What Challenges do Poverty Reduction Strategies Face? Wanda Engel Poverty and Inequality Unit Inter-American Development Bank

Big inversions/Low impacts Current Scenario DEMAND I . Increase in the demand for social services: . Conscience of the rights and the necessity to reduce poverty (the rights decade) . Social and financial crisis Fragile knowledge about the poverty characteristics (How many are they,who are they,where do they live,what are there necessities) OFFER . Increase in social inversions . Financial and fiscal crisis: . Cyclical character inversions . Budget inflexibility . Institutional arrangements that favor sectoring (policy of the ministries) . Fragmented and unknown offer Big inversions/Low impacts

Conceptual Challenges Why reduce poverty? Social, economic, political and ethical questions What is Poverty? Basic concepts: poverty, inequality, exclusion and vulnerability Who are the poor? Poverty indicators,base lines, measurement Poverty profiles as instrument for design and focalization of programs Family information Systems (Registro Único)

Conceptual Challenges What are the alternatives for poverty reduction? Economic Determinants: the evolution of employment, salaries by qualification, dependence rates Human Determinants: the endowments of human capital in education and health, subjective aspects Social Determinants: family, social organizations, participation, violence, crime

Operational Challenges Know and organize the demand Know, organize, integrate and rationalize the offer Create adequate institutional arrangements for integration and rationalization of the offer and the demand Lower costs Increase impact How effective are the strategies with integral focus in the increase of the impact of poverty reduction policies?

Operational Challenges Integrated policies and its possible impacts: Rationalization of the expenses Decrease of the operational costs sinérgicos Effects Types of integration: Sectorial: social protection, social and human development, economic development Institutional: different levels Social: government, civil society, empresariado y voluntariado

Operational Challenges Integration Modalities National Strategies Unit: Country SOCIAL AGENDAS Unit: Region / States / Metropolitan Areas LOCAL DEVELOPMENT : Integrated and sustainable Unit: small city /location INTEGRATION BY TERRITORIAL BASE Unit: neighborhood/comunity LIFE CYCLE PERSPECTIVES Unit: family

Operational Challenges How to institutionalize the policies of poverty reduction? Financing Challenges Protection Strategies of the budget Identification and increment alternatives sources Creation of mechanisms (funds) that enlarge the transparency, equity and efficiency of the expenses

Operational Challenges Institutional arrangements necesary for the integration and sustainability of the programs: Spaces for Governmental integration and public participation Professionalization public services Favorable Desburocratization Creation of legislation Informationalization (e-government) Accountability and social control

Challenges in monitoring and evaluation How to monitor and measure results and impacts? The culture of monitoring and evaluation Unique and dependable Statistical Systems Definition of short term sensitive indicators Monitoring and evaluation systems for integrated joint programs Methodologies: the experimental method