PSIA Newsletter # 3
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Newsletter #3
Dear colleagues,
We finally are in the process of organizing a two-day international workshop on tools for the exante poverty impact assessment of macroeconomic policies (EPIAM). The Workshop will be held at IFPRI’s Headquarters, 2033 K Street, N.W., in Washington, DC, on Tuesday and Wednesday, October 14-15, 2003. The workshop is co-organized by the International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI), the European Network on Debt and Development (EURODAD), the New Rules for Global Finance Coalition, Oxfam America, and Oxfam Great Britain.
The objectives of the Workshop are to (1) take stock of the policy implications of what is known about macro-poverty links, (2) provide an overview of current approaches to the analysis of macro-poverty links, their limitations, and constraints on the effective use of these approaches; and (3) outline an agenda for future research. Participants will include top researchers and key representatives from development organizations, civil society, and the academic world.
While it has been determined that participation is by invitation only (in order to facilitate the discussion of highly technical issues), you are obviously all invited as you indicated your interest in the EPIAM project a long time ago. Some of you have received invitations to participate as a panelist or moderator, for others, such invitations may still be in the mail (you can check if your name is on the attached draft agenda). While our budgets are currently exhausted, we are hoping to still finance more developing country participants through the Heinrich Böll Foundation. I will sent you all a registration form once we have the final agenda, however, please indicate already now (e.g., via reply E-Mail) if you are considering to attend the workshop.
Other News
1) Exante Poverty Impact Assessments of Macroeconomic Policies in Bangladesh, Benin, and Cameroon
We had applied for a Global Development Network (GDN) research fund, which together with Dr. Anselme Adégbidi (Benin), Dr. Samuel Fambon (Cameroon), and Dr. Mustafa Mujeri (Bangladesh) would have looked at Exante Poverty Impact Assessments of Macroeconomic Policies in Bangladesh, Benin, and Cameroon. However, as GDN has received over 360 proposals, our proposal has initially been declined. The total research budget (including national and international conferences) amounts to slightly more than US$30,000. If you know of any source, which might fund such research, please let me know.
2) Other Conferences
There are three more conferences similar to EPIAM, one was in the past, one is currently ongoing, and one will partly overlap with our EPIAM workshop:
a) Technical Workshop on Macroeconomic Analytical Issues in Taking the PRSP Approach Forward. This workshop happened at IMF Headquarters, Washington, D.C., April 3–4, 2003. For further details, please see: http://www.imf.org/external/np/res/seminars/2003/tw/tw.htm
b) Revisiting Macroeconomics in the Age of Finance. This workshop is currently ongoing (September 1-5) at Bilkent University, Ankara in Turkey. The course program of this workshop is available at: http://www.networkideas.org/events/may2003/Ankara_Workshop.pdf
c) PRSP conference. The Dutch and UK governments are in the process of organizing a conference in Den Haag on October 13-14, 2003. While this conference will cover broader issues than our workshop, we are in contact with the organizers to promote cross-learning by sharing the draft and final documents among the participants of our workshop and their conference.
3) Other Newsletters
Though you are probably aware of these, the World Bank publishes regularly its PovertyNet Newsletter (please see: http://worldbank.org/poverty ); the International Budget Project publishes a bimonthly newsletter concentrating on budget issues
(please see: http://www.internationalbudget.org/resources/newsletter.htm ).
Best regards,
Bernhard G. Gunter
EPIAM Project Director
E-Mail: This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it
EPIAM: Standards, Methodologies and Tools for the Exante Poverty Impact Assessment of Macroeconomic Policies.
A Project initiated by the New Rules for Global Finance Coalition.
Please see http://www.new-rules.org/what-we-do/macroeconomic-policy-impact-analysis for more details.
Attachments: EPIAM Workshop Description and Agenda (draft of September 3, 2003).