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Department of Peace and Development Research at Gothenburg University, PADRIGU Master thesis in International Relations Spring 2002 Supervisor: Jonas Ewald

The Poverty Reduction Strategy Process in Zambia

Questions of Participation

Author: Patrik Schröder

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Abstract Author: Patrik Schröder Title: The Poverty Reduction Strategy Process in Zambia: Questions of Participation Master thesis in International Relations at the Department of Peace and Development Re-search at Gothenburg University, PADRIGU This qualitative case study investigates the challenges with participation among government, civil society and donors in the Poverty Reduction Strategy Paper, PRSP process in Zambia. One of the prime objectives of the PRSP according to the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund is to boost local ownership by facilitating a home-grown strategy for poverty reduction. The BWI wants the recipient countries to feel ownership over their own develop-ment agenda. With a sense of ownership it is thought that the possibilities of implementing the strategies will increase. Ownership is fostered through the wide participation of stake-holders. The aim and objectives of the thesis are explorative and aim to understand what par-ticipation can be in the PRSP process. The empirical material has been collected through semi-structured interviews during a two month long field study in Zambia. The study shows how the different actors have participated in the process. It has been prob-lematic for the government to fully take the leadership role in the process and their participa-tion has been quite passive. It seems that it has been difficult for the donors to hold back and let the government lead the process. Civil society has been well represented in the process and they even had their own process producing their own poverty reduction paper. The study shows that the increased participation has led to increased national ownership, par-ticularly among civil society. The civil society organisations and their cooperation have been strengthened. Just being an actor sitting down at the same table as the government and the donors has been of importance. The government and particularly the civil servants have been strengthened through the coordination in the process. It is possible that the donors ownership has decreased due to the process and that is also one of the points with the exercise. The results imply that the relationship between all the actors has changed in a positive way. The clearest result is that the government-civil society relationship has become better. There are still misgivings and suspicion but through the process they have got to know each other better, particularly the civil society has learned a lot of the government procedures. The do-nors are still suspicious towards the sincere will of the government to work for the betterment of the people and the country. Is there a room for manoeuvre for the government of Zambia to create its own development strategy? Before the PRSP there were two actors at the table, the government and the donors. With the PRSP process the civil society has a new and important role. If civil society and the government are on the same policy track the room for manoeuvre probably increases for the government. If the government has to fight against both the donors and the civil society the room to manoeuvre naturally decreases. Keywords; Poverty Reduction Strategy Paper, participation, ownership empowerment, gov-ernment, civil society, donors and Zambia.

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Contents Abstract...........................................................................................................2 Contents ..........................................................................................................3 List of figures and tables ................................................................................4 Acknowledgements .........................................................................................5 List of abbreviations .......................................................................................6 Zambia info.....................................................................................................7 1. Introduction ................................................................................................8

1.1 BACKGROUND....................................................................................................8 1.2 AIM, OBJECTIVE AND QUESTIONS ........................................................................9 1.3 PREVIOUS RESEARCH........................................................................................10 1.4 METHODOLOGY AND MATERIAL........................................................................12 1.5 DELIMITATION .................................................................................................13 1.6 OUTLINE ..........................................................................................................14

2. The theoretical framework.......................................................................15

2.1 PARTICIPATION ................................................................................................15 2.2 EMPOWERMENT ...............................................................................................17 2.3 PARTICIPATION IN THE PRSP POLICY FORMULATION .........................................18 2.4 DEFINITIONS ....................................................................................................20

3. The PRSP-process in Zambia...................................................................22

3.1 INTRODUCTION ................................................................................................22 3.2 THE WORKING GROUPS....................................................................................24 3.3 PROVINCIAL CONSULTATIONS ...........................................................................26 3.4 CIVIL SOCIETY GETS ORGANISED.......................................................................28 3.5 THE NATIONAL SUMMIT ON POVERTY REDUCTION............................................29 3.6 THE GOVERNMENT LEADERSHIP ........................................................................30

4. The relationship between the actors ........................................................33

4.1 THE GOVERNMENT - DONOR RELATION..............................................................33 4.2 THE GOVERNMENT - CIVIL SOCIETY RELATION...................................................36 4.3 THE CIVIL SOCIETY - DONOR RELATION .............................................................38

5. Discussion..................................................................................................40

5.1 NEW LEVELS OF PARTICIPATION AND OWNERSHIP..............................................40 5.2 THE GOVERNMENT...........................................................................................41 5.3 THE DONORS ....................................................................................................42 5.4 CIVIL SOCIETY .................................................................................................43 5.5 PARTICIPATION ................................................................................................43 5.6 CONCLUDING REMARKS....................................................................................45 5.7 QUESTIONS FOR FURTHER RESEARCH ................................................................46

6. Appendix ...................................................................................................47

6.1 OUTLINE OF QUESTIONS....................................................................................47 6.2 PARTICIPANTS IN THE PRSP GOVERNMENT WORKING GROUPS ...........................49 6.3 INTERVIEWS CONDUCTED .................................................................................51 6.4 LIST OF REFERENCE ..........................................................................................53

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List of figures and tables Figure 1. The ladder of participation after Arnstein 16 Figure 2. The steps of participation, developed after McGee 19 Figure 3. The level of participation and ownership among 40 the actors before the PRSP process. Figure 4. The level of participation and ownership among 41 the actors after the PRSP process. Table 1. Number of interviewees divided into category and sex. 13 Table 2. Participants in the governmental working groups 24 divided in categories. Table 3. Participation of civil society, government, women and men, 27 in three governmental provincial consultative workshops. Box 1. The PRSP process explained by the World Bank 22 Box 2. Concerns raised by the CSPR about the PRSP process in Zambia 29

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Acknowledgements Working with this thesis I have meet a lot of people to whom I am deeply grateful. First and foremost I want to thank all the people I interviewed while in Zambia. You all shared your time and your knowledge and experience. Without you this study would of course have been impossible. I want to express my most sincere thanks to everyone working for the Zambian government, in civil society organisations and within the donor community in Zambia. If it wasn’t for Sida, I would not have been able to carry out my field research. Respectful thanks go to Sida and Padrigu for granting me the Minor Field Study scholarship that pro-vided me with the means to conduct my field research in Zambia. My contacts with Sida have been of great importance. I want to give a special thanks to my contact person at Sida Stockholm Carl Hellman, Desk Officer for Zambia. Carl, your support meant a lot. I also want to give a special thanks to Natasha Machila, Assistant Programme Officer, Private Sector Development and Commercial Affairs at Sida Lusaka who acted as my supervisor in the field. Jonas Ewald has been my supervisor at Padrigu, the Department of Peace and Development Research at Gothenburg University, thank you for bearing with me. You have been a great support and inspired me throughout my work. Lastly, I have a request. Working with this thesis has taken a considerable amount of time. Most students who write large reports in Sweden are afraid that the results of their efforts will end up at the bottom of a draw. I hope that will not be the case with this study. If you have any comments after reading this thesis please do not hesitate to share them with me. Sincerely yours, Patrik Schröder patrik.schroder@sensus.se or patrikschroder@yahoo.se

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List of abbreviations BWI Bretton Woods Institutions CAS Country Assistance Strategy CSO Civil Society Organisation CSPR Civil Society for Poverty Reduction DA District Administrator DFID Department for International Development HIPIC Highly Indebted Poor Countries Initiative IMF International Monetary Fund IDS Institute of Development Studies, University of Sussex I-PRSP Interim Poverty Reduction Strategy Paper MMD Movement for Multi-party Democracy MoFED Ministry of Finance and Economic Development NGO Non-Governmental Organisation NPRAP National Poverty Reduction Action Plan ODI Overseas Development Institute PFP Policy Framework Paper PRA Participatory Rural Appraisal PRAU the Poverty Reduction Advisory Unit PRGF Poverty Reduction and Growth Facility PRSP Poverty Reduction Strategy Paper PS Permanent Secretary PSRP Public Sector Reform Programme RRA Rapid Rural Appraisal SAP Structural Adjustment Programme TC Technical Committee ToR Terms of Reference UNDP United Nations Development programme UNIP United National Independence Party WB the World Bank WG Working group

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Zambia info Zambia was a British colony until 1964 when it gained independence.1 From 1964 to 1991 the country was ruled by the United National Independence Party, UNIP. Kenneth Kaunda was the president for more than 25 years. Kaunda embarked on a socialist road to development. In 1972 a new constitution was written, instituting a one-party system in order to build the nation through the promotion of national unity. There wasn’t much opposition towards this on the part of civil society with the exception of the Catholic Church. The system allowed for some opposition at the local level, but never on the national scene. The Zambian trade unions played an important role in society and the relationship with the ruling party was good. Many union leaders were co-opted by UNIP. In the beginning of the 1980s the Zambian Congress of Trade Unions, was at loggerheads with UNIP and arranged a series of strikes. The Zambia Congress of Trade Unions was the first organisation to publicly advocate for a multiparty system in 1990. Other interest groups followed suit. Kaunda was under pressure but so confident he would win a multiparty election that he allowed for competition. The Zambia Congress of Trade Unions leader Fredrick Chiluba was elected chairman of the newly formed Movement for Multiparty Democracy, MMD. MMD won the election in 1991 taking 125 of 150 seats in the parliament. Chiluba was elected President and a transition towards a multiparty system and market economy begun. In 1991, a fundamental change was made which resulted in complete liberalisation of the economy and cancellation of long term strategic plans. The Structural Adjustment Program was drastically enhanced. Key reforms were undertaken including privatisation programs, debt consolidation through debt buyback and stronger relief. Strict fiscal discipline was up-held in order to eliminate the printing of money and reduce inflation, the exchange rate was freed, capital controls were removed, import controls were abolished and public enterprises, which were in a bad economic state, were closed or sold. The state monopoly on agriculture input and output markets was lifted. These changes were, according to the government, made in order to stabilise the economy to enhance growth. In 1996 the MMD and Chiluba were re-elected. Partly because the opposition boycotted the election, the voter turnout was low. In 2001 the MMD won the presidential election with a new president candidate Mr Lewy Mwanawasa. But they didn’t dominate the parliament the same way as they had before. In 1998 8.7 million people were living in Zambia, of those were 43 percent living in cities. 86 percent were living below the poverty line in Zambia in 1993.2

1 This heading is based on Utrikespolitiska Institutet 1999, where nothing else is stated. 2 CIA, 2002.

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1. Introduction

1.1 Background The background to this thesis is found in the discussions about poverty reduction, debt cancel-lations, participation, the decreasing legitimacy of the Bretton Woods Institutions (BWI) and the room for manoeuvre for poor governments. During the 1990’s the UN held a number of conferences to discuss the state of the world and issues of great human importance. One common theme was the need for poverty reduction. At the UN World Summit for Social De-velopment held in Copenhagen in 1995, the target was set to reduce the world’s poor by half by 2015. Poverty reduction is one of the most important issues on the UN agenda.3 The World Development Report 2000/2001 takes a multidimensional approach to poverty and particularly it acknowledges the importance of increasing poor people’s access to opportuni-ties, security and empowerment for economic growth and poverty reduction.4 Another perceived problem to achieve a more sustainable reduction of poverty is thought to be the debt situation experienced in many developing countries. In the 1990’s many Non-Governmental Organisations (NGOs) around the world were putting heavy pressure on the multilateral institutions and the G8 to make them write off third world debts. The response from the G8 was to introduce the Heavily Indebted Poor Countries Initiative (HIPIC) in 1996. The initiative was criticised by NGOs for being to little, to late, for to few. The G8 countries responded again by introducing the enhanced HIPIC program or HIPIC II.5 Within the HIPIC concept it was decided that there should be a strong linkage to poverty re-duction. When the HIPIC countries do not have to service some of their debts they release resources that they can use to other ends. The BWI insists that those resources should be used for poverty reduction measures. Thus, any country that has qualified for HIPIC has to produce a Poverty Reduction Strategy Paper (PRSP).6 At the same time the BWIs and their Structural Adjustment Programmes (SAPs) were criti-cised. The criticism came from different actors with different angles. The SAPs were charac-terised by an emphasis on economic growth, tight monetary discipline and a reduction in inflation, privatization and liberalization, charging for basic services as well as the withdrawal of the state from production and marketing. The critique of the SAPs thought that the SAPs; lacked a promotion of sustainable growth, led to increased inequality within countries, redun-dancies, salary freezes and cuts in basic services as a result of monetary policies and reduced government spending, raised interest rates put small companies out of business, privatizations led to increased unemployment, the removal of price controls led to high rises in prices for basic goods and the one size fits all approach didn’t take into account the differences between countries. All in all the criticism can be summarised as the incapability of the SAPs to reduce poverty. It was questioned whether the World Bank (WB) and the International Monetary Fund’s (IMF) theoretical assumptions actually had any substantial connection with empirical findings. It seemed difficult for the BWI to deliver on poverty reduction. To some extent the BWI have been self critical about the SAPs. One aspect that they acknowledge as problematic is the weak implementation.7 3 Shaffer, 1998. 4 WB 2000. 5 IMF and IDA, 1999. 6 Killick, 2000. 7 Marshall with Woodroffe, 2001, pp 4, passim. For a discussion on IMF and civil society relations see Scholte 2000, for a further critique on SAPs see SAPRIN 2002.

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The WB and the IMF think that the low level of implementation is connected with a lack of ownership among the governments under structural adjustment. A low degree of ownership is thought to equal a low level of implementation. Who wants to implement something that you do not feel you’re part of? Civil society participation, a central feature of the PRSP is sup-posed to change this. In the WB Country Assistance Strategies (CAS) and the IMF, the Policy Framework Paper (PFP) there has been some civil society participation and this is supposed to continue and be developed under the PRSP. The civil society participation is thought to foster ownership and this will in turn facilitate implementation, which will lead to poverty reduc-tion. With civil society involvement it is thought that a momentum is created where the gov-ernment is pressurised both from the external partners and the internal actors in a way that makes the implementation of the agreed strategies possible.8 The PRSP was introduced as a part of HIPIC. As the PRSP and HIPIC have been running the BWI has decided that the PRSP will be a necessity for any country that wishes to borrow from the BWI, not just HIPIC countries. The PRSP runs on a three-year cycle with annual progress reports. According to the WB the PRSP should; identify poor populations and the causes of poverty, set the strategies for overcoming poverty through social sector programs, promote growth and capacity building, rural development, local infrastructure, enhanced job creation by the private sector and increased participation together with good governance. The outcome indicators are to be set and monitored within a participatory process. The indicators should correspond with the international development goals set for 2015.9 The PRSP should describe the format, frequency and locations of the consultations with civil society. There should be a summary of the issues raised and the views of the participants, as well as an account of the impact of the consultations on the strategy and a discussion about the role of civil society in the monitoring of the PRSP.10 The WB puts a lot of emphasis on the participation of civil society and says that the broad-based participation of civil society in the adoption and monitoring of the PRSP tailored to country circumstances will enhance the sustained implementation of the strategy.11 On similar lines the IMF states that:

By fostering stronger ownership of the strategy, broader participation of stakeholders can im-prove the prospects for successful and sustained implementation. Civil society can play an im-portant role in monitoring implementation of the strategy and strengthening accountability.12

Once the government has formally decided on the PRSP it is submitted to the WB and the IMF for endorsement by their respective boards. This endorsement procedure has been criti-cised by CSOs, the question is, how can a policy be truly home grown and country owned if there are two boards in Washington who have the last word in deciding whether the policy is economically sound or not. The linkages with the HIPIC initiative work as an extra pressure on the governments to accomplish their PRSPs fast and in accordance with the BWI in order to attain the HIPIC debt relief.13

1.2 Aim, objective and questions To conclude the background, the SAPs have failed, according to the critics, because they are based on wrong theoretical assumptions, according to the BWI because of weak implementa-

8 A WB CAS review concludes that 73 percent of CAS had poor people participation, only 12 percent were participatory in implementation and 9 percent in monitoring and evaluation. WB 2002, p 16. 9 Abugre, 2000, pp 4. The PRSP will replace the IMF Policy Framework Paper. 10 IMF and WB, 2001. 11 World Bank cited in Abugre, 2000, p 5. 12 IMF 1999. 13 Abugre, 2000.

