PRIA, Government Policy, Made Personal

Summary

Require U.S. Executive Directors at each multilateral development bank to push hard for the banks to make helping poor people take part in their country’s economy a top, long-term goal. The banks must help countries make lasting national plans to fight the causes and effects of poverty. Those plans should focus on basic needs (nutrition, primary health care, basic schooling, safe water and sanitation), on ways for poor people to earn income and get assets like land and credit, and on consulting public social agencies and local nongovernmental groups. The banks must link this goal to their policy talks, structural adjustment programs, and project lending, and work with both government social and economic agencies and local NGOs that work with poor people. Each bank must report each year on progress and problems, base those reports on its country review and strategy papers, help countries measure progress with social indicators, set aside staff, budgets, and procedures to support the work, give preferential concessional finance to countries that try hard, and require a poverty‑participation strategy for countries getting structural adjustment help after a reasonable phase‑in. Within one year after December 19, 1989, the Secretary of the Treasury must report to the House Committees on Banking, Finance and Urban Affairs and on Appropriations, and to the Senate Committees on Foreign Relations and on Appropriations, on how advocacy and implementation are going; on progress under section 262p–4f, including work on statistics to measure the poor’s well‑being; and on how well NGOs are being involved in design, implementation, and monitoring of bank projects, programs, and policies.

Title 22, §262p–4h

Foreign Relations and Intercourse, Source: USLM XML via OLRC

(a)The Secretary of the Treasury shall instruct the United States Executive Director for each multilateral development bank to vigorously and continually advocate, in all replenishment negotiations and in discussion with other directors of such bank and with such bank, the following:

(1)A major objective of such bank’s operations and financing in each borrowing country, as a long term priority, should be to increase the productive role of the poor in the economy of such country.

(2)Such bank should encourage and assist each borrowing country to develop sustainable national plans and strategies to eliminate the causes and alleviate the manifestations of poverty which keep the poor from leading economically and socially productive lives. Such plans and strategies should give attention to—

(A)the enhancement of human resources, including programs for basic nutrition, primary health services, basic education, and safe water and basic sanitation;

(B)access to income-generating activities, employment, and productive assets such as land and credit; and

(C)consultation with public sector social agencies and local non-governmental organizations.

(3)As an integral element of ongoing policy dialogue with each borrowing country to design structural adjustment plans and project lending programs, such bank should provide assistance consistent with achieving the objectives of the country’s national plan for increasing the productive economic participation of the poor. Such dialogue should be conducted with government agencies working in social and economic sectors and with non-governmental groups in the borrowing country, especially those that have grassroots involvement with poor people.

(4)In an annual review document, such bank should describe the extent to which the goal of increasing the productive economic participation of the poor is being advanced or retarded and the steps that are being taken to overcome obstacles to its fulfillment. Such review should be based on information contained in the bank’s country implementation review documents and in the country strategy documents for each borrowing country. Such country strategy documents should describe the national strategy for productive economic participation of the poor and the steps the bank plans to take to assist the borrowing country during the period covered by the country strategy document.

(5)Such bank should assist countries in assessing and monitoring progress in achieving poverty alleviation goals and targets through measurement by appropriate social indicators.

(6)Such bank should adopt procedures and budgetary allocations for administrative purposes, and establish appropriate staffing levels, to ensure that adequate resources are available to implement the bank’s program for enhancing the productive economic participation of the poor, in consultation with non-governmental groups.

(7)Such bank should adopt, as a separate and major criterion in the allocation of concessional financing resources, a preferential allocation to each country which undertakes significant efforts to enhance the productive economic participation of the poor.

(8)Such bank should require each country which receives structural adjustment assistance to have in place, after a reasonable phase-in period, a strategy to enhance the productive economic participation of the poor.

(b)Before the end of the 1-year period beginning on December 19, 1989, the Secretary of the Treasury shall submit to the Committee on Banking, Finance and Urban Affairs and the Committee on Appropriations of the House of Representatives, and the Committee on Foreign Relations and the Committee on Appropriations of the Senate, a report on the following:

(1)The status of advocacy and progress being made to implement the objectives of subsection (a), describing the success to date, the obstacles encountered, and future expectations of progress.

(2)A description of the progress to date in achieving the purposes of section 262p–4f of this title, including the institutional capacity and effort devoted to assisting in the development of statistical measures to assess the well-being of the poor.

(3)A description and evaluation of the progress to date in developing effective mechanisms for involving non-governmental organizations, directly or indirectly, in the design, implementation, and monitoring of development projects, programs, and policies of the multilateral development banks.

Notes & Related Subsidiaries

Editorial Notes

Prior Provisions

A prior section 1613 of Pub. L. 95–118 was renumbered section 1622 and is classified to section 262p–5 of this title.

Statutory Notes and Related Subsidiaries

Change of Name

Committee on Banking, Finance and Urban Affairs of House of Representatives treated as referring to Committee on Banking and Financial Services of House of Representatives by section 1(a) of Pub. L. 104–14, set out as a note preceding section 21 of Title 2, The Congress. Committee on Banking and Financial Services of House of Representatives abolished and replaced by Committee on Financial Services of House of Representatives, and jurisdiction over matters relating to securities and exchanges and insurance generally transferred from Committee on Energy and Commerce of House of Representatives by House Resolution No. 5, One Hundred Seventh Congress, Jan. 3, 2001. Definitions The definitions in section 262p–5 of this title apply to this section.

§262p–4h Discussions to Increase Productive Economic Participation of Poor; Reports