultation with national stakeholders. The latter is aimed at
facilitating a PRSP that is government-led and country-owned.
A Human Rights Approach
International discourse is starting to recognise that poverty is not only of
developmental concern, and that related debates are now shifting into the ambit of
human rights.
More specifically, the human rights approach to poverty reduction recognises that
those policies and institutions directed towards poverty reduction should be based
explicitly on the norms and values set out in international human rights law. This
context provides poverty reduction strategies, in particular PRSPs, with potential to
empower the poor, rather than simply directing development efforts at poor people.
Child Focus
PRSP processes have considerable significance in low-income, developing countries
where children form both the bulk of the population and the majority of those that
live below the poverty line.
This means that for most low-income developing countries, children are the locus of
poverty, and strategies that prioritise children’s rights and target child poverty
reduction ensure a bias towards pro-poor growth and development policies.
For this reason, Save the Children Sweden commissioned a review of PRSPs in the
Southern Africa region in respect of their focus on child poverty and child rights, and
of the role of civil society participation in formulating and implementing national
PRSPs.
Conclusions
The PRSP’s contribution to reducing child poverty depends on:
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Locating children and child poverty within the demographic and poverty profiles that frame PRSPs;
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Balancing economic policy choices that stimulate higher levels of economic growth against those that focus on poverty reduction and development;
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Prioritising child-focused social service and support programmes that promote the rights of all children to development without discrimination;
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Recognising and providing support for particularly vulnerable groups of children and children who possibly suffer discrimination; and
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Implementing public expenditure management reforms that reprioritise resources towards child-focused social services and development interventions.
Locating children and child poverty within PRSP demographic and poverty profiles are critical to their prioritisation in PRSP policies and interventions.
The Southern Africa PRSP reviews present a mixed report in respect of the quality of the demographic and poverty profiles and diagnoses that preface the PRSPs.
A common feature is the absence of gender- or child-focused demographic and
poverty information and analysis. This lack of gender and child-focused information
at the outset does not augur well for the prioritisation and implementation of propoor
social development policies and interventions that favour all women and
children and address their rights.
In respect of overall orientation, the Southern African PRSPs follow the prescripts
set out in the World Bank 1990 World Development Report. This report
recommends the prioritisation of actions to promote economic growth, health and
education in particular. The importance of good governance and social protection
issues are also noted, as are gender, the environment and HIV/Aids.
However, even a cursory read leaves no doubt that the Southern African PRSPs give
the highest priority to economic growth as a means to reduce poverty.
The revitalisation of the agricultural sector, in particular the promotion of small and
medium sized produces, is the main policy intervention to promote pro-poor growth
prioritised by the PSRP.
For the most part, the Southern African PRSPs make some commitment to increased
liberalisation of the economy in order to stimulate higher levels of growth. For some
PRSPs, such as that of Malawi, this comes at the back of significant liberalisation
through structural adjustment lending programmes in the previous decade.
For most PRSPs, increased social sector expenditure is a hallmark feature and is in
the main directed towards the health, education, and water and sanitation sectors.
However, it is important to note that tight fiscal policies and debt relief programmes
frame most PRSPs, as the latter are often developed in compliance with conditional
lending requirements. While fiscal policy restraint is prudent in respect of mediumterm
affordability and sustainability purposes, it constrains the extent of social service
expansion.
Limited social service provision and coverage may therefore be ineffective in
addressing the poverty situation in many PRSP countries. A notable consequence is
the continued reliance on user fees to finance social service provision. This tends to
restrict access to services by the poor and to exacerbate poverty itself.
With regard to children, the Southern African PRSPs do not undertake a
comprehensive review of child poverty. Nor do they consider the implications of
child poverty for systemic poverty entrenchment, noting how specific interventions
to reduce child poverty and address children’s rights, such as education, can assist in
breaking the poverty cycle in low-income countries.
While the strategies reviewed do not specifically prioritise children, they do discuss a
limited range of interventions that are directed towards reducing child poverty and
improving children’s future opportunities. These include measures to promote school
attendance, to improve access to basic health services and better nutrition, and to
raise family incomes or livelihoods.
The PRSPs reviewed do present some recognition of and support for particularly
vulnerable groups of children. This is welcome, but interventions are few and far
between, indicating a limited and fragmented recognition of the needs and rights of
girls and boys who suffer discrimination.
The review raises concerns about the weak linkage to public expenditure management
and budget process reforms in the Southern African PRSPs.
Public expenditure management reforms are important in complementing effective
PRSPs, as they ensure that the expenditure and revenue-raising choices that a
government makes are both affordable and sustainable.
Public expenditure reforms ensure that a country’s resources are directed towards
those interventions that are considered to be strategic priorities. In the context of a
PRSP, this means that resources should be directed towards policies and programmes
that are aimed at reducing poverty and raising the growth potential of the economy.
Indirectly, public expenditure management and good governance reforms do benefit
children as they ensure that resources are directed to high priority policies and
interventions. These policies and interventions support child poverty reduction,
provided that it is prioritised in economic and social policy choices, and that
appropriate institutions are able to implement the intended interventions efficiently
and effectively, directing resources to poor and marginalised groups of children.
Recommendations
In conclusion, the review points to a significant role for child poverty research and advocacy in the implementation, monitoring and review of the Southern African PRSP processes. Child advocacy organisations and child rights actors may play a valuable role in a variety of ways. These could include partnering with local child advocacy organisations to:
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Build local capacity in economic and development literacy to raise awareness and participation, particularly child participation, in PRSP processes;
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Undertake research and analysis on the implementation, monitoring and review of PRSP processes;
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Undertake research on the prioritisation of child policies and resource allocation to child-focused interventions in the PRSP processes. This may evolve into a
child-focused ‘shadow’ or ‘alternative’ PRSP – that is, a civil society version of a national PRSP prioritising policies, interventions and budget resources to reduce
child poverty;
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Increase advocacy efforts concerning the importance of PRSP processes in reducing child poverty and enhancing child rights in the region.
It is clear that the PRSP approach has been embraced as the new trend in development planning and assistance in Southern Africa. It is therefore critical for
child advocacy groups at international, regional and local level to become a stronger voice and an active participant in Southern African PRSP processes, so as to ensure that children’s rights are prioritised and appropriately resourced in the region’s development planning and resource allocation processes.
Appendix to this document:
Detailed Review of five National PRSPs in the Southern Africa Region
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