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tion due to the lack of country ownership. Through the PRSP formulated by a wide range of stakeholders in a participatory fashion the ownership is thought to increase and a sustained implementation of the strategies will materialise. Hans Abrahamsson, senior lecturer at PADRIGU has shown in his PhD thesis, Seizing the Opportunity, that there is more international room for manoeuvre when it comes to alternative development strategies than conventional wisdom would have it. Abrahamsson has studied Mozambique and the international political economy behind the SAPs. He uses the theoretical concepts of problem solving and critical theory introduced by Gramsci and developed by Cox.14 If there is any room of manoeuvre this should be manifested in the PRSP process. The PRSP is the most important policy document for determining future development. The PRSP is not limited to a discussion of poverty reduction but also outlines the developmental route for the country formulating it. Does the government of Zambia has room for manoeuvre to create their own development strategy within the PRSP process? This thesis studies the room for governmental manoeuvre in policy formulation through the study of participation in the PRSP process. The study is process oriented and I have chosen not to study the policy content in detail. The method used is a case study of one country, Zambia. Under methodology and material the reasons for choosing Zambia are further dis-cussed. Is there room for manoeuvre for the government of Zambia in the PRSP policy formulation process? I will investigate this through the investigation of the problems and possibilities for participation among government, civil society and donors in the PRSP process in Zambia. In the theoretical part I will discuss the concept of participation and its relationship with other related concepts such as empowerment. The questions I aim to answer are of course all con-nected to the case study in Zambia.

1. In what way have the actors participated in the PRSP process? 2. Has the PRSP participation fostered national ownership? 3. Has the PRSP process changed the relationship between the actors in any way?

There have been three principal actors involved in the PRSP process in Zambia, the govern-ment, the donor community and civil society. The thesis will investigate how these actors have participated in the process and how the actors view their own participation as well as how they relate to each other. By doing this I hope to be able to see whether the government has room to manoeuvre, to create its own development agenda.

1.3 Previous research Due to the relatively short time that the PRSP has been in place there is a lack of academic research in the field. The actors involved, governments, donor agencies, the BWIs and CSOs have, however, written a number of reports on the PRSP from different perspectives. There are also a number of essays on the subject. Moreover, there is a vast body of research on par-ticipation in general. The best review that I have found on participation was written by An-drea Cornwall for Sidastudies. Her work will be discussed further in the chapter on theory. The UN University and World Institute for Development Economics Research, WIDER have investigated the PRSP to see if it is different from the SAPs. They have found that the focus on poverty reduction has increased but that little has changed in the big picture. The report

14 Abrahamsson 1997.

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finds civil society participation unsatisfactory although the new space created for dialogue between civil society and government is welcomed. The extent of country ownership among the PRSP governments is questioned and the WB and the IMF are thought to have a strong influence on the final PRSP document as well as on the Interim-PRSP.15 Other ongoing research about the PRSP is the PRSP Institutionalisation Study conducted by the Overseas Development Institute (ODI). The ODI study is made up of comparative case studies from eight African countries (not Zambia though) and tries to find out to which extent the poverty reduction policies; programmes practices and monitoring systems are being insti-tutionalised. A preliminary conclusion is that the adoption of the PRSPs has brought limited gains in all cases studied.16 The Norwegian Ministry of Foreign Affairs has written a paper about the IMF and WB co-operation in poverty reduction. The study was done to investigate in what way the BWI have been following up on their commitment to poverty reduction. The PRSP is found to be the prime action to achieve poverty reduction. The report emphasises the ownership question of the development agenda in recipient countries and notes that countries that already have well developed planning systems for poverty reduction hardly can feel an increased ownership by having new planning documents imposed on them, i.e. the PRSPs.17 The Finnish aid NGO Kepa has carried out a study where they assess and evaluate the PRSP process in Zambia. The study concludes that civil society is suspicious towards the political will of the government to actually implement the PRSP and notes that civil society is not rep-resented at the higher levels of the PRSP decision making processes, as well as a fear among CSOs that they will not be given a meaningful role in the phases of implementation and moni-toring of the PRSP. The results from the study imply that the process has strengthened con-sensus on poverty reduction issues among CSOs and that CSOs impact and influence on the process has been high. The government is thought to have been organised and responsive to the process and the donor’s involvement has been encouraging as well as supportive. On the negative side the study finds that the government could have performed better on stakeholder involvement and the sharing of information as well as in consultations, communications and effectiveness. The study notes that government information was often provided on the same day as a meeting and thus made it very difficult for civil society to contribute in a meaningful way. The study views the involvement of the rural areas as completely insufficient.18 The research I have found that is closest to my own work is a Masters thesis written in politi-cal science by Sofia Walan at the Gothenburg University. Walan study the involvement of interest organisations in the PRSP process in Zambia. Walan’s aim is to investigate how de-mocratic this participation has been and to see if it is possible to create democracy in a coun-try with external influence. The findings show that the participation of interest organisations cannot be seen to have been fully democratic. Walan finds two main reasons for this, the or-ganisations were not given the same access to the process nor did they have the same possi-bilities to influence the process. One of the interesting results is that there is a very strong technocratic norm involved in whom will get the opportunity to participate in and have influ-ence the process. Organisations with a high level of technical capacity and knowledge were the ones who had the greatest influence.19

15 Booth 2001. 16 ODI, 2001. 17 Schreiner and Kjörven 2001. 18 Mwene 2002. 19 Walan 2001.

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1.4 Methodology and material The research design used is made up of various methods, the main one being the case study. The case study methodology was chosen because it gives the opportunity to develop a deeper understanding of a process. Using a case study also has its limitations, the most important be-ing that it only provides knowledge about the case studied and thus provides a limited scope for generalisations.20 Zambia was chosen as the case for this thesis because they had reached quite far in their PRSP process when the study was planned in January 2001. According to the timetable the Zambian government was supposed to deliver its PRSP in August 2001, which would have corresponded well with my field research. Unfortunately the time frame was extended and the PRSP wasn’t finished during my visit from the beginning of August to the beginning of No-vember. Zambia is also interesting because it is a country that has had a democratic change of government (in 1991) and civil society played an important role in this. Zambia also has a quite developed civil society, notably with strong religious and trade union organisations. Fur-thermore there is an open environment for discussions of political issues in the Zambian soci-ety.21 The spring and summer of 2001 was in part devoted to study the PRSP and HIPIC concepts as well as more general studies on Zambia. I sent me research proposal to some of the key civil society actors in Zambia to get feedback on my proposed research as well as to establish con-tact and get more information about the process. I also approached the desk officer for Zam-bia at Sida to get material and initial contacts in Zambia. The field research was primarily centred on semi-structured interviews with actors involved in the PRSP process. I also used the method of participatory observation on three occasions. The interviews are the core of my method but they are also supplemented with written material collected on sight in Zambia. In addition I have used resources from the Internet and libraries. My prime method for the collection of data while in Zambia was semi-structured interviews with the relevant actors. I identified and characterised the actors as the government, donors and civil society. On most occasions I phoned to book the interviews, I found it easy to get access to my respondents even though many of them hold high positions in their respective organisations. The respondents were all well educated, most had university degrees, many at a master level and at least four had PhDs. They were used to being interviewed and expressing the opinion of the body they were representing. I tried to keep a gender balance when choos-ing respondents but there is an overweight of male respondents, which also is an image of the gender balance within much of the process. The interviews have been semi-structured. The questionnaire is appended to give the reader an idea of the questions posed. It should however be noted that not all the questions have been posed to all the respondents. This is due to time constraints and the fact that the different re-spondents have more or less information to share on different subjects. When a respondent had a lot to say about one interesting topic the interview was focused around this. To all the questions there has been the standard follow-up questions like, in what way, why, why not, can you exemplify, what was the reason for this, etc. The interviews were conducted by myself in English or Swedish and took place in the offices of the persons interviewed. On no occasion did I use an interpreter. The interviews ranged from 30 to 90 minutes with an average time of around 45 minutes. All interviews except four were recorded and have been transcribed in whole or in part. I took notes during two of the

20 Halvorsen, 1992, pp 67, Wallén, pp 115. 21 Mukum and Ihonvbere, 1998.

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interviews which were not recorded and wrote them down properly immediately after the in-terviews. Two interviews were conducted in a more informal manner to enhance my under-standing of the relations between the actors in Zambia and were not written down. All in all 42 persons were formally interviewed. The government and civil society PRSP coordinators were interviewed both in the beginning and at the end of the research; those interviews are counted as one. The interviews were divided as shown in the table below. The number of do-nor interviews is quite high; this might have influenced my understanding of the process, though I do not think so.

Government Donors Civil society Total Male 8 7 15 30 Female 1 9 2 12 Total 9 16 17 42 Table 1. Number of interviewees divided by category and sex.

When selecting interviewees I searched for people who had been deeply involved in the proc-ess and knew a lot about it, I focused on those participating directly in the process. Those out-side the process, the ones not participating, are not part of my material. It is possible, and probable, that the voices ‘from outside’ would have been more critical towards the process than those taking part. Most of my respondents took an active part in the government working groups (WGs). All in all more then 114 people participated in the WGs. I focused on the WGs on macroeconomics and governance since those were considered to be of great importance by many of the people I consulted when preparing my study. I have, however, met with people from all the eight WGs. I had a list with of all the names and organisations of the participants in the WGs from which I selected interviewees. I also used the snowball method of asking my respondents whom else they thought I should talk to. This question helped me to get a picture of who the more important actors were, even if I didn’t follow up and talk to all the suggested persons. I also strived to get a balance between different kinds of CSOs as well as civil servants from different levels. For a list of the WGs see table 2 and the appended material on the WGs. I took part in three meetings where I observed and talked to the participants. I also used those occasions to book interviews and to talk more informally about the process with different people. Taking part in meetings and having informal discussions with a lot of different people probably made it easier for me to understand the process and value the information given by my respondents. Furthermore, my material consists of working material from the governmental WGs, position papers from the CSOs, written speeches from ministers, CSOs and donor representatives, re-ports from CSOs and donors about the PRSP process in general and in Zambia specifically. The strength in my material lies in the possibility I have had to meet some of the most impor-tant persons in the process. The interviews are many and of high quality, they are also sup-plemented with written material to verify and strengthen them. Since the interviews are the basis of this thesis I think it is important that I share with the reader what my interviewees have told me. That is why the empirical chapter provides a lot of quotes from the interviews.

1.5 Delimitation My field study took place from August 9 to November 6 2001, with a break for vacation Sep-tember 21 to October 12. Unfortunately the final PRSP was not finished during this period.

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This is a weakness in the study. The way different actors view the process is of course de-pendent on the final outcome. It is beyond the scope of this thesis to discuss the policy content of the PRSP in any detail. When needed for exemplification this will be done, but the focus is on process and not on content. This is a study of a policy formulation process. The sometimes intricate game behind policy formulation is interesting. What is important though is what in fact is being done. Hav-ing a good policy does not mean that it will ever be implemented at all or in the way that one might think was the intention. The fact that this study cannot discuss the implementation of the policy is an obvious delimitation; it is, however, a matter for further research. I have chosen to not interview politicians, such as ministers, parliamentarians or the opposi-tion. This might be a weakness in the study. The parliament ought to be an important actor when it comes to fostering national ownership in a policy. From what I have seen though, the role and influence of the Movement for Multi-Democracy (MMD) dominated parliament be-fore the election in December 2001 was very limited. The political parties in opposition might have been the ones most critical of the process but are not part of my material. It is also important to emphasise that this study is focused on the participation at the national level. Thus the interviews have been carried out with the people involved in the national proc-ess, in the governmental WGs and the Civil Society for Poverty Reduction and in the donor discussions. The study is in this respect an elite study and the people interviewed are repre-sentatives of civil society organisations of Zambia or of the donor community. No interviews have been carried out with the people at the local level, thus the study will give a picture of how a central process has been perceived by the actors participating from central positions. There is, however, a discussion about the consultations in the provinces.

1.6 Outline The next chapter discuss the theoretical framework with focus on participation and empow-erment together with participation in the PRSP policy formulation process. Further on the chapter introduces the definitions used in the study. Chapter three is the first empirical chapter and is about the PRSP process in Zambia, after introducing the process it discusses the gov-ernmental working groups and the consultations in the provinces. The chapter continues with the civil society and how the participating organisations got organised. The chapter ends with a heading about the government leadership. Chapter four, the second empirical chapter dis-cusses the actors and their relationship to each other. Chapter five concludes the study and discuss the findings together with the theory it draws the conclusions and makes proposals for further research. The appendix provides the frame for the questions posed in the interviews, a list of the participating organisations in the governmental WGs, a list of the persons inter-viewed and a list of references.

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2. The theoretical framework 2.1 Participation The concept of participation is closely linked to the theoretical discourse on ownership, em-powerment and democratisation. Those concepts are in turn heavily related to the concept of power.22 According to Cook and Kothari the aim of participatory approaches in developmen-tal work is to make people central to development. This is done by “encouraging beneficiary involvement in interventions that affect them and over which they previously had little control or influence”.23 In other words the aim of participation is to “…increase the involvement of socially and economically marginalized people in decision-making over their own lives.”24 As shown by Henkel and Stirrat the concept of participation is not as new as one would per-haps think. Participation got highly into development fashion in the mid 1980’s and is still there. But the roots of participation can be traced back to the catholic as well as protestant churches in the 15th century. Henkel and Stirrat simply think that the root of participation is to be found in ‘religion’.25 Andrea Cornwall traces the modern discussion on participation to the 1960’s and 1970’s and what was then called ‘popular participation’. ‘Popular participation’ was a part of the basic needs approach to development. Bilateral aid agencies started to include participation in their policy documents and the UN Economic and Social Council urged governments to

…adopt popular participation as a basic policy measure in national development strategy… [and] encourage the widest possible active participation of all individuals and national non-governmental organisations in the development process, in setting goals, formulating policies and implementing plans.26

The ambitions on participation were, as the citation shows, high. Cornwall has noticed that there were three distinct features categorising the arguments for participation in the 1970’s. The first was about effectiveness and efficiency. It was thought that participatory projects were more likely to be a success. This is an argument that Cornwall sees all through the mod-ern history of participation. The second set of arguments is about self-determination, rights and a more equal distribution of resources. In this category it is not enough to merely inform the population or ask them for their opinions; instead the aim is to actually be the ones who make the decisions. This was a quite radical point of view in the 1970’s but according to Cornwall this is more in line with mainstream today. The third argument is about mutual learning and acknowledges that people cannot be developed; people can only develop them-selves in cooperation with others.27 One influential scholar discussing participation in the 1970’s was Sherry Arnstein. Arnstein founded the ladder of participation. Arnstein views participation from the participators point of view and focuses on the degree of control that the participants have. When participation involves delegated power and partnership this gives the citizens power. When participation is

22 Cook and Kothari, 2001. For a discussion on empowerment and power see Erwér 2001. 23 Cook and Kothari, 2001, p 5. 24 Guijt, 1998 cited in Cook and Kothari, 2001, p 5. 25 Henkel and Stirrat, 2001. 26 ECOSOC 1975, cited in Cornwall 2000, p 18. 27 Cornwall, 2000, p 20-22.

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limited to consultation or information, Arnstein views it as tokenism. Participation as therapy or manipulation is labelled non participation.28

Citizen control Delegated power

Partnership Consultation Information

Placation Therapy

Manipulation

Citizen Power

Tokenism

Non Participation

Figure 1. The ladder of participation, after Arnstein.

