PREM Anchor Support to the Africa Region
The goal of the Poverty Reduction and Economic Management (PREM) Network is to shape policies and to help countries build successful national strategies for sustained, shared growth, and to strengthen partnerships at the country level for improved aid effectiveness. There is no region in which this goal is more challenging than in Africa. In support of the Africa Action Plan (AAP), the PREM Anchor has actively stepped up its support to the Africa Region (AFR) in fiscal year 2006 (FY06).As of the end of January 2006, Anchor staff had provided nearly 83 staff weeks in direct cross-support alone. Activities have included knowledge generation, high level policy support on missions, the development of toolkits and diagnostics to improve policy advice on growth strategies, among others. Most of this work has been provided on a demand driven basis, and PREM plans to continue providing such services subject to its budgetary and skills capacity. This note illustrates how the PREM Anchor's support to the PREM Anchor support to the AFR connects with the objectives of the AAP. The PREM Anchor is working closely with the AFR on ways to improve the results focus and analytical foundations of poverty reduction strategies (PRSs). A study is under way on the integration of PRS reporting and budget implementation covering eight African countries to improve existing reporting instruments and assess how to better align PRS reporting with budget reporting. Work is also under way to strengthen the quality of second generation PRSs and their relevance as a framework for scaling up and improving aid effectiveness.