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The PARPA: Towards achieving results - May 2002
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| 1. What is the 'PARPA' ? |
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‘PARPA’ (Plano de Acзгo para a Reduзгo da Pobreza Absoluta) is the Action Plan for the Reduction of Absolute Poverty in Mozambique. The Government maintains that it will be possible to achieve a growth rate in the order of 8 per cent per annum up to 20052, as was the case from 1997 to 2001. This would have as a consequence a reduction in the incidence of absolute poverty from the level of 70 per cent in1997 to less than 60 per cent in 2005, and to less than 50 per cent around 20103.
Poverty was officially defined as the “incapacity of individuals to secure for themselves and their dependents a set of basic minimum conditions for their subsistence and well being, in accordance with the norms of society4 ”. The line of absolute poverty was estimated on the basis of the consumption of 2 150 kilocalories per person per day, to which is added a fixed non-food related expenditure. In monetary terms, this would be translated into US$ 1,00 (one American dollar) per day per person.
Cruzeiro do Sul (the Research Institute for Development—Instituto de Investigaзгo para o Desenvolvimento) carried out empirical surveys from 2000 to 2002 in the Province of Nampula. The results indicate that, on average, gross per capita income per day falls below US$ 0,50, varying from US$ 0,18 to US$ 0,47 among the poorest. According to ‘PARPA’ it is possible for at least 20 per cent of these persons to treble their income within five years.
To this end PARPA presents a “development strategy which is based on the market [where] the main role of the government [is] the promotion of investment and productivity, [...] by means of an investment in human capital, the development of infrastructure, programmes for the improvement of the quality of public and political institutions, towards an efficient financial macroeconomic administration5” . In parallel with this strategy, one should bear in mind the proclaimed effort of the Government in pursuing policies and developing activities which will result in a reduction of the vulnerability and the empowerment of the poorest among the poor6.
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Footnotes:
- To achieve a growth rate of 8% per annum, the rate of investment must be in the region of 25% of GDP. Between 1990 and 1996 Mozambique had an average investment rate of 49,5%, of which 30,8% was private investment. However, in the same period, the domestic savings rate reached only 9,6% of GDP; this means that a great deal of private investment was foreign. There are no guarantees that the formation of the national capital in the next ten years will include the rate of foreign private investment or that these will flow at the same rhythm.
- GoM. 2001. Plano de Acзгo para a Reduзгo da Pobreza Absoluta, 2001-2005 (PARPA), p. 3
- ibid. p.11
- ibid. p.5
- About the evolution of the roles of the Government and of the donors in the conceptualization of poverty, see Oppenheimer, J. & Raposo, I. 2002. A pobreza em Maputo, Lisbon: MTS/Depart. Cooperaзгo.
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