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The role of parliament in the implementation of the PRSP
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1. Introduction
The recent hunger has devastated lives in a number of countries in the region. Zambia, Zimbabwe and Malawi are notable examples and this has raised the debate on poverty to profiles never before heard of. At policy levels the question of agriculture has become a high profile concern to the extent that unlike in the past it is sometimes being said that agriculture is the engine of growth. Hunger resulted into a number of deaths because it weakens resistance and disease takes advantage of this. The defence mechanisms in the body collapse. A hungry person is sleepless, and loses his dignity. Women in particular are the worse off. In this equation the Member of Parliament is in the frontline of defence. He articulates the suffering of the people in parliament and in important forums. Quite often the predicament requires that he participate in the search of support mechanisms for the affected families.
The question is, what has been the role of members of parliament in the debates on poverty? Certainly parliamentarians were almost forgotten during the period of Structural Adjustment Programmes (SAPs).
In the last three years, the dialogue on poverty has moved from Structural adjustment to the Poverty Reduction Strategy Paper (PRSP), a very intensive dialogue indeed. Introduced in September 1999, the Poverty Reduction Strategy Paper gave the hope of debt relief to poor countries, although partially, and according to many, inadequate compared to the preferred total debt forgiveness. PRSPs challenge decision-makers to put money where their month is, that is to allocate resources for poverty interventions. It should be remembered that the "seed money" in the PRSP processes is money out of debt relief. PRSPs challenge bureaucrats to realise that for poverty reduction to succeed a total war must be waged. There must be no spectators. All including the poor themselves must participate in the process of identifying what hurts and in the search for solutions to those problems. The PRSP process (some 70 countries are participating at various stages) is intended to be a model of development dialogue where the rich, the donors, the poor, the aid recipient and the national institutions meet. Participation by stakeholders is critical for qualification by a country to completion point because staff of the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund report to their Boards on the intensity of the dialogue. The level of participation determines whether or not a country qualifies for debt relief.
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