Poverty Reduction Strategy Papers och deltagande
ParticipationPRSPGovernance'New Institutionalism'Political and administrative sciencesStatsvetenskapFörvaltningskunskapLaw and Political Science
The failure of Structural Adjustment Programs and its neoliberal policies to effectively reduce poverty have led to the creation of Poverty Reduction Strategy Paper (PRSP) by The World Bank and International Monetary Fund. PRSP, connected to both the Comprehensive Development Strategy and the HIPC initiative, are built on the notion of national ownership and stakeholder participation and thereby expand potential conditionality to include matters of governance. This thesis examines the evolution of PRSP and how the process of participation affects national governance structures. By analyzing the role of rules and norms within the World Bank and IMF from a historical point of view the thesis explains why the participation process has developed the way it has. It concludes that neoliberal norms, still at heart within the World Bank and IMF, have an impact on the process of participation within nation states and thereby its governance structure. In the thesis Ghana has been used as an illustrating example of how the process of participation can look like and in case of Ghana stakeholders have in many cases seen its participation reduced to consultation without any real impact.