The Poverty Reduction Strategy Initiative : Findings from Ten Country Case Studies of World Bank and IMF Support

The Independent Evaluation Office (IEO) of the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and the Operations Evaluation Department (OED) of the World Bank--independent units reporting to their respective institutions' Executive Boards--recently completed parallel evaluations of the Poverty Reduction Strategy (PRS) Initiative, with particular attention to the role and effectiveness of World Bank and IMF support. A key source of evidence for the evaluations was a set of 10 country case studies, most completed in the second half of 2003, of countries that had completed a Poverty Reduction Strategy Paper (PRSP). This volume contains summaries of those case studies.