Analysis and Implications

Country ownership is widely seen as crucial to the success of national development strategies, but a robust operational framework to assess it has been elusive. The Poverty Reduction Strategy (PRS) initiative underpinned by the Comprehensive Development Framework (CDF) principles, introduced in 1999, take the question of country ownership to a new level by ensuring an opportunity for a country to take the initiative in defining its own strategy, and take charge of its development. This study offers a common operational approach to assessing country ownership of PRSs. It builds on the findings of the Bank's 2003 CDF Progress Report, which reviewed experience in 48 countries, on PRS reviews prepared by other organizations, and other units within the Bank, and on detailed case studies of the PRS process carried out for the purposes of this study in four countries that have made strong progress in developing nationally, owned development strategies: Bolivia, Ghana, the Kyrgyz Republic, and Senegal. Experience in the case study countries shows that to develop country ownership of PRSs, it is essential to integrate PRS formulation, and implementation into a country's broader decision making processes and systems. The indicators point to increasing institutionalization of the PRS process: to the extent that these elements are in place, country ownership of the PRS is stronger. However, all indicators are unlikely to be equally important in all countries. Countries with weaker governance and institutions like Low-Income Countries Under Stress (LICUS) face considerable challenges in fostering country ownership of the PRS, and are likely to make slower progress than those with stronger institutions.