Cornwall notes that the analysis by Arnstein casts doubt on the commonly used method of consultation. But at the same time she acknowledges that even consultation can spark popular participation and interest around an issue and it can provide an arena for discussion. Cornwall notes further that participation through consultation is often presented as a way for decision-makers to become better informed about the views of different stakeholders. Often there is an implication that these views might be taken up and acted upon. Consultation is, however, of-ten used to inform actors of plans or decisions that have been taken on their behalf. The pur-pose is to legitimate the decisions. In consultations there are rarely any guarantees that differences of opinion will be accommodated when decisions are reached or implemented.29 In practice from the 1970’s participation was often carried out with the help of the method of Rapid Rural Appraisal (RRA). RRA functioned as a tool for gathering information for policy and project planning. Then came the Participatory Rural Appraisal (PRA) and swept most other methods away.30 According to Cornwall,

PRA offered accessible, pragmatic, methods for finding out about local conditions and needs and for building consensus on potential courses of action. As such, it fitted the needs of the development mainstream like a glove. It could be slotted directly into the discrete phases of the project cycle. It could be applied in such a way that donor timeframes and priorities could be accommodated.31

The founder of the PRA is professor Robert Chambers from the University of Sussex. Ac-cording to Henkel and Stirrat Chambers work is characterised by a stress on ‘bottom-up rather then ‘top-down’ approaches, empowerment, the marginal, a distrust of the state and a celebra-tion of ‘local’ or ‘indigenous’ knowledge. The PRA has been the most commonly used par-ticipatory method in development work in the 1990’s. In the mid 1990’s critique against the method and against participation started to be heard. Henkel and Stirrat divide the critiques of participation into ‘conservatives’ and ‘progressives’. The conservatives claim that the partici-patory approaches overstate the value of ‘local knowledge’ and the potential to self-determination in this sense the participatory approaches are naïve; experts and the state are thought to actually know better. The progressives on the other hand claim that the participa-tory approaches seldom lead to participation and empowerment.32

28 Arnstein, 1971. 29 Cornwall, 2000. 30 Ibid, p 43. 31 Ibid, p 43. 32 Henkel and Stirrat, 2001, pp 170.

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There are many definitions of participation; this study uses the WB definition since the PRSP has been introduced by the WB. According to the WB definition, “[p]articipation is a process through which stakeholders influence and share control over development initiatives and the decisions and resources which affect them.”33 The bank acknowledges that there is no blue-print for participation since participation can play different roles in different contexts and pro-jects for different purposes. But the bank also states that:

However, in whatever context or reason they are used, participatory processes or civic en-gagement in the poverty reduction strategy process allows countries to begin exchanging in-formation with other stakeholders and thereby increase the transparency of their decision making. This in turn will improve government accountability to the people and, as a result, in-crease the overall governance and economic efficiency of development activities.34

The review of participation made by Cornwall focuses on participation in development pro-jects since it is there that participation has been taking place. With the PRSP we have a differ-ent case. The PRSP is a national document to be decided by the government with the support of the parliament. Since much of the participatory approach aims at developing democracy in different aspects it is also important that the process strengthens the formal democratic institu-tions and not weakens them. 2.2 Empowerment John Friedmann, Professor Emeritus at the University of California, Los Angeles, studies em-powerment and the need for an inclusive democracy. Friedmann differentiates between social-, political- and psychological empowerment. Where social empowerment is a process where a household, or an individual, gets access to resources which enhance the prospects of a better life. Political empowerment is about the possibilities to influence decisions, especially in re-gard to one’s own situation. Psychological empowerment is often a result of social and/or po-litical empowerment and has to do with self-confidence. According to Friedmann empowerment is a process that evolves with the people concerned themselves. When it comes to the poor this is something that rarely happens by itself but there is a need for external actors to support and act as catalysts in a way that encourages the poor and disadvantaged to em-power themselves in order to be free from dependency.35 Friedmann argues that inclusive democracy is the way to integrate the poor into society, there is a need for a political arena which allows for dialogue and opens up for the possibility of mobilisation. Without this, participation is merely tokenism. In order to achieve an inclusive democracy Friedmann emphasise three actions. First, democracy has to be deepened to em-brace all, the formal democratic rights given to the citizens must include all citizens, also in practice. The eradication of extreme poverty is an important component, although it is not a prerequisite according to Friedmann. Second, the power of the state has to be decentralised, the battlefield against poverty must be located at the local level, where the poor are and can be mobilised. Friedmann notes that many states are heavily centralised, bureaucratic and do not care much about weak groups. A centralised state tends to exclude the citizens and primarily views them as a potential threat. Thirdly, it is a question of enhancing the possibilities in soci-ety to make decisions. The challenge is to awaken the politically uninterested poor in order to make them claim their rights as citizens and be empowered. Friedmann’s model of empow-erment is also a model of democratisation. By helping the poor to empower themselves the state is strengthened and democracy can prevail.36

33 www.worldbank.org/participation/keyconcepts.htm#participation, visited 090802. 34 WB, homepage, www.worldbank.org, visited 080202. 35 Fridemann, 1992. 36 Ibid.

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The World Bank has a similar view on empowerment, talking about economic, social and po-litical empowerment. In its broadest sense empowerment is thought to be the expansion of freedom of choice and action. When people increase their authority and control over resources and decisions that affect their lives empowerment is in place. The WB definition of empow-erment is that “empowerment is the expansion of assets and capabilities of poor people to par-ticipate in, negotiate with, influence, control, and hold accountable institutions that affect their lives.”37 This is also the definition of empowerment used in this thesis. 2.3 Participation in the PRSP policy formulation Rosemary McGee is a Development Social Scientist and researcher at the Institute of Devel-opment Studies, University of Sussex. McGees research is focused on participation, policy change and civil society participation in local and national governance and Southern owner-ship and partnership in development cooperation. According to McGee we can assume that a policy lives through three distinct phases; it starts with the formulation, than comes the im-plementation and it ends with an evaluation phase. It is my assumption that the more (mean-ingful) participation there is within the process and the longer CSOs are allowed to take part in the different steps, the more ownership there will be among those actors towards the agreed policy. In the PRSP cycle McGee identifies five steps; the first step is the preparation of the formulation phase, the second the actual formulation, step three is the agreement on the for-mulation by approval, the fourth is the implementation and the fifth is the evaluation. This study is limited to the policy formulation phase which corresponds to the first three steps.38 In the last chapter I will use McGee to discuss me results. The government is supposed to take the lead in the work with the PRSP in all stages. The do-nor community can also be a more or less important actor in all stages, but, there is also room for considerable civil society participation throughout the process. When conducting the ana-lytical work, poor communities can be involved in analysing the nature and causes of poverty in participatory research or consultative processes. The poor themselves can be assisted in the work by academics, CSOs, donors or government. It is important that the research is done in a way that makes the selection of participants representative. In the strategy formulation phase civil society and government can work together. McGee finds it likely that there are CSO specialists taking part and that the opportunity for direct in-volvement of poor people is limited. When it comes to donor participation McGee finds it likely but not always desirable. In the approval step the PRSP has to be approved by the for-mal political structures in the country, but also by the boards of the WB and the IMF. McGee also talks about the need for public approval in order to ease implementation and create credi-bility. McGee believes that civil society should lead a national well published dialogue around the PRSP, and this should lead to public endorsement of the paper. Even the bilateral donor agencies need to have the approval from their boards for programmes related to the PRSP. The implementation and evaluation phases both provide great opportunities for participation but will not be discussed here since they are beyond the scope of this thesis. McGee uses the ladder of participation to analyse which different kinds of participation might be possible and appropriate or desirable at different stages of the PRSP process. Information sharing obviously has to take place throughout the whole process if any partici-pation is to be possible. The media is given a great task when it comes to the dissemination of information to a wider audience, but it is also noted that the media can only carry out this task if they are given substantial information to disseminate. McGee views the government as the principal actor responsible for providing the media with information but she also acknowl- 37 WB, 2002, p 11. 38 The discussion is based on McGee with Norton, 2000 where nothing else is stated.

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edges that civil society and other actors, such as politicians, have an interest and a capability to use the media. Figure 2. The steps of participation, developed after McGee

Initiation and control by stakeholders

Joint decision-making

Consultation Information-sharing

Consultation may take place during the analysis of poverty and the development of strate-gies. Consultation does not imply that there is an obligation for the consulting party, i.e. the government to include all, or even any of the perspectives expressed, in the final document. McGee stresses the importance of the need for civil society to effectively consult with the people who they are representing; this has to be done in order to ensure that the civil society representation is authentic. McGee further suggests that parliamentarians should consult with their constituencies and parties before adoption. Donors are expected to consult with their partners, the prime ones being the government and NGOs. Joint decision-making is possible at some stages of the PRSP process according to McGee. This notion implies some right to actually negotiate some of the content of the strategy. It could be in the interest of the government to have some of the stronger actors involved in a joint decision-making process because of those actors importance in implementation, these could for example be private sector representatives, unions or churches. Weaker civil society actors can play the card of withdrawing their participation in the process, thus taking away their stamp of legitimacy. In the formulation phase joint decision-making can be about the agreement on priorities and how to finance those priorities. Initiation and control by stakeholders is the highest level of participation in this model. McGee sees a limited but significant opportunity for civil society initiatives, particularly when it comes to accountability and the phases of monitoring. This could include, for exam-ple, initiatives of citizen-lead monitoring and evaluation within a framework agreed upon by the authorities. According to McGee different actors have different levels of authority and control. Authority does not have to be vested in formal positions; neither does it have to be transparent. In a country the government might have all the formal authority, but if this country is heavily de-pendent on donor resources the staff participating from donor agencies might be in a position to influence and even dominate the process. One fruitful way to divide ownership is to use the terms of external and internal ownership. In this case external ownership refers to the government and its relationship with external own-ership such as the multilateral institutions i.e. the BWI and the UN agencies and the bilateral donor agencies. The internal ownership is related to the way the PRSP process has been con-ducted in the country. Focus is on how different stakeholders such as the parliament, line min-istries and the wider civil society have been involved in the process. By necessity the concept of ownership is closely connected to participation. 39

39 Booth, 2001, p 2.

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Country ownership should not be understood as only government ownership, the concept is a lot broader including at least theoretically all relevant actors. The following quote from the IMF is a good summary of the BWIs view on participation and ownership within the PRSP process.

The new approach to poverty reduction […] builds on the traditional emphasis on macroeco-nomic structural soundness by also stressing the importance of country ownership of the pov-erty reduction strategy. The growing concern for country ownership, including through the involvement of civil society, is intended to reduce the risk of slippages in implementation as the countries themselves take greater responsibility. […] To foster ownership, the PRSP will be drawn up by the government after broad-based consultations with stakeholders, including representatives of civil society and development partners, and with assistance with World Bank and IMF staff.40

In relation to the PRSP process Booth thinks that ownership implies a move away from the unsuccessful technocratic decision-making where the BWI act as intimate advisors at best and dictates the agenda of the day at worst.41

2.4 Definitions Some of the other concepts used in this thesis needs to be further discussed and defined. Civil society is a complex and debatable concept with roots that go back to classical thinkers such as Hegel, Locke, Tocqueville and Pain. Most scholars agree that civil society is the part of society between the state and the family. Göran Hydén views civil society as voluntary organ-ised social life, which supports itself and is autonomous from the state; Hydén regards the concept as universally applicable.42 Hadenius and Uggla argue that civil society has two principal tasks in relation to democracy. The first is pluralism related to the division of power in society. The role of civil society is to control and limit the power of the state. Ideally civil society balances the power of the state and as a counter force it can assure pluralism in society. In order to be a counter force civil society has to have a certain degree of autonomy from the state. The second role is educa-tional where civil society has a task to educate the citizens to become democratic citizens. Through democratic organisations the members can learn practical tools desirable in a democ-ratic society as well as democratic norms and values.43 In this study I use a definition of civil society organisations, CSOs, used by McGee. This definition stipulate that civil society or-ganisations are business and non-governmental organisations and:

They include academic and technical bodies, research initiatives, professional associations, business associations, religious bodies, labour unions, farmers’ organisations, cooperatives, women’s organisations, environmental protection organisations, minority rights organisations, and rural development organisation. Citizens, not governmental officials, manage CSOs.44

Civil society should not be discussed as something united or uniform. One of the key features of civil society is that it is diverse. It is made up of unions and church organisations from a wide range of denominations, there are the hard-core advocacy organisations with few mem-bers but very professional and well organised, there are the grass roots working locally and practically, etc.45

40 IMF, 2000. 41 Booth, 2001, p 3. 42 Hydén, 1995. 43 Hadenius and Uggla, 1995. 44 McGee, 2000. 45 For a discussion on civil society and different phases of democratisation see Boussard, 1998, or Cohen and Arato, 1995.

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Private sector, in this study is understood as corporations that are owned and managed by pri-vate actors where the aim of the operations is profit. The private sectors as whole and differ-ent interest groups within the sector often have their own interest organisations. These organisations have members, statutes, a president and annual meetings like most other CSOs. These organisations are included in the definition of CSOs. Government or the state is understood as the Zambian government and their institutions such as the ministries and the departments and units of the government agencies as well as the Bank of Zambia, etc. Donors or the donor community can be of various kinds. In this study I include the multilater-als, the WB and the IMF, UN agencies, the EU and foreign governments and their develop-ment agencies. There are also civil society organisations that could be regarded as donors. In this study, however, they are treated as CSOs.

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3. The PRSP-process in Zambia

3.1 Introduction The PRSP work in Zambia has been the responsibility of the Ministry of Finance and Eco-nomic Development, MoFED. Since MoFED has been under reconstruction the PRSP work has been organised as a project under the ministry. The Poverty Reduction Advisory Unit, PRAU has been the unit running the work. This arrangement made it possible to get the work started fast. When the PRSP is completed the PRAU will be part of the new planning division, which will be established in 2002.46 MoFED began work on the Interim-PRSP (I-PRSP) in June 2000 and presented the paper to the BWI on July 7 2000. Since the I-PRSP is a prerequisite for access to the HIPIC funds the process was characterised by speed and the lack of civil society participation. The I-PRSP is a statement from the government on how they perceive the road forward with the PRSP proc-ess, as well as the poverty reduction efforts in Zambia.47 There are similarities between the I-PRSP and the PFP. The PFP is an IMF document that sets out the macroeconomic policy for Zambia as it does for any borrowing country.48 Box 1. The PRSP characteristics according to the World Bank; • country-driven, involving broad-based participation by civil society and the private sec-

tor in all operational steps; • results-oriented, and focused on outcomes that would benefit the poor; • comprehensive, in recognizing the multidimensional nature of poverty, but also • prioritized, so that implementation is feasible, in both fiscal and institutional terms; • partnership-oriented, involving coordinated participation of development partners (bi-

lateral, multilateral, and non-governmental); based on a • long-term perspective for poverty reduction.49 Even though the I-PRSP is the roadmap for the PRSP work in Zambia my interviews do not show that the document has been used a lot in the WGs or that it has been a guiding docu-ment. It seems instead that the I-PRSP was something that had to be done to access HIPIC and to get the work started. One of the civil servants explains that:

In the I-PRSP we were taking a more heavy-handed government approach. Of course we were to draft the document, so we looked at it from our perspective. Obviously we had not under-taken any consultations to that scale. The Terms of Reference and the stakeholder conference is really what drove the day.50

There is no doubt that the PRSP process is a top-down exercise. Born in Washington, brought to Africa, there is a strong initial top-down element. Then of course each country can choose to involve different levels and parts of the country at different stages and in different ways. In Zambia the process has been centred on Lusaka and the governmental WGs. The WG papers have then been the basis for discussion and consultation with people from the districts in the

46 Mtonga. 47 Bread for the world institute p 10, Musokotwane, GRZ I-PRSP, 2001. 48 Bread for the world institute p 10. 49 WB, homepage, www.worldbank.org visited 100202. . 50 Situmbeko.

