"Investment in poverty monitoring is important"
Developing a comprehensive poverty reduction strategy will involve more investment by the state Government in poverty monitoring and evaluation, according to World Bank.
By PTI |
CHENNAI: Developing a comprehensive poverty reduction strategy will involve more investment by the state Government in poverty monitoring and evaluation, according to World Bank.
"Though the problem is common to all States, monitoring of extant anti-poverty policies and social services more generally is, however, important if one is to gauge whether implementation is proceeding according to plan and achieving its stated objectives," World Bank has said in its report on 'Economic Growth and Poverty Alleviation in Tamil Nadu.'
Tamil Nadu has a plethora of poverty-reduction programmes like noon meal scheme. It will be important to strengthen monitoring and evaluations of targeted poverty-reduction interventions in order to improve targeting and rationalisation across programmes, it said.
The Government of Tamil Nadu is an ideal agent for engaging in monitoring and evaluation, given its commitment to combating poverty, openness to receiving feedback, and rich human capital resources.
The capacity to monitor the progress of poverty and human development and link that with overall policy and poverty- reduction interventions remains critical.
"Though the problem is common to all States, monitoring of extant anti-poverty policies and social services more generally is, however, important if one is to gauge whether implementation is proceeding according to plan and achieving its stated objectives," World Bank has said in its report on 'Economic Growth and Poverty Alleviation in Tamil Nadu.'
Tamil Nadu has a plethora of poverty-reduction programmes like noon meal scheme. It will be important to strengthen monitoring and evaluations of targeted poverty-reduction interventions in order to improve targeting and rationalisation across programmes, it said.
The Government of Tamil Nadu is an ideal agent for engaging in monitoring and evaluation, given its commitment to combating poverty, openness to receiving feedback, and rich human capital resources.
The capacity to monitor the progress of poverty and human development and link that with overall policy and poverty- reduction interventions remains critical.
There is also scope for aligning the various programs listed in the Tenth Plan to improve co-ordination and targeting; many programmes are not co-ordinated, with multiple, overlapping and some times different objectives, the report pointed out.
About 12 million people live in poverty in Tamil Nadu, Scheduled Castes (SC) and Scheduled Tribes (ST) are highly represented among the poor due in part to their owning less land, and of lower quality as well as other assets (particularly human capital), the World Bank report said. Important challenges in the non-income dimensions of poverty remain to be tackled in health, education, water supply, sanitation and nutrition, it added.
It suggested developing strong institutional capacity for evaluation based learning was invaluable for improving the targetting in schemes such as the Public Distribution System.
Similarly, building institutional capacity for an effective monitoring and feedback mechanism that ensures aligning of budgets to priority needs in education, health and broader aspects of service delivery will be important in the coming years, it added.
The report also said that rural areas in the Coastal North and the South and possibly to the urban areas in the Coastal North should be paid special attention as SC and ST sections of people were facing particular barriers to upward mobility.
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As suggested by the data, these people stem at least in part from three sources -- access to land, education and regular non-farm employment, it said.
Addressing them will, therefore, be a vital part of any poverty alleviation strategy pursued by the state, the World Bank report emphasised.
The report reflects the status of the policy dialogue upto March 2004 with a few selected updates.
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