Nairobi — The fight to eradicate poverty on the African continent is still far from over even though strategies have been put in place to win the war.
A new report says a number of people are still stuck in poverty despite the intervention of multilateral organisations.
According to the report Poverty Reduction Strategy Papers: failing minorities and indigenous peoples, billions of dollars have been spent on projects that are not having real impact on poor people.
"Processes such as these can only begin to have results for minority and indigenous communities if they take account of linguistic and cultural differences, gender inequalities and the impact of direct and indirect discrimination," said Mr Mark Lattimer, executive director of the group.
The study was conducted by Minority Rights Group International (MRG).
In 1999, the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund initiated the Poverty Reduction Strategy Papers (PRSPs).
This was aimed at helping low income and highly indebted countries to reduce their poverty levels.
Currently, about 140 countries around the world are at varying stages of the PRSP process, including implementing development projects based on the papers.
In Kenya and Uganda, the MRG report surveyed the status of projects among the pastoralist communities.
This focused on the Endorois of Kenya and Karamoja of Uganda.
"For example the Endorois, who have been removed from their ancestral lands by successive governments, remain impoverished, with elevated levels of illiteracy, high HIV prevalence, poor health, and high maternal and child mortality rates," it notes.
Among the Karamoja, the study found that they still lack basic social services and have endured marginalisation from the political, social and economic mainstream of Uganda despite a long-standing poverty reduction plan in the country.
The report also stated that compiling the papers had failed to take account of the unique situation facing minorities, such as geographical remoteness, language barriers and lack of knowledge and information about national government processes.
Inadequate resources is pointed out as hindrance to communities' meaningful participation in the process.
"There is lack of a comprehensive analysis within PRSPs of the status of minority and indigenous women, who face multiple levels of discrimination and marginalisation," said the author of the report Samia Khan.
The study was also done in the rest of Africa, Asia and Latin America and recommends the need to improve national poverty consultation processes.
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Some of us have been asking a decade ago why colossal amounts spent on the continent on poverty alleviation and development by well meaning IGOs and NGOs has not made a dent on the problem talk less of solving it. The problem is too great and multivariate than meet the eye. Just last week, an article featured on allafrica.com informed us that Africa through dubious debiting and crediting, invoicing, unequal currency and trade exchange etc., has siphoned conservatively over 800 billion US dollar out of the continent. The directly looted monies by African leaders in awesome billion dollars are kept in foreign continents, mainly in Europe and America, and many other external problems that are constrained by the space here. The solution is inevitable alternative approaches to the present ones. Until this is done with brainstorming research revolution, the problem or problems will continue to get worse day by day