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provincial consultations. Mrs Mbao, WB representative, thinks that the process has been par-ticipatory but says that,

…participation is a very difficult concept sometimes. Sometimes you don’t know how much participation you want. What has happened is that the participation is supposed to be in stages. First you talk to the government officials to have them know about it, then the other stake-holders, then you go outside Lusaka to other parts of the country and then you have a national summit. […] The process has tried to be participatory. But again we need to understand that all those things we can improve upon. We look forward to making sure that the next stage around we even make it more participatory. Go down to the people if we can.51

A process which is Washington initiated probably has to gain approval in the capital city of the recipient country to start with, especially since the government is supposed to take the leadership in the process. When Mrs Mbao was asked if she thinks that there is anything that has been negative or unsatisfactory with the process she answers that:

The government went to the nine provinces of Zambia. One wonders perhaps one could have gone to more districts. Next time maybe we make sure that it is done at a lower level say, maybe even the village level.52

Mr Cipimo, civil servant at the Bank of Zambia has a different view. He thinks that there was too much time and resources spent on the process in the WGs. Instead he thinks that the gov-ernment should have developed a paper that could have worked as a point of departure. Then the discussion could have continued from there.53 The civil society organisations are very clear when asked if they think there is any group that should have had a more prominent role in the process. They all say that the poor themselves should have played a greater role. When talking about poor people in Zambia it isn’t a small and marginalized group we’re talking about. They might be marginalized but they consist of around four fifths of the population. Before the PRSP goes to the cabinet for approval it goes to the Permanent Secretaries (PSs) in the Technical Committee (TC). The PSs are senior civil servants close to the minister of their respective ministry. The TC has been one of the major issues of disagreement between gov-ernment and civil society. Civil society has been fighting to be part of the TC at the PS level. The reason being that they suspect that the views presented by civil society in the consulta-tions might not otherwise be part of the final PRSP. Civil society wants to be part of the stages in the process where the actual decisions will be made. The CSPR has carried out ex-tensive lobbying efforts to make this happen. According to civil society representatives even the donors have raised the question of civil society representation in the TC in meetings with the government. At a CSPR venue the minister of finance stated that he didn't have any prob-lem with the civil society taking part in the TC and gave the task to the civil servants to look into the technical aspects of the issue. Civil society never appeared in the TC though.54 The governmental PRSP co-ordinator was of the personal opinion that it wasn’t appropriate that the civil society representatives took part in the TC. One reason being that they had al-ready taken part in the governmental WGs and:

… there is a danger about civil society making decisions, because you loose your moral au-thority to be a watchdog. A watchdog in my view is somebody who says, government has said they should do this, why have you not done it? Or government, you have done that; it is a bad

51 Mbao. 52 Ibid. 53 Chipimo. 54 Phiri and H Manchina.

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decision because of ABC, especially in a country like Zambia where parliament is sometimes dominated by one party. If you have a civil society that can question government then you have an appropriate system of checks and balances. Now if they extend to far in wanting to participate and make decisions, if things go wrong, who will challenge who?55

3.2 The Working Groups The government decided to have eight WGs in the PRSP process with the themes shown in the table below. Initially the government advertised in the press to inform interested organisa-tions that they could apply to participate in whichever WG they felt comfortable with. From the answers the government selected participants to take part in the different groups. The do-nor community were asked to participate in a more structured way. For example the World Health Organisation was asked to be part of the WG on health, UNESCO in the WG on edu-cation, etc.56 In the WGs there were between 11 and 18 formally adopted participants. In addition to those (at least in some WGs) governmental officials and even donor representatives could take part in the meetings on an ad hoc basis.57 For a list of institutions taking part in the WGs see the appendix. As the table below shows, the donors have the greatest number of participants in the WGs. Donor representation is particularly strong in the fields of education, health and the macro-economic WGs. Especially civil society representatives have been critical towards the strong donor representation in the WGs, but even some donors have expressed similar opinions. The government representatives, who compiled the groups, seem to think that the composition was good. Table 2. Participants in the governmental working groups by category.

Government Civil society Donors Total

1. Macroeconomic 3 4 7 -50% 14

2. Agriculture 7 6 5 -28% 18

3. Tourism 6 4 3 -24% 13

4. Industry 4 6 3 -24% 13

5. Mining 4 5 2 -15% 11

6. Health 5 3 7 -47% 15

7. Education 5 3 9 -53% 17

8. Governance 4 4 5 -38% 13

Total 38 35 41 114

Percentage 33 31 36 100

Source: Composition of PRSP Working Groups, MoFED 18 September 2000.

55 Musokotwane. 56 Situmbeki, Katundu, Musukutwane. 57 Mbao, Hallstrom, N Manchina.

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MoFED is represented in all WGs. The WB is represented in all WGs except the WG on health; the reason for this was a lack of capacity. Also the University of Zambia, UNZA, had a strong representation with six representatives. In my categorisation the UNZA has been in-cluded under the government category. The PRAU selected the chairman of the WGs, the reason being, according to one civil servant that they needed a chairman who was able to control. And if he proved to be ineffective the PRAU would be able to ask the chair to step down.58 Most WGs met once a week for some hours, sometimes for a whole day. In-between those meetings some WGs, notably the one on education, had meetings with a smaller part of the group that was responsible for some of the items in the ToR.59 The WGs had a consultant who synthesised what was said in the WG and the WGs started to develop a paper over time. In my interviews the donors have had a lot of opinions on the role of the consultant. Government and civil society representatives do not mentioned the consult-ants to any great extent. Donor representatives think that the consultants were contracted in a way that might have been nepotistic and that they were not living up to expectations. They delivered their papers late, if they delivered them at all and sometimes the WG had to argue against the consultant when he or she wanted to put his own views in the paper. One of the WGs managed to get rid of their consultant and did their writing on their own, another WG tried to get their consultant replaced but failed.60 One anonymous donor representative talks about the bad atmosphere created by the consultant;

Ours was just completely, completely terrible. And we all lobbied formally to the PRSP-secretariat, Dr Musokotwane to remove her because she was crap she was completely crap. She was supposed to produce background papers and she wouldn’t do it for weeks and weeks and basically she took notes, but there was a secretary to do that anyway, so she was terrible. She was getting paid a lot of money, donor money, government money and she was terrible, obstructive, totally late. Whoever hired her wouldn’t get rid of her. That was bad government in action, basically lack of transparency.

The government and the civil society representatives do not comment on the administration or efficiency of the WGs, although the donors do. They find the administration of the WGs in-adequate, meetings were sometimes called the same day, there was a lack of focus in the dis-cussions and the whole exercise seemed to be very time consuming. The MoFED provided the WGs with ToR. Interestingly those ToR were open for discussion the WGs were free to modify the ToR, to delete and add, as they felt appropriate. Each group adopted an approach that suited them.61 The work in the WG on industry is described as fol-lows by the secretary of the group:

We brainstormed on the ten Terms of Reference that were given by the government. What has gone wrong, which are the current programmes and what do we need to do, the cost of poten-tial programs was of course also an issue. We brainstormed, the consultant took notes and he came back to the next meeting with a paper. We started each meeting with looking at what the consultant had written.62

If there was an issue that needed external input some of the WGs invited people to come and contribute on that issue. Most of the WGs started to review what had gone wrong in their

58 Situmbeki. 59 Hallström. 60 Gale, Gibson, N Manchina, Pisholkors. 61 Situmbeki. 62 Ibid.

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field. Doing that they used previous documents and statistics from their field of interest. As noted in the theoretical chapter the question of access to information is the most basic one in order to have a participatory process. Many of the civil society representatives were critical of the way that government have (or more correctly have not) provided the necessary informa-tion to the WGs.63 The following quote is from a CSO representative from the Civil Society for Poverty Reduction (CSPR) lead organisation the Jesuit Centre for Theological Reflection.

When you don’t have equal access to information you don’t expect equal participation. The group that doesn’t have access to information especially the critical information is affected in terms of its input. This is the characteristic of the civil society. We have been called to partici-pate in this process, but at the same time not getting equal access to information.64

Many of the civil society representatives have also noted that this is not a problem for the do-nors, since they have another relationship with the government and thus other possibilities to get access to documents. Civil society have also mentioned that at many times it has been the questions from the donors at the WG meetings that have made it possible to get the relevant documents from the government.65 After the WGs had finished their work the process was taken to the drafting committee level. This is the level where the document was assembled. According to Mrs Phiri at the CSPR, civil society was promised to be able to take part at this stage. But in the end the drafting was done without them. The drafting work has by and large been done by the civil servants at the PRAU under the leadership of the co-ordinator. The combined texts of the eight WGs ex-ceeded 800 pages which, of course, had to be concentrated down to a more manageable document. The PRSP first draft was a 180 page thick document.66

3.3 Provincial consultations The I-PRSP and the guidelines to the WGs outline that there will be a provincial consultation within the process. This, it is said, will be done in order to widen the participation and involve the nation. The provincial consultations took place in May 2001, carried out by four teams who went to two provinces each except one team that covered three. The workshops took four full days and focused on two themes, the first being the definition of poverty, its causes and desired measures to reduce poverty as understood by the participants. The second objective was to get feedback on the drafts from the PRSP governmental WGs. According to the civil society representative in one of the teams the workshops were participatory and conducted through plenary and group discussions.67 The DAs are appointed by the president. In my interviews it has became clear that most peo-ple do not think that the DAs do what they are supposed to do. Instead they are thought to campaign for the MMD government.68 Some of the CSOs taking part in the governmental WGs also took part in the governmental consultations in the provinces. Mr Henry Manchina visited three districts and he was critical to the way the DAs selected the participants for the workshops.

The DA selected and what he did, usually it was a he, was to invite heads of departments in the district. Heads of department were almost all men. Over all the issues of poverty were brought out. Even if it was in the government departments, poverty is quite high in Zambia, so you don't need very poor people to come to us to report. Even just the people at the high level

63 Phiri, Mphuka, Akwapela. 64 Mphuka. 65 Phiri, Mphuka. 66 Phiri. 67 CSPR, May 2001. 68 Chaponda, Phiri, Musukotwane and N Manchina.

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who are working with poor would still bring out the major issues and priorities. Although quite a little was done on the issues of woman and children, very little was mentioned. One reason for this was that woman were quite absent in the workshop.69

The much criticised DAs took part in the provincial consultations as heads of delegation for their respective district. Even though this was the case Mr Manchina says that the people criticised the DAs anyway:

Some people felt intimidated but that happened only the first days or so, the workshops took about 4-5 days. So during the third day or so things started to come up and people would say, - actually we have a problem with the DAs. Others, the local people, would stand up and say yes this is a problem, they are getting a lot of money but they take the money and campaign for the ruling party, instead of channelling it towards the development of their districts.70

Civil society realised that the DAs must be allowed to participate in the consultations as any other participants. But they didn’t want the DAs to be the ones selecting the participants from the districts in the consultations because of a fear that the process would be politicised if the DAs were allowed to play a key role. And civil society themselves wanted to select their own civil society participants from the districts. The PRSP co-ordinator Dr. Musokotwane had an-other approach, he thought that the DAs were a reality in the districts and that they could have a bad influence on the process if they were sidelined. Instead he thought it was better to or-ganise the process in a way that made it possible to stand up to the DAs and influence them.71 The DAs were a concrete issue in the PRSP process but it was also an issue in the discussions on governance and in many other WGs. In the final PRSP it is suggested that the DAs office should be abolished and the responsibilities should be given to local authorities.72 Below is a compiled list of participants from three of the provincial consultations. The level of civil society and female participation is far from encouraging. From six of the 16 partici-pating districts there were no civil society participants at all. From four of the districts only men took part. The statistics are compiled from one third of the provinces visited.73 Nothing in my material suggests that the missing provinces would show any other picture. Table 3. Participation of civil society, government, women and men, in three gov-ernmental provincial consultative workshops. Civil society Government Male Female Total

Central 9 57 58 8 66

Lusaka 4 47 41 10 51

Eastern 8 52 51 9 60

Total 21 156 150 27 177

Percentage 12 88 85 15 100

Source: CSPR, May 2001

69 H Manchina. 70 Ibid. 71 Musokotwane. 72 MoFED, 2002. 73 CSPR, May 2001.

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What was the role of the civil society representatives in the government teams? Mr Manchina says that his role was to explain the role of civil society in the process. And as everybody else to listen to the people and get their opinions. Mr Manchina also envisaged that his role was to push things into the PRSP document. Sometimes when he thought that somebody brought up an interesting issue in the discussions and the government officials didn’t take notice Mr Manchina tried to highlight that issue.74

3.4 Civil society gets organised The organisations interested in the PRSP work felt a need to co-ordinate their efforts and thus they started the Civil Society for Poverty Reduction (CSPR). The CSPR is a network of more then 100 organisations formed to work specifically with the PRSP. The task is to co-ordinate and facilitate for CSO to participate in the process. CSPR is governed by a steering committee responsible for planning and strategy. The steering committee is made up of 19 organisations, the UNDP is not part of the steering committee but takes part in the meetings. Between the steering committee meetings there is a taskforce of five organisations responsible for the work. The CSPR has a co-ordinating office with two full time employees.75 The CSPR didn’t think that the government WGs were enough to have broad and meaningful civil society participation. To enable a wider CSO participation and more people to be part of the process there was a need to broaden the work. CSPR started 10 parallel WGs made up of civil society participants. There was also an ambition that those groups should provide input to the civil society representatives in the governmental WGs but it proved difficult to make this happen. Government representatives reacted by saying that civil society was well repre-sented in the governmental WGs. The CSPR thought that the civil society participation in the WG could not reflect the views of wider civil society and perceived a need to conduct their own consultative process. The government initially thought this was to duplicate the process. According to the CSPR co-ordinator that was not the aim. The aim was to add value to the national process and to ensure that the PRSP was actually a nationally owned document.76 During the PRSP process the CSPR has had a lot of concerns and thoughts about the process as well as the content. The points in the box below summarise those concerns.

