Achieving global development goals through national poverty reduction strategies

Over the past few years, Poverty Reduction Strategies (PRSs) have become key policy papers in many developing countries. At the same time, at the Millennium Summit in 2000, the international community agreed on global Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) to be achieved by 2015. The main goal is to halve extreme poverty worldwide.

The MDG indicators help review the progress made by national poverty reduction measures based on facts. They serve as a guide for PRSs. For donor organisations, the MDGs form an important basis for designing and analysing pro-poor projects to achieve results.

For poor countries, national PRSs are also the main instrument through which they can fulfil the obligations they have entered into at national level and make their contribution towards achieving the MDGs. A good PRS can create the political framework to allow overarching development goals to be implemented – by setting priorities and by clearly defining responsibilities and budgets.