Poverty Reduction Forum (PRF) is a civil society grouping, which was formed in 1996. It brings together Non-Governmental Organisations (NGOs), civil society groups, academics, the private sector, donors and government. The Forum's mission is to influence the formulation of pro-poor policies through engaging in dialogue with policy-makers and all stakeholders by carrying out research and advocacy work. Currently PRF is housed at the Institute of Development Studies at the University of Zimbabwe, which is a public institute.
In order to fulfil its mission, the Forum is guided by the following objectives:
- To strengthen partnership between government, NGOs, civil society, donors, research institutes and the private sector in programme development and implementation.
- To expand public dialogue to include the views of various stakeholders in the country's development and poverty reduction initiatives.
- To facilitate research on poverty and its reduction in order to influence the formulation of pro-poor policies. To this end the Forum's major output is the Zimbabwe Human Development Report which is widely consulted by both government and other development partners.
- To disseminate information, documentation and research on poverty reduction, wealth creation and social development aimed at supporting lobbying and advocacy initiatives.
PRF has been running Pre-Budget seminars since 1999. As Zimbabwe prepares for the 2003 national budget, numerous challenges are facing the country. Over the years, there has been extensive debate on the National budget largely because of its central role in economic planning and social development. The PRF considers the national budget an important short-run instrument of national economic policy with the potential to eradicate the increasing levels of poverty in the country.
It is against this background that the Poverty Reduction Forum held a public pre-budget seminar on the 9th of October whose major objective was to mount stakeholder participation and contribution towards issues to be addressed by the forthcoming 2003 national budget. The workshop had a total participation of 88 people from various backgrounds. The seminar participants expressed the recommendations submitted in this report.
Mr. L. Turugari, Deputy Director Operations Social Development Fund in the Ministry of Public Service, Labour and Social Welfare, officially opened the seminar.
Challenges of the 2003 National Budget as Perceived by the Ministry of Public Service, Labour and Social Welfare
- The economy is facing an environment of hardships which is triangular in nature, involving the economy, food security and governance issues. The challenge is how the budget could break this triangular environment of hardships.
- What then are the priority issues that need to be addressed particularly by the national budget for an economy under siege?
- The social sector is normally most vulnerable under economic hardships such that the challenge is to protect the social sector irrespective of the economic environment.
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