Policy Documents

Abstract: The main objective of the Bank Group’s Policy on Poverty is to provide a framework for action by putting poverty reduction at the centre of Bank support for its RMCs especially in their efforts to prepare, implement, and evaluate their Poverty Reduction Strategy Papers (PRSPs); and achieve the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) in a context of development effectiveness. The Policy demonstrates the Bank’s recognition of poverty reduction as its overarching goal and identifies sectoral priorities and discusses operational issues in this respect. It has been developed on a theoretical framework in which the concept of poverty is broadened from the simple basic need approach to incorporate broader issues like human dignity, social inclusion, inequality and vulnerability to risk. This new framework stretches beyond just human capital to other forms of capital including social, political, cultural and natural capital. The policy also recognizes now existing approaches in development assistance, which seek greater national ownership of poverty reduction strategies, the role of civil society in the formulation and implementation of poverty reduction policies and programs and the greater importance given to the impact of poverty interventions on improving the welfare of the poor. To this end, Bank’s Poverty Policy seeks to foster the identification of pro-poor policies to improve on a set of indicators of poverty.