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Southern Africa: SADC Leaders to Discuss Poverty
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Agencia de Informacao de Mocambique (Maputo)
16 April 2008
Posted to the web 16 April 2008
Paul Fauvet
Port Louis
Heads of state and government of the Southern African Development Community (SADC) are gathering in Mauritius this weekend for a regional conference on development and poverty.
It is expected that one outcome of the conference will be the creation of a SADC Regional Poverty Observatory (RPO). The background document for the conference describes such a body as "a forum where all the stakeholders working in poverty eradication at regional and national levels meet to evaluate and monitor implementation of the Regional Poverty Reduction Framework".
The RPO will be "a multi-stakeholder consultative forum for monitoring the objectives, targets and actions that have been specifically assigned to the public and private sectors within the SADC poverty reduction programme".
In order to do the monitoring properly, the document stresses, "there is a compelling need for harmonization or standardization of indicators across countries". It suggests that monitoring should cover all key aspects of programmes designed to tackle poverty - including incomes, infrastructure, and social sectors such as the health and education services.
"Cross-country poverty analysis and monitoring will be beneficial to all countries and will stir progress in the fight against poverty", the document claims. "It would fasten the pace of reforms and execution of national poverty reduction strategies".
With the RPO, SADC member states will not only have the Millennium Development Goals agreed in 2000 by virtually every government on the planet as their target - they would also have examples of regional "best practices", which other countries could learn from.
The RPO, the document adds, "would also allow cross-country comparative performance analysis which, in turn, would create a "competitive" dynamic situation in favour of best practices in poverty reduction".
For this to operate properly, it adds, the SADC Secretariat "needs to be strengthened in this area, including institutional arrangements such as rules and processes for requesting standardized information from counties on a regular basis". This means that there should be "a dedicated implementation and monitoring nit" within the SADC Secretariat.
The RPO, it continues, "is intended to provide guidance and to ensure adequate and consistent interaction between Government and partners involved in poverty eradication".
This will involve collecting and analyzing data on poverty reduction from all SADC member states, setting up a regional poverty database, conducting research, documenting experiences of "best practices", and making proposals to individual SADC governments in order to ensure greatest impact in the fight against poverty.
"Broadly speaking", the document says, "the RPO will identify and disseminate concrete actions in fighting the causes of poverty and evaluate the degree of intervention by the state, civil society and international cooperating partners in promoting economic and social development in the SADC region.
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Among the responsibilities of the proposed RPO are "preparing analyses of the poverty situation in the region and providing feedback on the evolution of poverty indicators, and "assisting in drawing policy conclusions and recommendations on the nature of poverty and appropriate targeting tools".
The RPO is expected to provide new knowledge and ideas for the anti-poverty struggle, as well as "innovative practices on poverty eradication", and an "institutionalized regional platform for stakeholder dialogue on poverty and development".
The document proposes that the RPO should be "a specialized independent structure", either inside the SADC secretariat in Gaborone, or in another SADC member country. It warns against any government or other interference in the Observatory, declaring that "to ensure its independence, a true partnership between stakeholders must exist that makes the RPO a forum where issues are negotiated and agreements with mutual commitments are reached".
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| Copyright © 2008 Agencia de Informacao de Mocambique. All rights reserved. Distributed by AllAfrica Global Media (allAfrica.com). To contact the copyright holder directly for corrections -- or for permission to republish or make other authorized use of this material, click here. | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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