La Banque mondiale et la lutte contre la pauvreté : tout changer pour que tout reste pareil ?

The World Bank and the International Monetary Fund launched a joint initiative in September 1999, setting the fight against poverty at the heart of development policies. Under this initiative, developing countries wishing to apply for financial aid from either of the organizations, or for debt relief under the HIPC (Heavily Indebted Poor Countries) Initiative, are required to draw up poverty reduction programs known as Poverty Reduction Strategy Papers (PRSP). Most low-income countries are now engaged in designing or implementing such policies. All the other donors have decided to follow suit and to link their aid policies to the PRSP system. Without neglecting the numerous difficulties and contradictions facing these new strategies, our analysis points out three main innovations: first, it is to be welcomed that the Bretton Woods Institutions have adopted poverty reduction and not structural adjustment as their main goal; second, adopting a participatory process for defining and monitoring the PRSPs certainly has great potential for strengthening democracy; last, these new initiatives have increased coherence between donors.