Criticism of PRSP include aid conditionality, donor influence, and poor fulfillment of the participatory aspect.
[2] The World Bank and IMF require countries to produce a Poverty Reduction Strategy Paper as a condition for debt relief through the HIPC initiative and other monetary aid, as do several bilateral donors.
[1] They detail a country's plan to promote growth and reduce poverty through implementation of specific economic, social and structural policies over a period of three years or longer.
[1] It should also be result-oriented by focusing on outcomes that will benefit the poor, comprehensive in exploring and understanding the multidimensional nature of poverty, partnership-oriented by involving development partners such as the government, domestic stakeholders, and external donors.
The purpose of civil society involvement is to increase the influence of stakeholders in policy creation, program implementation, resource allocation and priority setting.
[4] The intent here is to cultivate a degree of national consensus, thereby creating a poverty reduction strategy that is more representative of stakeholder's interests.
[8] Additionally, the hope is that in developing a PRSP together, a country will gain a more comprehensive understanding of the poverty issues it faces.
[2] The PRSP process begins with an analysis of poverty within the country, taking into account both quantitative and qualitative data.
The World Bank outlines the following participatory levels: Participation has been facilitated by civil society organizations, mainly NGOs.
[9] This means that the PRSP might be approved by the IMF and World Bank regardless of the lack of true civil society participation in its making.
[9] According to the World Bank's PRS Sourcebook, a PRSP should contain a poverty analysis, a prioritization of the programs needed to achieve development objectives, targets and indicators, a plan for keeping track of progress towards goals and evaluating effectiveness of implementation of programs, and a description of the participatory process in preparing the strategy.