• Stakeholder engagement

Stakeholder engagement

This study aims to contribute to an assessment of Poverty Reduction Strategy Paper (PRSP) processes in Ethiopia, Kenya and Zambia from a child rights perspective. It links up with a previous study, titled "Poverty Reduction Strategy Papers: blind to the rights of the (working) child?", which showed that the majority of the PRSPs did not deal with child labour. The study in 2004 called for a case study with a wider scope that also goes beyond a mere text analysis. This report aims to address this gap.

This report examines PRSP processes in Ethiopia, Kenya and Zambia,and looks into how far they fulfil child right’s demands. The observances collected in this study demonstrate clear country-specific differences in the evaluation of PRSPs by child rights organisations. On the other hand they suggest that, from a child rights perspective, all three PRSPs display common shortcomings:

• the PRSPs for all three countries almost completely lack an explicit child rights approach
• the child and youth poverty analysis is insufficient, especially in the Ethiopian and Kenyan strategy papers where important aspects are missing
• child rights organisations question the basic economic orientation of the strategy papers, and doubt that the aspired economic growth alone will contribute to overcoming child poverty
• child rights organisations in Ethiopia and Kenya miss coherent social and educational programmes that are specifically designed to eliminate child poverty and that treat children as rights holders
• in all three countries they complain about the absence of a "children’s budget" in the PRSP.

In view of these shortcomings, this paper found that child rights organisations doubt that the PRSPs can make a significant contribution to overcoming child poverty.

The study makes several demands in order to qualify PRSP processes in a child rights perspective. Some of these are:

• PRSs must prioritise the reduction of child poverty, investigate the impacts of macro-economic strategies and policies on children and young people, and also contribute to supporting the informal sector
• PRSPs should present a children’s budget
• extensive participation of children and young people and their organisations in the development, implementation and monitoring of PRSPs must be guaranteed
• World Bank/IMF guidelines on the development and implementation of PRSPs and assessment of PRSP processes should be amended to serve qualifying PRSP processes from a child rights perspective.

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