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Agnes Biribonwa (202) 458-9342 Email: WASHINGTON, November 3, 2005 - A new World Bank report concludes that reducing poverty at scale depends on several factors including leadership and commitment, institutional innovation, learning and experimentation, external catalysts such as donor assistance and sometimes even economic shocks. Reducing Poverty on a Global Scale: Learning and Innovating for Development draws on more than100 case studies of poverty reduction worldwide prepared for the Global Learning Process and Conference on Scaling Up Poverty Reduction in 2004. World Bank analysts have identified the main factors that help or hurt in reducing poverty at scale, and what this means for World Bank and donor operations. “We have to discover how to scale up the successful initiatives to a depth and breadth where we can really have an impact on poverty, where we can achieve the Millennium Development Goals,” said Jim Wolfensohn, Former President of the World Bank and currently Special Envoy, Gaza Disengagement, Quartet Principals. “The challenges we face are just too big. It’s not a hundred schools [we need]; it’s 10,000 schools. It’s not ten bridges; it’s 5,000 bridges. It’s not a thousand people we need to reach, but millions and billions of people.” A whole chapter of the report assesses China’s experiences in promoting economic growth and reducing poverty. Over the last 25 years, China has achieved the most rapid large-scale poverty reduction in human history. “The Shanghai global learning process used the case study approach to examine how a wide range of countries scaled up poverty reduction interventions,” says Frannie Léautier, Vice President, World Bank Institute. “The cases looked at successful programs, projects, and practices that have something to say about what works on the ground, and in a variety of settings. The learning process was unique because it emphasized South-South knowledge sharing.” Country cases analyzed in the report include Chile, Costa Rica, El Salvador, Uganda, and Korea. Sector-specific cases cover infrastructure, judicial system reform, microfinance, health, education, and community driven development, with detailed descriptions about finding solutions by trial and error and through rigorous impact evaluation feedback. Examples include Morocco’s rural roads, Kazakhstan’s SME and microenterprise lending program, and Rwanda’s adaptation of traditional justice mechanisms. The report concludes that although progress appears to be the result of multidimensional interventions by more than one actor, sustained and shared growth at the macroeconomic level, seems to be the a necessary foundation for poverty reduction in a particular country. The report also stresses that rigorous impact evaluations could create the basis for scaling up poverty reduction efforts throughout the developing world. The evaluation of the Oportunidades program (previously called Progresa) in Mexico, for example, demonstrated that school enrollment ratios and years of schooling had increased which convinced the Mexican authorities to support and even scale up the program in spite of political changes. “The Shanghai learning process was an important first step, but the development community must have far more knowledge capture and exchange about promising models and reform processes,” says Blanca Moreno-Dodson, editor of the report. “We need more analysis, documentation, and dissemination of local initiatives, especially those designed and operated outside the formal sector and official investment channels.” For the World Bank and the donor community the report emphasizes that country ownership, capacity development, results-based management, and donor alignment and harmonization are essential elements or success. “Among many terrific things that I am indebted for to my distinguished predecessor, Jim Wolfensohn, the focus on knowledge sharing and learning is critical for supporting change and capacity improvements that are essential for effective development,” says World Bank President Paul Wolfowitz.. “I commend Jim for his leadership and the WBI team for all its work and accomplishments in this area.” Key Messages from the Research Include: At The Country Level No country reduced poverty without addressing its macroeconomic imbalances and creating solid foundations for growth; and they all implemented parallel social pro-poor measures. In Chile the 1990s reform package combined conservative macroeconomic policies with progressive social measures. In Uganda, strong and single-minded political leadership backed reforms to promote growth as well as social projects when growth alone produced an insufficient reduction in poverty. Countries that reduced poverty at a scale were also able to develop and sustain institutions that produced good governance, as well as an environment in which learning and adaptation took place, which allowed for midcourse correction. In Costa Rica and El Salvador, the approach was to decentralize responsibility for delivery of health and education services, while strengthening the policy and regulatory responsibilities of the public sector. In both settings the crucial policy innovation involved a new reliance on private resources in areas where the state had long dominated. Responsiveness--whether to crisis, to the stimulus of technology, or to an external shock—was another key ingredient: the ability to innovate, to adapt institutional capacity, to learn from experience, and to turn external factors into catalysts for positive change. In Indonesia bad economic times served as opportunities to put good policies in place. They pursued macroeconomic stability while shaping the rural education system to support the adoption of Green revolution technology for raising rice production. Commitment and leadership were essential to success: how leaders emerge, how they form coalitions for change, how they define where to start and how to sequence reforms and implementation, how they guarantee continuity of reforms and implementation. In Korea there was high-level commitment to economic development and the strong perception that announced policies would, in fact, be implemented. At The Sectoral Level The report also assesses a range of sectoral or thematic cases, giving detailed descriptions of the processes that were tried and how solutions were discovered, and how project and program teams used monitoring and evaluation systems to improve performance. Issues of external and domestic financing are covered, as is the role that external catalysts have played, whether through knowledge, ideas, and technical support, or partnerships and cooperation agreements. Some of the lessons that come out of this analysis are: The Morocco rural roads project demonstrates two key factors: adopting a focus on accessibility as opposed to numbers of roads built, and promoting local government participation. In Rwanda, political leaders and executive branch officials encouraged the use of traditional justice mechanisms and adapted them to very volatile situations, in order to overcome a sad legacy of intertribal strife.
Kazakhstan managed to build micro-enterprise units within commercial banks and developed a sound lending program for small and medium size enterprises. The HIV/AIDS case from Manipur, India, illustrates how ad-hoc trials led to the discovery of the best way to provide treatment and prevention
Egypt prioritized its education investments, emphasizing improvements in school quality which, research had demonstrated, affects girls' enrollment and retention in particular.
-###- For more about the Shanghai Global Learning Process and case studies: www.reducingpoverty.org |
