Why will there be no results? It will not work simply because the ‘PARPA’ is not a strategy. It is rather a set of actions which are dictated by common sense and by the implicit rural development model of the World Bank; and the bank’s financing of a new external debt in the region of US$ 1,8 billion will fall upon the future generations. Due to the abovementioned conditionalities the ‘PARPA’, like many other PRSPs, is characterised by basing itself upon erroneous presuppositions, namely: (i) the market will tend towards covering the costs of the money, whereby any State intervention becomes unnecessary; (ii) the consultations which are guided by deductive methodologies are sufficient, and so it is not necessary to work out a theoretical framework; (iii) the elasticity of the demand in the agrarian products’ market is perfect; (iv) the institutions are regarded as the legal framework which was approved by the national parliaments and the operation of the ministries; (v) and the debt legitimation is done through the approval of a single product—the ‘PARPA’ or PRSP document.
As a consequence, there is no strategy. At most, there is a tactic. A tactic that has as its means: decentralisation, participation and democracy. As conditions, this tactic has the good operation of the apparatus, the improvement of health conditions and the improvement of the educational level. As instruments it has: a macroeconomic policy which is directed towards currency stabilisation, and an improved roads network. [This is] a tactic where the strategic options for maximising results are left to the discretion of the market. But it lacks a strategy.
It is essential to have a strategy. Why? Because the reduction of poverty is not an objective per se; it is rather a result. The objective is to increase wealth and to distribute it; in other words, the objective is the formation of the national capital and its distribution. For this to happen it is essential that a strategy be formulated; this strategy should identify the forces upon which investment will unleash multiplying effects which will allow [the country] to exit the cycle of poverty.
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