Box 2. Concerns raised by the CSPR about the PRSP process in Zambia; 1. Lack of adequate civil society representation in the government WGs. 2. Difficulties to access vital information from various government departments. 3. Lack of civil society participation at the technical level where the final policy deci-

sions are made. 4. The use of DAs as PRSP focal persons in the regions risks politicising the process. 5. The lack of consistency in the government timetables which makes it difficult to plan

for the appropriate activities. 6. Problems with the financial assistance not arriving at the right time. 7. Concern about the level of political will to implement the outcome of the process. 8. Lack of information on what will happen once the PRSP is completed. Difficulties to

plan for the next phase.77 The CSPR WGs had a facilitator connected to each group. Each facilitator was given the task of developing a paper where the views of the group were reflected. In a civil society national forum, 14-15 March 2001, the facilitators presented the position papers for civil society. The

74 H Manchina. 75 Phiri. 76 Ibid. 77 CSPR, 20 March 2001.

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participants then had the possibility to discuss and come up with further ideas for the position papers. After this civil society started consultations at the grassroots level, in provincial meet-ings. This happened at the same time as the government had their consultations in the prov-inces. The civil society aim was once again to supplement the government efforts and to add value. Because of budget constrains CSPR were only able to go to four of the nine provinces. CSPR targeted the four poorest provinces of Zambia. The CSPR WGs and the consultations in the provinces together led to the Poverty Reduction Strategy Paper for Zambia, a Civil So-ciety Perspective, published in July 2001.78 Civil society thinks they have value to add at the different stages of the process and therefore should also be part of all the stages. They do not see that only consultation and the possibility to take part in monitoring and evaluation is enough. CSPR expresses that they will not accept to be rubber stamps in a consultation process but want to get their ideas through.79

3.5 The National Summit on Poverty Reduction The National Summit on Poverty Reduction was conducted on the 15th-18th October 2001 in order to have a broad discussion among stakeholders from the whole country around the PRSP first draft. Among the participants were traditional leaders such as chiefs, CSO repre-sentatives, government officials and the donor community. When talking to civil servants be-fore the meeting they said that it was going to be a meeting where a lot of the so important prioritisation that had so far been lacking should be done. I took part as an observer during the whole meeting and I couldn’t observe any real discussions on priorities. On the contrary there were a lot of demands from different parts of the country that there should be additions. The additions were often about the need to build a certain road in a certain district. The meeting was by and large male dominated. Only two donor representatives spoke to the whole auditorium. Lucia Hammer, DFID repre-sentative from the PRSP team in London talked about the challenges facing the ‘co-operating partners’ in the implementation of the PRSP. The World Bank resident representative, Law-rence Clark, made a joint statement on behalf of the donors. Clarks speech was based on a donor meeting held a week before the Summit. Informally a lot of donors were very critical towards the speech. They thought that it didn’t reflect what had been said in the meeting, a meeting that had been quite critical towards the content of the PRSP first draft. It was thought that the WG 0-drafts were actually better then the combined document and that there was a severe lack of prioritisation. At this stage of the process it seemed that the donors were think-ing that the PRSP was still very much a working document and that there was a need for a lot of more negotiations to finalise the document. The civil society on the other hand seemed to think that the PRSP was more or less finished. Civil society was by large very pleased with the content. They thought that their points of view were reflected in the document to 60-80 per cent.80 A lot of the discussions at the Summit were centred at the state and what the state were ex-pected to deliver. I was not able to see any real political cleavages on the road forward for Zambia. The conflict I saw was between the countryside and the cities. One of the key features of the PRSP process in Zambia has been the different WGs discussing sectors. This method has proven weak when it comes to the issue of linkages between the sec-

78 Phiri. 79 Ibid. 80 Ibid.

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tors. Even the crosscutting issues of environment, HIV/AIDS and gender are weak. There are similar experiences to this in other PRSP processes.81

3.6 The government leadership The government is supposed to provide the leadership in the process and involve the stake-holders in participation. It is not an entirely new situation for the government to have consul-tations with stakeholders. Even under the Kaunda era the government undertook consultations but then mostly with the unions and business representatives.82 Mr Mtonga, Secretary to the Treasury, views the PRSP as the most important government policy document; he says that the PRSP “…will guide the budget, the financial sector, the so-cial sector and all the other sectors.” Mtonga thinks that the work with the PRSP has been done in a way that would allow any other government to adopt it as their policy because the PRSP ”…will not contain anything partisan.” According to the Secretary to the Treasury the MMD government has been very careful not to politicise the process and make it an MMD exercise. Still he thinks that the PRSP first draft reflects MMD policy and he does not antici-pate that the government will have to make any substantial changes in the document before cabinet adopts it.83

I believe the role of government in this case should not be the captain to judge which policy should be number one, which should be number two. I think we should let this process deter-mine the prioritisations.84

Is there a perceived conflict in government between the notion of leadership and having a par-ticipatory process with a wide range of stakeholders involved? Does Dr. Musokotwane, coor-dinator of the process see a conflict?

No, in a sense the government has given us a blank sheet of paper, go and do the job. Those that we have worked with have also understood this process and the kind of suspicion that people should have that perhaps the government wants to move in this direction. It is unjusti-fied for anybody to have that kind of suspicion. I think that the potential conflict is around the last stages of the process. That is where people have suspicion. Perhaps government now would change things. But the very fact that government asked us to do this job, there has been no interference what so ever.85

One of the WG secretaries explained that the role of the government in the WGs was to sit and listen, if there was a technical matter they gave input, but not really acting as government. The secretary viewed his role as administrative, he took notes and if the WG needed to know what government policy was on one issue he stated what it was in an objective fashion, being a source of information knowing what was going on in the government.86 The IMF representative who took part as an observer in the macroeconomic WG has a similar view. He does not think that the government was playing a leading role in the WG. The peo-ple from MoFED and the other ministries where not very active but the Bank of Zambia was.87 Remember that the WG on macroeconomics was supposedly the most important WG. It seems that the government, purposely, took a passive role in the WGs and in the PRSP process as a whole. The Secretary to the Treasurer, Mr Mtonga spells out the reasons for this: 81 See for example ODI 2001. 82 Koyi and Musokotwane. 83 Mtonga. 84 Ibid. 85 Musokotwane. 86 Situmbeko. 87 Mwansa.

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The question of whether the leadership from government should have been stronger than that is something we were very careful not to show. Because then, if we were to much more or less driving it maybe we would not get the honest and free input from the NGOs and other people who have different ideologies, who have different views. […] as much as possible we wanted private [sector] and people from NGOs to take the lead. Government representation is there but not to look like we are trying to push for a government agenda on a sector. […] Some po-litical parties would easily misunderstand that to mean this is an MMD exercise. Because our fear really, my fear was that at no stage should this document be given a label of political in-fluence from those who are in power. If those who are in power are out of power tomorrow the document should be still endorsed by those who come into power.88

None of the civil society representatives expressed any problems with the government leading the PRSP process. They typical say that this is a national process and that there has to be a leader in it. But as expressed by one of the CSPR members:

The problem is when the leader doesn't incorporate the views of the nation. The problem is whether the process includes all the other views from all the people. In Zambia what we saw initially was government inviting civil society to take part in the process. That is the good thing all together. But I think there was need for much more participation from civil society.89

As we know by now the PRSP process is supposed to be lead by government and have sub-stantial stakeholder participation. What is the opinion of the civil servants on the governmen-tal leadership? One civil servant thinks that the responsible minister has put in a lot of effort to emphasise the importance of the PRSP. He thinks that the government is serious but also states that there is a risk that there will be a ‘confusion’ between the civil servants and politi-cians.90The question of the government’s ownership of the PRSP and the leadership of gov-ernment in the process are paramount for the success of the PRSP. Mr Mtonga, Secretary to the Treasury, started to explain that:

The government has itself decided to have a PRSP programme. Here you are talking about ownership, PRSP is our intention. The government decided to do a PRSP so it is not a ques-tion of the government being told to do PRSP but rather the government deciding to prepare a PRSP. […] Why I say this is our paper is because even if they said you should, but what we are doing is essentially ours, which is different from the previous programmes where the mul-tilaterals would give you conditions. In this case the request is that you prepare the PRSP un-der your own condition, needs and all the priorities should be set by yourselves, consultation should be done by yourselves, prepare so that you can come up with something which is es-sentially going to answer the issues related to poverty reduction. Only after your paper is agreed upon by yourself as a government, as a people then you submit it to the multilaterals for them to consider whether it meets their conditions.91

Zambia under Kenneth Kaunda was a socialistic command economy until 1991 when Kaunda lost power to the MMD and Fredrick Chiluba. The new MMD government was elected be-cause people were tired of the 25 year long Kaunda regime and because of promises of change. The new government was very liberal and the notion of planning and establishing strategies for the development of the country wasn’t worth much.92 The department for planning was abolished in 1993. This does not mean that no planning at all took place though, but what was done was by large fragmental. One civil servant working at the PRAU views the most positive thing with the PRSP process as: 88 Mtonga. 89 H Manchina. 90 Situmbeko. 91 Mtong. 92 Mukum and Ihonvbere, 1998.

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We don't have a development plan so the way we have taken this is to make sure that we actu-ally develop a plan. Among us technocrats we have said look we do need a plan. The ideas we have got in from people has really been excellent, to us it really made us sit down and connect things which is something we haven't done for the past teen years. […] The fact that we are thinking towards a common goal, it has really helped us to tighten things together. There has been a lot of fragmental planning in all these sectors but for once we are looking at everything at one go and make priorities where everything is connected.93

It is possible to argue that the demand for a PRSP struck the Zambian government and its ad-ministration from nowhere. Even though there were no overall plans there were sector plans and a National Poverty Reduction Action Plan had been written in 1998 but not yet approved by cabinet. In the education and health sectors the co-operation between government and do-nors was well established. When the demand for a PRSP turned up as a precondition for HIPIC there was at first a fear that the planning work had to be done all over again.94 The MMD government has started to develop a long-term vision that should stretch for 20-25 years. Next in line of the planning tools should be the PRSP, which is for three years and roll-ing. Then there is a Public Investment Programme and the annual budget. The government has a Public Investment Programme but it doesn't draw from any solid policy framework. A long-term vision started to be developed in 1996 but because there were weaknesses with the document the government tried to strengthen it.95

I have not found any figures on the over all cost for developing the PRSP in Zambia. It is clear though that the work has been ambitious when it comes to the number of people em-ployed to work with the PRSP, the number of meetings, the provincial consultations, the na-tional summits etc. Nobody has mentioned any figures but in general terms it is said that the work has cost a lot of money.96 Did the PRSP co-ordinator Dr Musokotwane think that the content provided by the participatory framework was worth the money?

Roughly yes, although I tend to think that the participatory process in a number of cases did not bring anything new because the issues were all known. When we went out in the prov-inces, there has been a lot of participatory research done by the universities and other people. The views of the people in the provinces were already summarised and known in these docu-ments. But on the other hand it was difficult to say we already know your problems so we are not going to come and talk to you. So in that context this time around, yes, I think that the cost has been a little bit on the high side compared to the benefits.97

If the benefits of the process, measured in terms of knowledge, do not equal the costs of the process, is it worth it? Does the government think that the process is worth the costs? The government is not the ones who are paying for the process; the prime contributors have been the WB together with the EU.98 It is likely that the Zambian government would have chosen another approach if the costs were distributed in another way. The next chapter looks into the relationship between the actors in the PRSP process.

93 Situmbeki. 94 Hallstrom . 95 Katundu, Situmbeki and Musukotwane. 96 Mbao, Pistholkors, Hellman. 97 Musokotwane. 98 Pistholkors and Mbao.

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4. The relationship between the actors

4.1 The government - donor relation The relationship between the government and the donors is arguably the most important. As stated before, one of the aims of the PRSP exercise is to enhance the governmental ownership of its own development agenda. Has that happened in the case of Zambia? It is a fact that the PRSP concept is an invention of the institutions based in Washington; the WB and the IMF. The WB took active part in all but one of the governmental WGs while the IMF opted to be a passive observer listening to the discussions in the Macroeconomic WG. One of the govern-ment secretaries thought that the WB was just like any other donor and that they helped out with clarifications and an understanding of WB operations for example, but:

They were also a resource; the representative was a Zambian lady that was to our advantage because she understood the home environment. The World Bank didn't come out as the World Bank in a ‘stylised’ type of case. They were more of a Zambian contributing to the case then anything else. The role was more technical if anything.99

But developing a PRSP is not a process that only takes place in WG meetings. There is a lot more going on, such as informal meetings, discussions and position papers that are circulated. According to the co-ordinator the meetings between the government and the IMF and the WB serve as a checkpoint so that the government would know when they finally present the PRSP if it will be endorsed or not. Dr. Musokotwane describes the input from the WB as kind ad-vice that could have come from any other actor involved:

Now and then we do get informal comments from various institutions including the World Bank on what they think we have done and if we could consider other perspectives, but very informal. No pressures to say take this. I think that’s the way I would characterise the meet-ings that have taken place. But there has been no pressure what so ever to do this, do that.100

According to one civil servant the PRSP is always on the agenda at the meetings with the IMF or the WB. He thinks that the WB office in Lusaka is very well informed about the PRSP process and that the contacts between the co-ordinator and the WB staff are very close. But:

As to whether we sit down and subject some of the views we have come up with to WB scru-tiny, not really. What we have decided to do is that in certain cases they have, like any other person commented informally. They have different working papers and there were informal comments from the bank where they were giving more technical comments.101

The interviews with the WB paint a similar picture. Mrs Mbao says that there are regular meetings and that the WB gives technical advice on how things should be going. The WB is also one of the most important financiers of the process.

We are in close consultation with the government just to see how the process is going. If we have advice, recently the country director was here and she spoke both with the civil society and the government. Just to have feedback on how the process is going and ensure, say if there are some concerns from civil society they go to the government. We are closely involved; we are more facilitators, because really we are not supposed to lead the process.102

99 Situmbeki. 100 Musokotwane. 101 Situmbeki, Katundu is on the same lines. 102 Mbao.

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All actors are aware that the boards of the WB and IMF have to endorse the PRSP. One could imagine that there is pressure from that side; at least I expect that those writing the PRSP are interested in what is acceptable policy and what is not, in broad terms. One of the effects of the PRSP in the end is to get access to the HIPIC debt relief funds. So, the incitements of the government to produce a paper, which will be endorsed, are many. One of the most important persons in the PRSP process in Zambia is the governmental co-ordinator, does he know what the boards of the BWI will review when they look at the Zambian PRSP?

Yes, because they have told us what the boards of the different institutions look for when they debate the PRSP coming from countries. For example they look at the issue of how you have allowed other people to participate. They look at the issue of whether you have clarified the relationship between your proposed interventions and the poverty outcomes. Particularly on the side of the IMF they reminded us that the resource envelope is limited and we have to plan our interventions within a limited budget, which must be defined. Those are the key things the people have expressed.103

Mrs Mbao agrees that the consultations with the Zambian government also aim at letting the government know if the PRSP will be endorsed or not.

I think so, once the PRSP is ready really the position of the bank is that it is not up to the bank to decide what is there. We may comment on the process, but we have been in close consulta-tion and the idea is to help them with our ideas during the process. So that when the PRSP goes to the board it is really not for us to say that, no you can’t do this you can’t do that. It is for us to buy into what the people of Zambia decide, the way they are going to do.104

Should this quote be interpreted to mean that the WB admits that they make sure that the con-tent is to their satisfaction during the process so when the PRSP reaches Washington for en-dorsement it is already fully ‘negotiated’? It is reasonable that there is an interaction between the government and the multilateral institutions to discuss ways to conduct a newly launched process. The reminder from the IMF that the resources are limited seems innocent. It is diffi-cult to know from this study what the levels of influence have been from the WB and the IMF through the informal channels. It does not seem as if there is any big disagreement between government and the WB on what should be done; it is the order of things that is a problem:

On technical grounds, if the World Bank thinks that we should focus on basic social services, health, education, water and sanitation one can't really start to argue with that. That is a tech-nically sound view and something that government totally upholds and even members of civil society. When it comes to issues of what to do first, there we have problems. The ideal situa-tion would be to suspend debt service payments for three years and see what happens. If we improve we want the debts to be eradicated. But there are policy problems with the World Bank and the IMF. If government would take that approach you would know that that ap-proach would fail.105

Zambia is considered to be one of the most liberal countries in the world when it comes to economic policy. I asked one of the civil servants if he thought that the Zambian government and the WB were in agreement on most policy issues. He said that he thought so and that the government and the WB are on the same frequency working with the PRSP. He didn’t think that any controversial issues had come up.106 The bilateral donors, the foreign governments and their aid agencies in what way did they contribute in the WGs?

