Views from the field : implementing the poverty reduction strategy paper (PRSP) in agricultural development in Zambia

Persistent poverty is one of the critical development challenges facing Zambia. Previous development policies have not had any significant impact on the lives of poor Zambians. The Poverty Reduction Strategy Paper (PRSP) is the latest policy adopted by the current Zambian government to alleviate poverty. The World Bank and the IMF has promoted the PRSP as a blueprint for countries classified as Highly Indebted Poor Countries (HIPC) to address their development challenges. Poverty is more prevalent in rural areas than in the urban areas. Many of the rural poor are small-scale farmers who rely on agriculture for their survival. The purpose of the study was to gauge, from practitioners, working with PRSP on agricultural development, the extent to which the PRSP was implemented successfully from 2002-2004 to improve the quality of life of poor small-scale farmers. Moore's (1995) "strategic triangle" was used to find out how the implementation of the PRSP "measured up" to his three tests. This qualitative study involved interviewing development managers of the major non-government organisations that are implementing or monitoring the implementation of the current version of the PRSP on agriculture. Documentary sources were also used to complement the in-depth interviews. I drew on Miles and Humberman's (1994) approach to qualitative data analysis to guide the analysis of my data and I used Nvivo software for managing and coding the data.

Grantor dc:publisher.institution

Department of Social Development

Year dc:date.issued

2004

Author dc:creator

• Michelo, Kelly

Advisor dc:contributor.advisor

• De Wet, Jacques

Language dc:language.iso

eng

Handle dc:identifier.uri

http://hdl.handle.net/11427/9976

OAI identifier oai:identifier

oai:open.uct.ac.za:11427/9976