§ The Earl of Sandwichasked Her Majesty's Government:
What success they have had alongside the Government of Mozambique in attracting civil society to the poverty reduction strategy process in Mozambique; and to what extent such participation extends beyond Maputo to other regional centres. [HL3457]
§ The Secretary of State for International Development (Baroness Amos)The Government of Mozambique have outlined their plan to tackle poverty in the Plano de Acção de Redução da Pobreza Absoluta (PARPA) 2001–05, which constitutes the country's poverty reduction strategy paper (PRSP). The PARPA was approved in September 2001. It has as its central objective the reduction of the incidence of absolute poverty from its 1999 level of 70 per cent to less than 60 per cent by 2005 and less than 50 per cent by 2010. The PARPA identifies five priority areas: health, education, agriculture and rural development, good governance and infrastructure. An operational matrix has been developed that contains the main actions to be carried out in each sector over the five-year period.
The Government of Mozambique have also developed a strategic framework for the monitoring and evaluation of the PARPA and are committed to ensuring that this framework is implemented in partnership with key stakeholders including civil society. In April 2003, the government established the poverty observatory (OP)—one of the central planks of the monitoring and evaluation strategy. DfID welcomes the establishment of the poverty observatory as an important mechanism to facilitate dialogue on the PARPA by a range of actors.
Civil society organisations participated in the first meetings of the poverty observatory but their engagement was constrained by a lack of clarity about their role in the process and the unclear agenda that was set for the consultation. In addition, civil society representation was disproportionately Maputo-based. There is a need now to build on the foundations of the poverty observatory so as to make it a more meaningful instrument for dialogue and exchange between government and civil society.
In 2001 DfID-Mozambique funded a consultancy to appraise civil society participation in the PARPA process. We are now taking this forward, working closely with a number of other donor agencies. It is hoped that this will lead to a more strategic approach to supporting the strengthening of the level and nature of civil society participation in the PARPA monitoring and evaluation process.