103 Dr. Musokotwane. 104 Mbao. 105 Situmbeki. 106 Katundu.

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The donors were really more of a resource base. We didn't want just to have the donors pre-sent; we wanted donors who were able to bring in technical expertise. We didn't look at the donors as financiers in any form. We wanted to develop a plan and we had a scarcity of good ideas and that was what we were looking for. All we were looking for was the good ideas. If there were good ideas we took them on board.107

The donors have all been more or less open about their criticism of the Zambian government. There is a common feeling that the government isn’t sincere in what its doing and the donor community do not trust them. The two following quotes comes from two major donor repre-sentatives. The first talks about how there has been a general shift from project to budget sup-port and the positive merits of that. The donor says that: “…in Zambia, understandably they can’t access that, we do not trust this government enough to just write them a cheque. That wouldn’t go to the poor people.”108 The second representative thinks that the government stands behind the PRSP process but thinks that they could do a lot more:

And that goes for everything that has to do with this country, really. The government doesn’t seem to care about nothing. It is actually quite morally bankrupt. […] It would actually be nicer if we had a government that tried to make a little more effort.109

It seems as if the government and the BWI are more or less on the same policy track. Civil servants have emphasised that in the work with the PRSP the government have tried to state what they want to do and not just to satisfy the BWI. The civil servants think that the BWI boards will endorse the PRSP unless there are any political complications between the gov-ernment and then BWIs. A civil society representative has another perspective; he thinks that the government will bend towards any conditionality given by the creditors in order to get the money offered by HIPIC. Doing that he thinks that the agreed understanding between the government and civil society will be of little importance.110

Mtonga, who is secretary to the treasurer, admits that the last time an IMF mission visited, the IMF brought their PRSP expert to have negotiations on the ‘overall frame’. But it was not a question of sitting down and discussing various WGs. Mtonga says that the IMF has been monitoring the progress just to make sure that what is suggested in the PRSP is doable. He thinks that the IMF role has been to guide the Zambian government, based on their experience from other countries which have prepared PRSPs.

Their help has been more to ensure that there is proper consultation. Their role really hasn’t been to insist. They haven’t really been saying in this chapter you must write this, no. But rather that this should be our focus. Because the facility which you would access would have the benchmarks based on what you are writing down [in the PRSP].111

But, who does write the PRSP in the end? A donor representative thinks that the BWI have put themselves in a difficult position where they have got stuck. On one hand the PRSP is an invention by the BWI and they are judging it, but on the other hand it should be country owned. The BWI can offer a lot of good technical advice but they’re not supposed to give too much. They are trying to back of and be supportive but at the same time they do not think that what they get back is good enough. So:

…it ends up being that the government says we would love it if you would basically write it. And the bank says, we won’t write it but we could give you these bits or even here is some stuff on Zambia that we have written.112

107 Situmbeki. 108 Anonymous donor representative. 109 Major donor representative. 110 Mphuka. 111 Mtonga. 112 Anonymous donor representative.

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The same donor representative thinks that the government isn’t very serious about the PRSP. She thinks that they just want to get it done and this is because they didn’t invent it, it is just a precondition to access the HIPIC funds. But she says that it is her hope that:

…this will get government and civil society used to talking to each other a little bit. It will get government used to thinking that the donors actually are serious about poverty, so we [gov-ernment] at least have to pretend that our policies are pro-poor. It is just one drop in the very long-term bucket, but it is a three-year cycle and that will be exciting, the first one will be bad technically but maybe the next one may be better.113

4.2 The government - civil society relation The strongest consensus among the actors on one given subject that I have found in the re-search is the way to characterise the relationship between government and civil society. This relationship is in broad terms characterised as bad. One civil society representative who thinks the relationship is bad puts it like this:

Government treats NGOs as adversaries, so we’ve had this adversarial relationship. Unfortu-nately there has been this bad blood between government and civil society and donors and I think that it works to the detriment of our people. A healthy relationship is what we need. NGOs have a certain competence which government doesn’t have. Government is too big it may not reach people in small places but those are people that we can reach.114

But it also seems that the working relationship has become better. The co-ordinator of the CSPR is positive towards how the relationship has been with the government during the PRSP process, even though it is thought that it might be because of a good personal relationship with the co-ordinator and not because of any structural changes in the relationship. The PRSP co-ordinator has been busy but he is thought to have done his best to make time for civil soci-ety. And how does the counterpart on the government side look upon the relationship between civil society and government?

Mixed, at times it has been good like at the last consultative group meeting, there are times when it can be very acrimonious. Civil society is not homogenous it has various interests. There are some who take a dossier attitude towards government, maybe because they just want to do some work, there are others who have very strong advocacy missions, and those tend to clash with government. Like those who are interested in human rights and issues of transpar-ency and so forth. But I don’t think it is a war, they get on.115

Another civil society representative talks about the misgivings between government and civil society before the PRSP process. He thinks that it used to be difficult to sit down and discuss matters of national concern with the government. CSOs were afraid to be viewed as pro-government if they took part in discussions with the government. Government were afraid that CSOs had hidden agendas. It was difficult to have discussions in this environment.116

In the PRSP process the CSPR co-ordinator explains that things were a bit rough when they tried to organise meetings between the governmental WGs and civil society. The purpose of those meetings was to present the priorities of civil society to the governmental WGs in order to have the civil society views incorporated in the governmental process. The responses to this were mixed.

113 Gibson. 114 Chama Kalaluka. 115 Musokotwane. 116 Mphuka.

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There was quite a bit of negativity coming from that side [the government]. Apart from a few who know that civil society is a partner in the process, and then you would have another re-sponse. On a number of occasions we heard, what are you trying to do? You were sitting in the working groups, what do you need now? Are you trying to duplicate the process? If you are it is not going to work. There was a lot of protectiveness, some people view it as a gov-ernment process but we view it as a national process. So there is a difference, but we say, we are partners in the process.117

One interesting question is whether the relationship between government and civil society has changed in any way during the process of the PRSP. The PRSP co-ordinator thinks that the relationship started to just change even before the PRSP, i.e. because of the consultative group meeting. Even if the co-ordinator says that there were consultations taking place even under the Kaunda era.

I think there is more openness on the side of government, more willingness to share and bring in civil society people to participate. […] Today there is a lot of NGO involvement compared to 10 years ago when there was more consultation with for example the pharmacy union, the Chamber of Commerce, trade unions etc. Today this has extended even to NGOs.118

But, the question of the relationship between the government and civil society is also a ques-tion about what is happening in the wider society and about self-confidence. This becomes very clear in the following statement from one civil society representative.

In the past it was more difficult for civil society to get its views through. This times we seem to have a little bit of free press and a lot of civil society concerns can be published especially through private media. Also we are able to get to government and talk to them, we’d talk about issues. Previously it was not like that. An NGO wasn't heard. You wouldn't arrange a press conference and talk about issues, you wouldn't do that. Today we have that bit of free-dom to do that. The relationship between government managers, civil servants is OK. The problem is when we bring in politicians. Most of the things that civil society touches are things that have an impact on their leadership. They tend to be defensive.119

Similar statements about the problems with politicians can be found among the civil servants. But the civil servants are also critical towards the capacity and methods of civil society. Si-tumbeki working at the PRAU thinks that suggestions from civil society often are unrealistic and impossible to implement. He thinks that the technical capacity among the members of civil society is so low that it is impossible to engage in a serious economic debate for exam-ple, and that civil society often tends to take extreme views. Furthermore he thinks that civil society does not understand policy making, and lack the technical know-how. Situmbeki says that the CSOs who had the technical know-how and appreciation of the subject matter tended to perform better in the governmental WGs.120 This study does not look into the concrete suggestions on different subjects from different ac-tors. It is clear that some civil servants do not appreciate the quality of some of the civil soci-ety suggestions but at the same time civil society does not think that everything that they suggest should or could be part of the governmental paper:

The question of whether or not everything that civil society advocates for shall be included in the document that is another issue all together. But we believe that those issues are being in-corporated. The other issue is the one of implementation. It is true that government has been

117 Phiri. 118 Musokotwane. 119 H Manchina. 120 Situmbeki.

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dealing with poverty issues they have had a number of policy documents. The issue is imple-mentation, are we going to have those policies implemented? That is another question.121

This statement shows that there is an understanding among civil society that they cannot get it all, but they think they have been successful at large. It also shows that it is not only a ques-tion of policy formulation that matters but also of implementation. One civil servant talks about a fear of civil society and the tactics that he thinks they use. He thinks that civil society needs to get a deeper understanding of how government works as well as a need to be better informed.

From an informed perspective they can start to advocate. But what they do is that they wait and then they act, and they start to condemn. To me that is an act in futility. They need to take a longer-term perspective. Advocacy should be taken seriously, you need NGOs, you need civil society, and you need to take government to task. But you have to do that in an informed way.122

The issue of information is discussed in other places in this thesis and the opinions on how easy or difficult it is to access this information varies, but a civil society representative agrees that it is important to engage in discussions with government in a constructive manner:

To us it might sound good to call your government thieves but you don’t know that in the process you make your own government lose legitimacy. Even when you are criticising your government it should be made in a constructive manner not in a destructive manner. You should tell your government that government has gone wrong here, why don’t you make amendments and try to move forward. So that’s how we need to approach this whole process as a way of helping government to move forward with proper policies.123

On what level is it fruitful to have civil society participation? Here again the views between government and civil society tend to differ. As we have seen in the theoretical chapter the room for civil society participation is wide and civil society could be part of the every step of policy formulation in all levels of society. One civil servant thinks it is ridiculous that civil society should be part at the national level. Instead he thinks that there should be a decentrali-sation and that civil society should play a more active role at the local level.124 Civil society, on the other hand, wants participation to be a matter of participation at the na-tional as well as the local level and preferably, as we have seen, even at TC level where deci-sions are made.

4.3 The civil society - donor relation The PRSP works to build a country owned strategy for poverty reduction, as explained earlier this means that it should be owned not only by government but also by society at large. The method used to make this happen is to engage civil society in the strategy formulation. Civil society is very positive to the way that the donor community has supported civil society in this process, not just financially but also by giving advice and basic support.

When you need them to assist you with something they will be there. So the donor community has actually been very good. As well as they will follow up on issues, find out what is happen-ing for example they ask, are you at the technical committee yet, if not they go and find out from the government. They have been very supportive in the process.125

121 H Manchina. 122 Situmbeko. 123 Mphuka. 124 Situmbeko. 125 Phiri.

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But, there is also criticism, for example towards the WB, which is thought to be defensive and unwilling to discuss the failure of the SAPs. Whenever civil society has tried to discuss the failures of the SAPs the WB has responded that that is not an issue. But civil society represen-tatives have expressed the opinion that this is an important exercise in order to create a sus-tainable PRSP that will not fail due to similar reasons to the SAPs.126 There is a fear from civil society that there is a hidden agenda to promote structural adjust-ment through the PRSP and to have civil society legitimise this. In many of my interviews there has been a notion from civil society that the PRSP is not very different from the SAPs. If the PRSP is a SAP in new clothes it is of course important to discuss the weaknesses of the SAPs. Otherwise it is thought that the PRSP will fail as well. In part, the civil society fear is based on previous consultative processes where civil society has felt that they have been used by the government.

Many times we have seen that good programmes fail because at the end of the day when things are supposed to happen it remains between the multilaterals and the government. The civil society is just used up to a certain level where they want to legitimate, say there was con-sultation. There is nothing sacred about even getting up to the highest level. This is part of the frustration of the work within the PRSP.127

Civil society is positive to the fact that the BWI have decided that civil society is going to be part of the PRSP process. “Just the idea that they ask, or demand that civil society should be part of the process is a plus, it is a good thing.”128 The donors are also thought to have been supporting and had tried to encourage civil society to participate in the process. But CSO has also noticed that the donors have their own interests.

We saw, some time back, that donors have their own interests and they really like to push forward their interests as well. That’s why, especially to the IMF and the WB, we are trying to say that the PRSP should be an independent process; we should influence those conditionali-ties and not the other way around.129

The following quote from one of the civil society representatives who was involved a lot in the process is interesting.

We shouldn't have another document or another process that simply puts us in more problems as developing countries. We hope and we believe that the WB and the IMF are changing now, especially by focusing on poverty, we believe they are changing and we hope they will actu-ally change to the better for poor countries.130

Whether the BWI are changing or not lies outside the scope of this thesis and is a difficult question to answer. It is clear though that this man has taken an active part in a participatory process. He feels that he has been part of something positive. Would he be interested in an-other participatory process if it turns out that what was done in the PRSP was just a show for the galleries?

126 Simbulo, Mphuka, Chama Kalaluka, Kelly Savati, Phiri. 127 Simbulo. 128 H Manchila. 129 Mphuka. 130 H Manchila.

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5. Discussion

5.1 New levels of participation and ownership This thesis has investigated the PRSP process in Zambia in relation to the concept of partici-pation. The theoretical notion behind the PRSP is that participation fosters ownership and that ownership increases the chances of implementation. Participation is a prerequisite for owner-ship but there is no guarantee that there will be ownership just because there is participation. It is of utmost importance to talk about meaningful participation and not just participation per se. If participation is meaningful and develops ownership the chances of implementation will probably increase. But implementation is dependent on several different factors and can not depend on the level of ownership alone. What meaningful participation can contribute to in society is, however, what Friedmann calls an inclusive democracy and that, in turn, can help to facilitate the empowerment of the people. Civil society can be a catalyst and through its actions people can be encouraged to empower themselves. One of my questions has been whether the participation in the PRSP process has fostered na-tional ownership. The sum of the amount of ownership is not a constant, i.e. the equation is not a zero-sum game. The degree of ownership can change in a way in which the total degree of ownership increases. The findings suggest that donors in Zambia played a very important role in policy formulation before the PRSP. The donors were the ones who had the strongest ownership, participating fully and influencing the agenda. Then came the government who participated, but their ownership was less strong. The lack of governmental ownership was thought to be the reason for the lack of implementation of different strategies. Civil society was arguably hardly on the map. They participated occasionally, mostly to legitimise different processes but not more than that. The civil society sense of ownership was as low as their ac-tual ownership. The situation is shown schematically in the figure below. Figure 3. The level of participation and ownership among the actors before the PRSP process.

Participation

High

• Govern-

ment

• Donors

Low

• Civil society

Low High

Ownership

The study shows that the levels of both participation and ownership have increased during the PRSP process in Zambia. Participation in the Zambian PRSP policy formulation process has thus fostered ownership. It is obvious that the level of civil society participation and owner-ship has risen thanks to the PRSP process. The strong involvement of civil society has by and large come about because of the desires or demands of the donor community. It is most unlikely that this would have occurred without the heavy donor pressure, the Zambian gov-ernment would probably have agreed to anything to get the HIPIC relief, and which govern-ment in the same situation would not? The civil society sense of ownership has increased because of the PRSP. The most obvious reason being that civil society has, arguably, for the

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first time, been part of an important policy process at the national level. Just being part of something makes the participants familiar with what is on the table and they learn a lot. Just sitting down at the same table as the government and the donors makes civil society grow. The formation of the Civil Society for Poverty Reduction (CSPR) has also been of importance in this regard. Having a co-ordinating organisation fosters self-esteem; different organisations get to know each other and exchange points of view as well as experience. A strong civil so-ciety can develop a preparedness to act on various democratically related topics among the citizens. Turning to Friedemann again, it seems that the PRSP process can help strengthening civil society and that this might strengthen democracy which in turn may lead to empower-ment. It is, of course, of great importance that the process does not weaken the formal democ-ratic institutions, such as the parliament, in the process. This might have been the case in Zambia. Because of the PRSP all the actors have been designated new tasks, including the government of Zambia. The government has been put to task when they have been forced to take the lead-ership role in formulating an agenda for Zambia’s developmental strategies. And the govern-ment has to do that in a way that takes into account the quite demanding civil society as well as the by no means less demanding donor community. Both the civil society and the donor community doubt the sincere will of the government to commit itself to poverty reduction and work towards the development of the country. Figure 4. The level of participation and ownership among the actors after the PRSP process.

Participation

High

• Donors • Government

Low

• Civil society

Low High

Ownership

The simple fact that the administration, the civil servants, have come together to discuss and make a plan for the development of Zambia has had an impact on government ownership. The government has to come up with the strategies more or less by themselves. Some civil society organisations have criticised the PRSP for being Public Relations Strategy Papers, and a way for the multilaterals to have the recipient countries discuss and agree upon structural adjust-ment, whatever abbreviation it might have, PFP, PRGF, SAP or PRSP, that the Bretton Woods Institutions would otherwise impose. This might be the case, but the sense of owner-ship will increase anyway, merely because there is a feeling that this is a product that ‘we’ have produced.

