The participation conditionality under Poverty Reduction Strategy Papers: the joint staff assessment -experience

The Poverty Reduction Strategy Papers (PRSP) framework introduced by the World Bank and the IMF at the turn of the century goes well beyond the mainly macroeconomic conditionalities of the structural adjustment era by requesting that civil society participates in the preparation and the implementation of the strategy. Although constituting a significant shift in the international financial institutions’ discourse, the difference in the way in which the traditional and the “participation” conditions are scrutinized for compliance, considerably reduces the compulsory nature of the latter conditionality. Whereas clear standards and criteria are developed to evaluate compliance with the economic conditionalities, such standards seem to be lacking in the case of participation. This paper reviews the evaluation of the civil society participation in PRSP documents by the Joint Staff of the World Bank and the IMF. This desk-based study of 35 Joint Staff Assessments (JSAs) finds these JSAs to lack both clarity and candour.