OED Review of the Poverty Reduction Strategy Process

This report analyzes the experience of
Ethiopia with the Poverty Reduction Strategy Paper (PRSP)
process. The focus of the report is on evaluating the
performance of the World Bank in supporting the PRSP
initiative, not on appraising the authorities’ policies. The
emphasis of the report is on the formulation and
implementation of the PRSP until the time of the evaluation
team’s mission to Ethiopia in mid-2003. The report is
structured as follows: section one starts with introduction;
section two describes the country context including the
poverty profile, the political and economic context,
national strategies and trends in development aid and aid
relations; section three describes the PRSP process and
includes an assessment of the relevance of the PRSP for
Ethiopia, and the application of its underlying principles
in Ethiopia. It concludes by presenting some preliminary
evidence on its results; section four assesses the World
Bank’s support to the process;(v)section five cooperation
between the Bank and the Fund, including the Joint Staff
Assessment. Finally, section six summarizes the main
conclusions of the case study.