Govt mulls redesigning PRSP

---

FE Report
A plan to repackage the poverty reduction strategy paper (PRSP) to help sustain aid flow from the multilateral lenders, particularly the World Bank, is under active consideration of the present interim administration.
"We're actively considering the formulation of the PRSP-2, revising the current one," a senior planning division official said.
"A major change in the document (PRSP) is unlikely. It will be updated and redesigned in view of the current socio-economic conditions," the official added.
A source pointed out that the interim administration would share the idea of crafting the second PRSP at the forthcoming meeting of the Local Consultative Group (LCG), now chaired by the country director of the World Bank.
The source, who declined to be named, said Bangladesh is under obligation to frame such anti-poverty plans if it wants to borrow from the World Bank's soft-lending arm, the International Development Association (IDA).
Quazi Mesbah Uddin Ahmed, a former member of general economics division, said the government can change the programmes of PRSP, but it will be a fruitless exercise if it changes the strategic framework.
But Ahmed, who led the PRSP preparatory team, noted that the government could further take a close look at the macro-economic fundamentals of PRSP, given the present economic reality.
Although three years have elapsed since the endorsement of the PRS, billed as an anti-poverty arsenal, it has not yielded positive outcome, largely because of the lack of political will.
The BNP-led coalition government is blamed for the failure to inject momentum into the three-year anti-poverty plan, notwithstanding the fact it was instrumental in crafting the PRS.
Meantime, the interim administration has extended the PRSP by another year from June 2007 to June 2008, although it remains still unclear why the document should get further extension.
Since the preparation of the PRSP under the leadership of M Saifur Rahman, then finance minister, critics have derided the document as donor-dictated policy prescription--an allegation the government vehemently denies.
They noted that although a strategic roadmap to halve the poverty incidence by 2015 was there, its implementation remained far from satisfactory.
Even officials at planning commission and economic relations division did not dispute with the critics' views.
"There's no denying that PRSP is a good document and unlike previous development planning, it has had policy ownership. But the programmes designed in the light of PRSP could not be implemented, thanks mainly to the lack of resource allocation," an official regretted.
The document estimated, it will take at least a US$ 11 billion only for achieving the education goals by the year 2015, while half a billion dollars would be required to ensure sanitation and a one-billion-dollar-plus fund for the introduction of school lunch.
Attuned to the UN-declared Millennium Development Goals (MDGs), the PRSP is an internationally designed country-specific plan for development in less-developed countries. It has also been aligned with the country Assistance Strategy (CAS) of the World Bank.
Drafted in December 2004, the immediate past BNP government gave its seal of approval for the PRSP in October 2005.