PPAs: a review of the World Bank's experience

Chapter 16 summarizes the results of a study which investigated the World Bank's experience in developing participatory methods for policy-focused research in the form of participatory poverty assessments (PPAs). The chapter focuses on the issues of management of the PPA research process at the community, country and institutional levels, highlighting key variables and possible outcomes. At the community level, the quality, credibility and effectiveness of the PPA relates to the nature of its sequencing with the quantitative World Bank-poverty analysis, the length of time allocated for fieldwork, the skill levels of research coordinators and their teams, and to the degree of institutional linkage established through the fieldwork process. At the country level, the potential influence of PPAs on policy change is influenced by the degree of government support for the exercise, and more generally the level of ownership and commitment of in-country stakeholders. At the level of the World Bank, policy impact again relates to ownership, with a team approach emerging as particularly important. Although simple linear causality cannot be established, Chapter 16 gives examples of cases where PPAs have been seen to exert an influence on policy at the country level and within the World Bank itself A threefold classification of the PPAs is proposed based upon the varying objectives and outcomes of the PPA exercises: (i) information gathering; (ii) attitudinal change towards policy; and (iii) the strengthening of the policy-delivery framework. Chapter 16 concludes that to date most PPAs have focused on the first and/or second objective, and calls for a shift towards addressing the wide objective of strengthening the policy-delivery framework through encouraging stakeholder dialogue and building capacity for policy delivery.