5.2 The Government The government is supposed to take the lead in the PRSP process. The results show that this has been problematic for the government. In part this seems to be due to the relationship with the other stakeholders, notably civil society. But this can of course also be a sign of the gov-ernment not being fully committed to the process. The role of the civil servants acting as sec-retaries can hardly be much more than to act as loyal and neutral secretaries taking notes and providing information. But what has the role of the more senior civil servants acting as par-

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ticipants in the WGs been? In some groups, notably the Macroeconomic WG they seem to have been missing, in other groups they have taken a passive listening role. Maybe that is also a good approach? But, if the PRSP is supposed to be the most important document to guide future policy, not only of the poverty reduction work in Zambia but also as the overall devel-opment document, I would expect that the government was interested in deciding what way the country should go. The results show, however, that the government has been very passive in the process. The explanation offered has been that if civil society or opposition parties were to believe that the government were the ones running the show they would be even more sus-picious then they already were and that could lead to the defection of civil society. If that were to happen the whole exercise could be jeopardised. Remember what the boards in Wash-ington look at: the participation of different stakeholders in the process. Does this mean that we have a situation in which the government is squeezed so hard that it does not dare to act during the process but instead waits and takes the difficult decisions after the process has left the consultative stages, i.e. in the Technical Committee and in the last cabinet meeting? The possibility cannot be completely ruled out. As Cornwall has shown, having a participatory process does not mean that everything that the participants say has to be taken aboard and accepted. But, it is important that the stakeholders who are invited to take part know the rules of the game. It is preferable to have even the difficult discussions in pub-lic and it is better to give the stakeholders a clear no, and motivate that no if it is a no that it is going to be. Changing the content in the late stages of the process when civil society is no longer part of the process fosters neither ownership nor trust. But then again, maybe lack of leadership shows a lack of commitment. The donors have been quite frank and outspoken about their doubts about whether the Zambian government has been committed to both the process and the task of poverty reduction. The results imply that the coordination between different parts of the administration that has to take place in the process has been of benefit for the civil servants. When asked what has been the most positive or satisfactory parts of the process many of the civil servants high-lighted the coordination between different ministries. It seems that coordination between the ministries fosters ownership within the governmental administration. In the western world there are by and large three different parts in national society, civil soci-ety, the private sector and the state. Due to globalisation the international environment is growing in importance but if I allow myself to simplify, the state tax their population in civil society and the activities in the private sector, the base of state income lies within the state. In Zambia it seems that the situation is different. Remember that more than half of government funds come from the donor community. This has created a situation in which the donors are more important than both the national private sector and civil society. The private sector does not play the role of the most important financier of governmental activities, this is played in-stead by the donors. There can hardly be a sustained development in Zambia if the private sector is not allowed to be the engine of development. There is no doubt that Zambia needs increased spending in the social sector. But from where should this money come? Many do-nors are tired of the way things are managed in Zambia and many of them have at least been talking about pulling out. What will happen then? Zambia must develop its economy in order to be able to own its developmental agenda.

5.3 The donors According to World Bank president James Wolfenson the PRSP aims at getting the recipient countries in the drivers seat steering the wheel, deciding where to go. Using metaphors is al-ways risky and the international NGO community was fast to pick up on this one saying that,

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well yes, the recipient countries governments might be at the wheel but there is a donor sitting in the backseat telling them where to go and how to get there. The donors have a lot at stake when it comes to policy formulation in this exercise. The do-nors are used to a position in which they are the ones in charge, or at least the ones deciding where to go. It is a difficult situation for the donors. Once they were sitting at the table with the governments telling them what to do. Now they need to take a couple of steps back and try to trust the government and civil society to come up with a strategy that is so good that they can still legitimise development aid to Zambia. I am not saying that it is much easier for the government of Zambia, being squeezed by civil society from below and the donors from above. The winner in the PRSP game is most likely the civil society organisations, which now have a seat at the table.

5.4 Civil society Are there any problems designating civil society a role in a governmental policy formulation process? McGee stresses the importance that civil society thoroughly consults with the people they represents in order to make sure that civil society representation is authentic. An obvious question is who the civil society organisations are representing? From this study we do not have any answer to that question but it is crucial that the civil society really is in close contact with the people that they claim to represent. When asking if there was anybody that should have participated more or didn’t play as active role as they should have, most civil society organisations answered that the poor should have had a more prominent role. The poor has not played any important role in the Zambian PRSP process. The consultations in the prov-inces were not even close to assembling any extensive consultations with the poor. The PRSP process was by and large very much centred on the intellectual environments in the capital city of Lusaka. The whole point of involving civil society is to engage the citizens in the process. If the organisations in civil society do not represent the people and have a strong mandate a lot of the point of the exercise is lost. Building a democratic society without an active civil society is probably not viable. In the case of Zambia, the political institutions have little legitimacy and the political opposition or the parliament, at least during the last mandate period, were not able to put the government to task, but could civil society do this? I take it that they can be one part of a solution but they are not the only answer. It is possible that the PRSP process in Zambia has further weakened the formal political structures, i.e. that parliament has not been an actor in the process. The parliament ought to be an important actor when it comes to creating a national ownership of the development agenda. Civil society has been positive towards the content of the PRSP. Civil Society for Poverty Reduction has estimated that 60-80 percent of what civil society suggested also appeared in the first draft PRSP. Of course this is a success. But is there a risk that civil society is naïve when they measure their level of influence? Being able to influence the content in the PRSP is positive. Civil society has been able to do that through their participation in the process, they have influenced the process and this indeed fosters ownership. But what if the implementation of the PRSP does not reflect the expectations of civil society?

5.5 Participation McGee views the sharing of information as the basis for a participatory process. The study shows that the government has shared information but that this could have been done in a much more satisfactory way. Civil society representatives in the governmental working groups have complained that government have been reluctant to share information. Only with the help of donors who know which documents there are, and thus what specific information

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to ask for, has the desired information been disclosed. Another issue is when the information has been shared. In order to achieve a meaningful participation the information has to be given within a timeframe that allows the participants to read and discuss the documents. Oth-erwise the input cannot be expected to be of a very high quality and participation is hardly meaningful. Another very basic issue when it comes to the possibilities to participate is the possibility to actually know that a meeting is taking place. As shown, information about meet-ings was sometimes provided on the same day as the meeting took place and sometimes the information even appeared after the meeting had taken place. The government has to improve here and, in order to improve the institutional capacity, has to be strengthened. There have indeed been consultations in the case of Zambia. CSOs have been part of the gov-ernmental working groups and their product in the form of the working groups 0-drafts have been taken to the provinces for discussions. A very important question here is who has been consulted? As already noted this study cannot say anything about how well connected the or-ganisations in the CSPR are with the grassroots and the country outside Lusaka. Previous re-search has shown that there has been a strong technocratic norm when selecting the participating CSOs. There is not necessarily any correlation between a strong organisational capacity among the CSOs and the level of popular support. The consultations have been heav-ily centred on Lusaka despite the provincial consultations. The provincial consultations are better than nothing but to create a national ownership there probably have to be consultations at a lower administrative level. Even though Zambia is one of the countries with the highest degree of urbanisation in Africa, the process probably has to be moved out to the villages. It is also of great importance that the people who are being consulted are updated and get feedback on their suggestions. Being consulted and then not knowing what happens with the sugges-tions is not a sustainable way forward and it does not contribute to either empowerment or democratisation. Arnstein would probably label it manipulation and non-participation. On the other hand, to what extent is it possible to expect that people are interested in and will-ing to participate in participatory policy formulation activities? There is a risk that the partici-patory approach de-legitimises the formal political system instead of supporting it. But still the PRSP process might boost public interest and knowledge as well as transparency. In the area of joint decision-making there has not been any civil society participation and whether there has been any donor participation here or not is a question of interpretation. CSPR wanted to be part of the Technical Committee of permanent secretaries to make sure that their suggestions really made the final cut. For CSPR this was a question of trust. Previ-ous consultations in Zambia have, according to civil society representatives, been carried out in a way that only served to have the civil society legitimising the process. This time civil so-ciety pressed hard to be part of the process up to the highest possible level. Were the donor’s part of any joint decision-making? Formally the answer is no. But infor-mally, were they? Even though the civil servants say that the donors did not insist on any spe-cific issues and that they only gave advice about the overall issues, it is my impression from the study that it is these overall decisions that it is most important to be able to influence. There will probably never be any need for the donors to discuss details if the main road is to their satisfaction. As the study shows donor representatives think that the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund influence might be so strong that it is actually they who more or less write the paper, or at least provide the civil servant who writes it with the ‘right’ informa-tion. If one believes that the government and the donors are on the same policy track the possibility of bending towards conditionality would not even appear. But if that is not the case chances are good that the government will be influenced to a high extent by what the Bretton Woods Institutions say in their informal papers. The PRSP co-ordinator thinks that the donor com-munity has not played any direct role in the policy formulation, apart from technical assis-

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tance. But what is technical assistance? It seems to me that it is a concept that many of the civil servants use as the opposite of what is thought of as a political issues or political consid-erations. Many of the civil servants even believe that there are no political issues or contro-versies in the PRSP document. A document which is supposed to be the document co-ordinating the development struggles for one of the poorest countries in the world. Further-more many of the civil servants seem to think that there is no pressure from outside as long as the suggestions that come are on a general basis or discuss the ‘overall frame’. The donor reactions towards the PRSP first draft suggest that the paper up until the national forum in October was a ‘Zambian’ product. If the donors were as unsatisfied with the content as they voiced, they could hardly have been the ones who wrote it. Here we touch upon one of the core problems of the PRSP. The donors have a capacity and experience of policy formula-tion and planning that far exceeds that of the Zambian government. The Zambian government has its agenda but at the same time they have to be responsive to the donors and civil society. On top of this we have the political priorities between sectors and line ministries and different areas of the country. Maybe a participatory PRSP process cannot deliver a policy document that fully satisfies the donors, but maybe this is of less importance if it can provide ownership and if that ownership leads to implementation. But than again, what is the point of implement-ing something that is of low quality? On the other hand, who knows what is best to do, the donors or the recipients? The last step in McGees model is the initiation and control by stake-holders. I have not seen any such features in the Zambian PRSP process.

5.6 Concluding remarks The title of this thesis is the Poverty Reduction Strategy Process in Zambia and not Paper. This title reflects the conclusion that it is not the paper that is important, it is the process. My first research question, in what way have the actors participated in the PRSP process, is an open and descriptive question. The study has shown how the different actors have partici-pated. It has been problematic for the government to fully take the leadership role in the proc-ess and their participation has been quite passive. The donors are a broad category, the IMF official participation has been limited to an observatory role in the Macroeconomic working group. The World Bank took active part in all working groups but one due to a lack of capac-ity. Other donors have taken a more or less active role in different working groups. It seems that it has been difficult for the donors to hold back and let the government and civil society be the once driving the process. Civil society has been represented in all working groups and they even had their own shadow working groups which produced their own poverty reduction paper. Lack of capacity among some of the civil society organisations and sometimes the re-luctance or bad management among government to provide information has been a hindrance for fully meaningful civil society participation. This leads to the answer of the second question. Has the PRSP participation fostered national ownership? The study shows that the increased participation has led to increased national ownership. This is particularly obvious among the representatives in civil society. The civil society organisations and their cooperation in Lusaka have been strengthened through the process. Just being an actor sitting down at the same table as the government and the donors has been of importance. The government and particularly the civil servants have been strengthened through the coordination that has been taken place because of the process. It is possible that the donors ownership has decreased due to the process and that is also one of the points with the exercise. The third question was if the PRSP process has changed the relationship between the actors in any way? The results imply that the relationship between all the actors has changed in a posi-tive way. The clearest result is that the government-civil society relationship has become bet-ter. There are still misgivings and suspicion but through the process they have got to know

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each other better, particularly the civil society has learned a lot of the government procedures. Doing that it also makes it easier for civil society organisations to advocate for their opinions. The donors are still suspicious towards the sincere will of the government to work for the bet-terment of the people and the country. Does this mean that there is a room for manoeuvre for the government of Zambia to create its own development strategy? It is difficult to say. The policy of the Zambian government is much in line with the World Bank and the IMF. There is little that suggests that the govern-ment wants to do anything alternative or different from what the Bretton Woods Institutions prescribe. The differences in opinion are more related to the order of doing things and less on what to do. Before the PRSP process there were two actors at the table, the government and the donors. With the PRSP process the civil society is now also part of the negotiations. Does this increase or decrease the room for manoeuvre? If civil society and the government are on the same policy track the room for manoeuvre probably increases for the government. If the government has to fight against both the donors and the civil society the room to manoeuvre naturally decreases.

5.7 Questions for further research As has been mentioned above, this paper does not cover the implementation of the PRSP, for natural reasons. The implementation is, however, an important issue to study. One reason for this importance that has implications for the findings of this study is that the opinions of civil society will probably change depending on the way in which the government chooses to im-plement the PRSP. As this is a case study, the scope is limited to Zambia. It would therefore be interesting to conduct similar studies in other countries in order to be able make compari-sons, and draw further conclusions. A deeper study of how the IMF and the World Bank op-erate around the PRSP would be of great interest. Although the possibilities of conducting such a study might be slight, due to the difficulties in studying these institutions from within.

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6. Appendix

6.1 Outline of questions Introductory remarks I’m a student of International Relations in Sweden doing research on the PRSP process in Zambia for two months. I will meet with representatives from the government, civil society, donors and the WB and IMF to study what the PRSP process has been like in Zambia. The research will make up my master’s thesis. Background q Could you briefly tell me about the work and objectives of your organisation?

q In what way has your organisation been involved in the PRSP process?

q What has been your personal role/involvement in the process? The government Working Groups.

q Can you briefly tell me about the methods of the X working group?

q How, if at all did you use previous strategies or other documents, in the work?

q How, if at all, did you use/relate to the I-PRSP?

q Have you had access to the document that you needed for your work?

q How did you make decisions in the working group?

q How did you resolve or mediate conflicts arising due to different views of opinion, priorities and perspectives etc?

q Which were the most burning issues within the working group?

q What has been the role of different actors in the working group?

q Government q Donors q Civil Society q WB/IMF

q Is it possible to say that there were frequently the same actors having the same opin-

ion and that there were other actors frequently opposing those opinions?

q Have you been meeting with members of the working group outside the working group meetings?

q What do you think will happen with the ‘0-draft’ at the technical level?

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q Dividing the work into process and outcome/content, what is your opinion on the process?

q and the outcome/content?

The PRSP process in general The PRSP-process is supposed to be lead by government with the participation of Civil Soci-ety and other stakeholders.

q What is your opinion on the government leadership in the process? q What has been the role of the PRSP secretariat? q What is your opinion on the participation of stakeholders in the process?

q All in all what have you, if anything, found particularly positive/satisfactory in the

process?

q All in all what have you, if anything, found particularly negative/unsatisfactory in the process?

q The PRSP is a conditionality of HIPIC. How ‘free’ do you think that the government

is to formulate a truly ‘home grown’ PRSP?

q The PRSP is supposed to co-ordinate donors, do you think that will happen?

q Would you say that the PRSP would create a Zambian ownership of the development agenda?

q Do you think that the PRSP will help to reduce poverty in Zambia?

q Are there actors that you think should have played a more prominent role in the proc-

ess? Closing up

q Is there anything else that you would like to add?

q Who else do you think that I should meet? Thank you very much for giving me this interview. It has been very valuable. The report will hopefully be ready in January 2002. Do you want me to e-mail you a copy?

