The African Learning Group on Poverty Reduction Strategies and the Millennium Development Goals (PRS/MDGs-LG) is an initiative of the United Nations Economic Commission for Africa (ECA). It was established in February 2001 as the African Learning Group on Poverty Reduction Strategy Papers (PRSP-LG) at the urging of member States and following multi-country missions for extensive consultations with stakeholders. The impetus for it came from the 1999 decision of the Bretton Woods institutions making the preparation of country-owned poverty reduction strategy papers (PRSP) a pre-requisite for debt relief under the enhanced heavily indebted poor countries initiative. In the wake of that decision, ECA, together with the World Bank convened a consultative group of African countries in 2000 to explore the implications of the PRSP for countries of the region.
The purpose of the PRSP-LG was to provide a forum for African peer-learning, experience-sharing and for the articulation of an African voice on the PRSP. The LG executed its objectives primarily through: i) in-house research; ii) annual consultations (meetings) with African senior policy-makers, PRSP experts, key NGOs; iii) case studies reviewing the experience of selected countries with the PRSP content and process, and iv) advocacy. The country studies and annual deliberations were organized around five clusters of issues: - i) the comprehensiveness of growth strategies underpinning the PRSPs; ii) PRSP-related financing and public expenditure management issues; iii) the depth and legitimacy of the PRSP participatory process; iv) national capacity needs; and v) the extent to which donors are adjusting their aid policies and practices in line with the principles underlying the PRSP approach.
The LG held 3 annual meetings and commissioned 24 country studies. In December 2003 a stocktaking exercise was undertaken to comprehensively review the experience of the Learning Group. The main conclusion of the stock-taking exercise was while the PRSPs had had positive effects on the content and process of development planning, African governments needed to do more to articulate pro-poor policies and Programmemes, address HIV/AIDS, address the missing middle - from growth strategies to poverty reduction; improve public sector financial management; address capacity issues; institutionalize consultation mechanisms; and improve aid management, aid predictability and harmonization of donor Programmemes.
Complimentary to the annual meetings, ECA launched in 2005 the web-based Enhancing Knowledge Sharing to Support the Poverty Reduction Process in Africa project to create a mechanism for enhanced sharing of existing knowledge, while at the same time encouraging the creation of new knowledge on poverty reduction strategies.
Maintaining the momentum gathered in Africa
Building on the outcome of the stock-taking exercise and in response to the resolution in the Outcome document of the 2005 UN World Summit and mid-term review of the Millennium Development Goals that countries with extreme poverty adopt and implement MDGs-based poverty reduction strategies/national development plans, ECA convened in Cairo, Egypt, in march 2006, joint with the African Union Commission and in collaboration with the UNDP and the African Development Bank, a high-level regional dialogue to discuss the LG findings and recommendations and agree on the way forward. The Cairo plenary inter alia, urged ECA to strengthen the LG secretariat, expand the remit of the Learning Group to include peer-learning and experience sharing on the MDGs and to rename the Learning Group the PRS-MDG Learning Group to better capture its new mandate. It also urged the Learning Group to establish links with key research institutions, policy-shaping fora and institutions particularly and to develop a mechanism that would ensure that outputs of the PRS-MDG LG inform policy-making in Africa
The Research workshop
This research workshop is a follow-up to the main decisions of the Cairo Plenary. It will be held in Mauritius on June 3 - 4, 2008 and its purpose is to discuss new research directions for the LG and the institutional set up for For the purposes of this research workshop, ECA commissioned a Concept Note on Learning Networks and two thematic papers on a) "Interventions for achieving the Health MDGs in Africa: The role of National Health Insurance Schemes", and b) "Growth-Poverty-Inequality Nexus: A case study of Nigeria". An ECA analytical report "Mainstreaming Health equity in national development plans/strategies" will serve as an additional background paper. These studies will serve as background documents as well as the basis for discussions during the meeting.
Objectives
The objectives of the research workshop are as follows:
- Identify key new areas for research that will enhance the value of the Learning Group as an important arena for knowledge and experience sharing on poverty reduction strategies and the MDGs;
- Broaden the contribution of the LG to capacity building on PRSs/MDGs;
- Identify African and non-African research institutions that could constitute a Learning network, not only on PRS/MDGs but also on the broader issue of economic development and poverty reduction;
- Make recommendations on the way forward.
Format of the workshop
All sessions of the workshop shall be in plenary. Discussions will be organized around two broad issues: a) Learning Networks; and b) new areas of research to advance peer-learning and experience-sharing to enhance African capacity to enact and implement actionable poverty reduction strategies and to meet the MDGs by the target date. New areas for research that will be discussed at the workshop will include:
- MDGs-specific expenditure targeting and tracking;
- Growth-poverty-inequality nexus;
- Social safety nets in particular the role of national health insurance in meeting the health MDGs;
- Gender mainstreaming in research on poverty reduction strategies and the MDGs; and
- Research on the role/contribution of sub-national jurisdictions (or decentralized units), through their policy choices, in efforts to achieve the MDGs.
Since gender is cross-cutting, it will be discussed, not as a stand-alone but as an integral part of all the new areas for research that will be discussed.
Participants
There will be 20-25 participants consisting of senior policy makers from African governments, key research institutions in Africa, African policy and development institutions such as the African Capacity Building Foundation (ACBF) the African Union Commission (AUC), and the African Development Bank (AfDB), Africans in the Diaspora and some development partners such as the World Bank, DFID, and SIDA.
Expected Outcomes: Outcomes
Among the outcomes of the Meeting will be a report, to be widely disseminated - on re-launching the African Learning Group on Poverty Reduction Strategies and the Millennium Development Goals, including new directions for research. The report of the meeting and other background documents may be used by ECA and African countries in their endeavours to scale up the contribution of peer learning and experience sharing to efforts to accelerate progress on poverty reduction and the achievement of the targets of the MDGs. Countries also may use the outcome of the meeting to initiate own PRS/MDGs learning group meetings as a means for mobilizing support for the MDGs and poverty reduction strategies in their own countries.
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