This year, more than five years after national Poverty Reduction Strategies (PRSs) were introduced, a comprehensive evaluation of the PRSP process is being carried out. The Joint World Bank / IMF 2005 PRS Review aims to open up for discussion the experience with PRS support gathered by multilateral and bilateral donor organisations, and to use this experience to improve the PRS approach.

To date, German development cooperation (DC) has helped prepare and implement PRSs in 26 countries. Drawing on this wealth of experience, GTZ has teamed up with the Kreditanstalt für Wiederaufbau (KfW) to prepare a concise, but comprehensive German discussion paper for the PRS Review. The paper "Making Poverty Reduction Strategies Work" analyses the current challenges in PRS implementation and identifies capacity building in the following fields as a key area of activity:

• Sustainability of the PRSs as a political instrument

• Linking PRSs with Medium-Term Expenditure Frameworks (MTEFs) and budgets

• Donor harmonisation in PRS support

• PRS monitoring

• Participation in PRS processes

In addition to exploring options for taking action in these areas, capacity development is discussed as the crucial overarching challenge of PRS. Taking examples from Armenia and Honduras, the paper also provides an insight into how the various stakeholders view the PRS process. The Good Practice Sheets presented in the Annex describe interesting experience with PRS involving German DC in selected partner countries.

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• Making PRS Work - Good Practices, Issues and Stakeholder Views
  A Contribution of German Development Cooperation for the 2005 PRSP Review. GTZ / KfW Entwicklungsbank, Mai 2005.
  en-prsreview-making-prs-work-2005.pdf, 0.59 MB (Englisch)