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6.2 Participants in the PRSP government working groups Macroeconomics • Ministry of Finance and

Development, MoFED • Bank of Zambia • UNDP • World Bank • IMF • Investment Centre • Zambia Association of

Chambers of Commerce • Oxfam • Jesuit Centre for Theo-

logical Reflection • University of Zambia,

UNZA • EU • Government of Norway • Government of Sweden • Government of USA

Tourism • MoFED • Ministry of Commerce

and Industry • Ministry of Labour and

Social Development • UNIDO • World Bank • Zambia National Farmers

Union • Zambian Institute of

Marketing • SEDB • Zambia Association of

Chambers of Commerce • Zambian Congress of

Trade Unions • Small Scale Association

of Zambia • Government of Germany

Mining • MoFED • Ministry of Community

Development and Social Services

• Ministry of Mining and Mineral Development

• World Bank • Zambian Council for So-

cial Development • Emeralds and Small Min-

ers • Woman in Mining • CCUZ • MUZ • UNZA • EU

Agriculture • MoFED • Ministry of Commerce

and Industry • Ministry of Agriculture,

Food and Fish • Ministry of Energy and

Water Development • Ministry of Gender in

Development • Land Ministry of Zambia • Food and Agriculture Or-

ganisation, FAO • World Bank • Zambia National Farmers

Union • Export Board of Zambia • Agriculture Consultative

Forum • NUPAW • Woman for Change • Programme Against Mal-

nutrition • UNZA • Government of Germany • Government of Holland • Government of Japan

Industry • MoFED • Ministry of Commerce

and Industry • Ministry of Labour and

Social Development • UNIDO • World Bank • Zambia National Farmers

Union • Zambian Institute of

Marketing • SEDB • Zambia Association of

Chambers of Commerce • Zambian Congress of

Trade Unions • Small Scale Association

of Zambia • UNZA • Government of Germany

Health • MoFED • Ministry of Health • World Health Organisa-

tion • UNAIDS • UNICEF • CMAZ • Resident Doctors Asso-

ciation • YALON • UNZA • Central Board of Health • Lusaka City Council • Government of Japan • Government of Ireland • Government of UK • Government of USA

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Education • MoFED • Ministry of Gender in

Development • Ministry of Education • Cabinet Office • World Food Programme • ILO • UNICEF • World Bank • UNESCO • ZNUT • Forum for Woman Edu-

cationalists in Zambia • ZOCOS • UNZA • Government of Denmark • Government of Japan • Government of Norway • Government of Ireland

Governance • MoFED • Ministry of Legal Affairs • Ministry of Information

and Broadcasting • Ministry of Home Affairs • UNDP • World Bank • Zambia Congress of

Trade Unions • CCUZ • Afro Net • Catholic Commission of

Justice and Peace • Government of Holland • Government of Sweden • Government of UK

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6.3 Interviews conducted Government Chaponda, Darfey, Programme Co-ordinator, Ministry of Legal Affairs, 12/09/01. Chipimo, Francis, Assistant Acting Director, Bank of Zambia, 29/08/01. Dr. Hantuba, Hyde, Director, Department of Marketing and Development, Ministry of Agri-culture, 25/10/01. Katundu, Amukusana, Senior Economist, Poverty Reduction Advisory Unit 28/08/01. Mtonga, James, Secretary to the Treasurer, Ministry of finance and economic development, 10/09/01. Dr. Musokotwane, Situmbeko, Director, Poverty Reduction Advisory Unit 30/08/01, 06/11/01. Situmbeko, Lishala, Economist, Poverty Reduction Advisory Unit 23/08/01. Sweta, W. R., Director of Mines, Mines Development Department, Ministry of Mines and Minerals Development, 23/10/01. Wake, Justina, Director, Tourism Planning, Management & Co-ordination, Ministry of Tour-ism, 06/09/01, 10/09/01. Donors Gale, Susanne, Private Sector Manager, USAID, 14/09/01. Gibson, Sam, Social Development Advisor, Department for International Development, DI-FID, 06/09/01. Hallstrom, Turid, First Secretary Education, Royal Norwegian Embassy, 05/09/01, 01/11/01. Hellman, Carl, Desk Officer Department for Africa, Swedish International Development Co-operation Agency, Sida, 30/10/01. Kandima, Anna-Carin, First Secretary Social Development, Swedish Embassy, 16/08/01. Kinsella, Jim, Attaché Development, Ireland Aid, 30/10/01. Lulembo, Oliver, Dr. Health Advisor, Ireland Aid, 11/09/01. Manchila, Natasha, Assistance Program Officer, Swedish Embassy, SIDA, 16/08/01. Mbao, Helen, Social Development Specialist, World Bank, 07/09/01. McNab, Christine, Charge d’Affair, Swedish Embassy, 02/09/01 Mwansa, Lasdlous, Economist, IMF, 30/08/01. Nishimoto, Tomoko, Program Co-ordinator, UNICEF, 31/10/01. Robinson, Vinetta, Economic Advisor, UNDP, 22/08/01.

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Siegert, Robert-Jan, Second Secretary, Royal Netherlands Embassy, 06/11/01. Skjaeveland, Steinar, Counsellor Political and Economical Affairs, Royal Norwegian Em-bassy, 04/09/01. von Pistolkors, Erik, European Commission, 30/08/01. Civil society organisations Chama Kalaluka, Nkruma, President, Operation Young Vote, 24/08/01. Chikwanka, Gregory, Assistant Co-ordinator, Civil Society for Poverty Reduction, 14/08/01, 01/11/01. Chisennga, Nelson, Trade Economist, Zambia Association of Chambers of Commerce and Industry, ZACCI, 30/10/01. Dodia, M. Yusuf, Director, Private Sector Development Association Zambia, 22/10/01. Henriot, J. Peter, S.J., Director, Jesuit Centre for Theological Reflection, JCTR, 03/11/01. Kelly Savati, Robert, Co-ordinator mobilisation, Operation Young Vote, 24/08/01. Koyi, Grayson, Director of Research and Information, Civil Servants Union of Zambia, 22/08/01, 01/11/01. Kufekisa Akapelwa, Mulima, Co-ordinator, Catholic Centre for Justice Development and Peace, CCJP, 29/10/01. Lifuka, Rueben, Board Member, NGO Coordinating Committee Zambia (NGOCC), 30/08/01. Manchina, Henry, Programme Co-ordinator, National Land Alliance, 23/08/01. Mphuka, Chrispin, Co-ordinator Jubilee 2000 at Jesuit Centre for Theological Reflection, JCTR, 27/08/01. Mwanajiti, Ngande, Executive Director, Inter-Africa Network for Human Rights and Devel-opment (Afronet), 05/09/01. O’Donnel, Mark, Vice President, Zambia Association of Manufacturers, 01/11/01. Phiri, Besinathi, Co-ordinator, Civil Society for Poverty Reduction, 14/08/01, 01/11/01. Simbulo, Rinos, National Co-ordinator, Southern African Human Rights NGO Network, SAHRINGO, 23/08/01. von Bonsdorff, Max, Information Officer, KEPA, 12/09/01. Zyambo, Songowayo, Executive Director, Zambia National Farmers Union, 02/11/01. Meetings attended CSPR Steering Committee meeting 21/08/01. Poverty Reduction Strategy Paper for Zambia: A Civil Society Perspective, Pamodzi Hotel, 03/09/01. PRSP National Summit, Mulungushi International Conference Centre, 15/10/01-18/10/01.

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6.4 List of reference Literature Abrahamsen Rita, 2000, Disciplining Democracy, Development Discourse and Good Gov-

ernance in Africa. Zed Books, London, New York. Abrahamsson Hans, 1997, Seizing the opportunity: power and powerlessness in a changing

world order: the case of Mozambique, Göteborg PADRIGU 1997. Arnstein, Sherry, 1971, A ladder of citizen’s participation, Journal of the American Institute

of Planners, Vol. 35, 216-224. Bossard, Caroline, 1998, Civilsamhälle och demokratisering, in Hydén 1998. Braathen Einaar, Kanji Nazneen and Wilson Francis, (eds) 2001, Poverty Reduction: What

Role for the State in Today's Globalized Economy? International Studies on Poverty, CROP, New Africa Books, South Africa.

Chabal, Patrick, Daloz, Jean-Pascal, 1999, Africa works: disorder as political instrument,

London: International African Institute in assoc. with James Currey, Indiana University Press, African issues.

Cohen, Jean L, Arato, Andrew 1995, Det civila samhället och den politiska teorin, Daidalos

Gothenburg. Cooke, Bill and Kothari, Uma (eds), 2001, Participation the new tyranny? Zed Books, Lon-

don, New York. Cornwall, Andrea, 2000, Beneficiary, Consumer, Citizen: Perspectives on Participation for

Poverty Reduction, SIDA studies No. 2. Novum Grafiska AB, Gothenburg. Dasgupta, Biplab, 1998, Structural Adjustment, Global Trade and the New Economy of De-

velopment, Zed Books, London, New York. Eriksson, Leif and Hettne Björn (eds) 2001, Makt och internationella relationer, Studentlitte-

ratur Lund. Erwér, Monica, 2001, Empowerment – en fråga om genus, makt och social transformation, in

Eriksson, Leif and Hettne Björn, 2001. Friedmann, John, 1992, Empowerment: the politics of alternative development, Cambridge,

Ma. US, Blackwell Publishers. Hadenius, Axel and Uggla, Fredrik, 1995, Making civil society work: promoting democratic

development: what can states and donors do? Uppsala studies in democracy, No. 9 Uppsa-la University.

Halvorsen, Knut, 1992, Samhällsvetenskaplig metod, Studentlitteratur, Lund. Henkel, Heiko and Stirrat Roderick, 2001, Participation as Spiritual Duty; Empowerment as

Secular Subjection in Cooke, Bill and Kothari, Uma, (eds), 2001, Zed Books, London, New York.

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Higgott Richard and Payne Anthony (eds) 2000, The New Political Economy of Globalisa-tion, vol. II, Edward Elgar Publishing Limited UK.

Hydén, Göran, 1995, Assisting the growth of civil society how might it be improved? Uppsala Universitet, Uppsala studies in democracy 10. Hydén Göran (eds), 1998, Demokratisering i tredje världen, Studentlitteratur, Lund. International Monetary Fund, IMF, 2000, World Economic Outlook, May 2000, IMF, Wash-

ington D.C. Mukum Mbaku, John and Ihonvbere, Julius O (eds), 1998, Multiparty Democracy and Politi-

cal Change, Constraints to Democratization in Africa, Ashgate. Rosenblum L. Nancy and Post Robert C., (eds) 2002, Civil Society and Government, Prince-

ton University Press, Princeton, New Jersey. Scholte Jan Aart, 2000, ‘In the foothills’ Relations between the IMF and civil society, in Hig-

gott Richard and Payne Anthony (eds) 2000. Shaffer, Paul, 1998, Poverty reduction strategies: a review, New York: United Nations, Eco-

nomic and social affairs, United Nations. Department of Economic and Social Affairs, Di-vision for Social Policy and Development. World Summit for Social Development: 1995.

Utrikespolitiska Institutet, 1999, Zambia, Länder i fickformat, Utrikespolitiska Institutet,

Stockholm. Wallén, Göran, 1996, Vetenskapsteori och forskningsmetodik, Studentlitteratur, Lund. World Bank, 2000, World Development Report 2000/2001: Attacking Poverty. New York:

Oxford University Press. World Bank, May 1 2002, Empowerment and Poverty Reduction: A Sourcebook. World Bank,

Washington, D.C. Documents, articles etc Abugre, Charles, June 2000, World Development Movement, Still Sapping the Poor: A Cri-

tique of IMF Poverty Reduction Strategies. World Development Movement. Booth, David, November 2001, PRSP Processes in Eight African Countries, Initial Impacts

and Potential for Institutionalization, Discussion Paper No. 2001/121, United Nations University, World Institute for Development Economics Research.

Bread for the World Institute, April 2001, Debt and Development Dossier Issue #5, What

Good Can Debt Relief and PRSP Do? The Case of Zambia. CSPR, March 21 2001, Overview, Strengths and Weaknesses, Presented at the World Bank in

Lusaka. Civil Society for Poverty Reduction Zambia. CSPR, May 2001, Government Provincial Consultative Workshops for Central, Eastern and

Lusaka Provinces. Civil Society for Poverty Reduction Zambia.

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CSPR, June 2001, Poverty Reduction Strategy Paper for Zambia, A Civil Society Perspective, Civil Society for Poverty Reduction.

EURODAD, October 2001, Many Dollars, Any Change? Why the PRSP approach needs to

address obstacles to ownership, and learn the lessons from structural adjustment. EURO-DAD, Brussels.

IMF and IDA, August 26, 1999a, Heavily Indebted Poor Countries (HIPIC) Initiative –

Strengthening the Link between Debt Relief and Poverty Reduction, World Bank/IMF, Washington, D.C.

IMF and IDA, December 10 1999b, Poverty Reduction Strategy Papers –Operational Issues,

IMF and IDA, Washington, D.C. IMF and WB, April 18 2001, Guidelines for Joint Staff Assessment of a Poverty Reduction

Strategy Paper. IMF/WB, Washington, D.C. Killick, Tony, August 2000, HIPIC II and Conditionality: Business as Before or a New Be-

ginning? Paper commissioned by Commonwealth Secretariat for Policy Workshop on Debt, HIPIC and Poverty Reduction held on 17-18 July 2000.

Marshall, Alison with Woodroffe Jessica, November 2001, Policies to Roll-back the State and

Privatize? Poverty Reduction Strategy Papers Investigated. Discussion Paper No. 2001/120 United Nations University and World Institute for Development Economics Re-search, WIDER.

McGee Rosemary and Norton Andy, 2000, IDS Working Paper 109, Participation in Poverty

Reduction Strategies: A Synthesis of Experiences with Participation Approaches to Policy Design, Implementation and Monitoring. Institute of Developing Studies.

Ministry of Finance and Economic Development, (undated) Poverty Reduction Strategy Pa-

per, Notes on the PRSP Working Groups. Government of the Republic of Zambia. Ministry of Finance and Economic Development, April 2002, Poverty Reduction Strategy

Paper, Government of the Republic of Zambia. Ministry of Finance and Economic Development, September 2001, Poverty Reduction Strat-

egy Paper, First Draft, Government of the Republic of Zambia. Ministry of Finance and Economic Development, 7 July 2000, Interim Poverty Reduction

Strategy Paper. Government of the Republic of Zambia. Ministry of Finance and Economic Development, 18 September 2000, Composition of the

PRSP Working Groups, MoFED. Government of the Republic of Zambia. Mphuka, Chrispin, 25 November 2000, Civil Society Expectations for PRSP, Before sensitisa-

tion workshop on PRSP for members of the Cabinet and members of parliament heading committees.

Mwene, Mwinga, 2002, A Civil Society Poverty Reduction Strategy Process in Zambia, Kepa

Zambia. ODI, May 2001, Third Progress Report, Prepared for the Strategic Partnership with Africa,

ODI, PRSP Institutionalisation Study.

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SAPRIN, the Structural Adjustment Participatory Review International Network, april 2002, the Policy Roots of Economic Crisis and Poverty, a Multi-Country Participatory Assess-ment of Structural Adjustment. SAPRIN, Washington.

Schreiner, Per and Olav Kjörven, September 2001, The International Monetary Fund and the

World Bank Cooperation on Poverty Reduction, the Royal Norwegian Ministry of Foreign Affairs.

Walan, Sofia, 2001 Demokratisering genom internationell påtryckning, en studie av Zambis-

ka intresseorganisationers medverkan I skuldavskrivningsprocessen, Masters thesis in Po-litical Science, Department of Politics, Gothenburg University.

Internet resources CIA www.cia.gov/cia/publications/factbook/geos/za.html IMF www.imf.org Sarpn www.sarpn.org.za/CountryPovertyPapers/cppZambia.php World Bank www.worldbank.org and

www.worldbank.org/participation/index.htm