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Mr. Caton
To ask the Minister of State, Department for International Development what plans the Department has to encourage the participation of civil society in poverty reduction strategies for heavily indebted poor countries. [126703]
Hilary Benn
DFID country teams encourage wide participation in PRSP consultation processes, including funding stakeholder workshops when appropriate. Support can be provided directly from country programmes, or indirectly by means of Partnership Programme Agreements where local civil society organisations (CSOs) are provided with support to enable them to help the consultation process.
Examples of such activity include:
funding academics to train journalists (Ethiopia)
support to Actionaid to facilitate CSOs participating in the policy process (Kenya)
support to an umbrella group of CSOs devoted to poverty reduction (Zambia)
funding a think tank and associated civil society task forces working on policy implications of the government's reform programme (Bangladesh)
project on the development of CSOs (Kyrgyz republic)
co-funding with UNDP the national PRS civil society consultative process (Guyana)