Poverty Reduction Strategy Papers [PRSPs] must mainstream gender.

• Author: Zuckerman, Elaine

The majority of Poverty Reduction Strategy Papers produced have not made explicit efforts to mainstream gender into the process. Only a few African countries -have addressed gender dimensions in their PRSP's to date and most of them apply the women in development approach. Addressing the gender dimensions of poverty and creating gender responsive interventions enhances the likelihood of success of poverty reduction strategy efforts. PRSP's, therefore must mainstream gender to effectively reduce poverty. Although women and men share many of the burdens of poverty, they frequently experience poverty differently. These gender differences are insufficiently captured in conventional poverty analyses, designs and monitoring systems. This deficiency weakens the chances of success of poverty reduction interventions.

PRSPs are a mechanism designed by the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund (IMF) to link debt relief to poverty reduction. Major beneficiaries from the PRSPs are assumed to be the Heavily Indebted Poor Countries (HIPS) who qualify for significant debt relief on completing their PRSP processes.

Unengendered PRSP's become national development strategies that do not promote gender equality. Research compellingly correlates greater gender equality with greater poverty reduction and economic growth. Although Women's status has improved in most countries in the last half century, gender disparities persist everywhere and remain most acute in Africa. Gender Inequalities impose large costs on the well being and health of the poor, diminishing productivity and the potential to reduce poverty and ensure economic groMh.. In most societies, particularly in Africa, women have limited opportunities to improve their economic conditions and access services than do men.

Except for Rwanda, very few African countries have mainstreamed gender into PRSR One reason for this is because they were prepared based on the assumption that participatory processes would feed into PRSPs. Thus civil society organisations and governments in many countries placed considerable effort into ensuring participatory processes were gender inclusive and flagged key gender issues. But often-engendered participatory processes have not fed into PRSP's.

Uganda provides the best example of a participatory process, which flagged key gender issues. Ugandan women's groups played a key role in the participatory process. Uganda's extensive 1998-2002 gender-aware Participatory Poverty Assessment Programme consulted the poor, including women, to ensure their voices would be integrated into the national planning process. It included gender training on how to collect gender desegregated data and women's focus groups to overcome reluctance to speak publicly. However, when it came to the national...