Promoting Pro-Poor Growth

Introduction
James T. Smith
Senior Deputy Assistant Administrator, USAID

Presentation
Richard Manning
Chair of OECD Development Assistance Committee Development

Friday, September 29, 2006
Capitol Hill Club, Private Dining Room 1
300 First Street SE, Washington DC 20036
9:00-10:00 AM Presentation, 8:30 AM Registration

Event Description:

Promoting pro-poor growth – enabling a pace and pattern of growth that enhances the ability of poor women and men to participate in, contribute to and benefit from growth – will be critical in achieving a sustainable trajectory out of poverty and meeting the Millennium Development Goals, especially the target of halving the proportion of people living on less than one dollar a day. One reason why growth has been more successful in some developing countries than others in reducing poverty is because policies have been in place to better connect up poor people and the growth process and to deal with the risks, vulnerabilities and market failures which hold back their participation. The economic and social dimensions of poverty are consequently interlinked and effective poverty reduction needs actions on both. There are certainly policy trade offs, but they can be better managed.

The OECD's Development Assistance Committee (DAC), through its Network on Poverty Reduction (POVNET), has been examining these issues and has prepared policy guidance to donors on promoting pro-poor growth in developing countries. For donors, this agenda is not business as usual and more of the same will not be sufficient. For example, donors' internal incentive and evaluation systems should not work against staff pursuing longer-term, programmatic and possibly higher risk interventions.

Biographies:

James T. Smith is the Senior Deputy Assistant Administrator for the Bureau for Economic Growth, Agriculture and Trade, U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID). He assumed this position in October 2003, and is directly responsible for supervising the Offices of Economic Growth, Poverty Reduction, Education and Development Credit. A member of the Senior Foreign Service, Smith has 29 years of experience at USAID.  He joined the Agency as an International Development Intern in 1977. From 1998 to 2003, he served as Director of the Development Planning Office in the Bureau for Africa, responsible for strategic planning and resource allocation.  From 1994 to 1998, he was Deputy Director for USAID's mission in Mozambique with a portfolio of more than $60 million annually and a staff of over 100 employees. From 1989 to 1994, he served as the Africa Bureau’s Senior Economist, traveling widely throughout Africa in support of USAID programs.  Smith also served as Program Economist in Morocco (1983-1989) and Burkina Faso (1978-1983).

Richard Manning is Chair of the OECD's Development Assistance Committee (DAC).  He took up his duties on 16 June 2003. Mr. Manning was former Director General for Policy at the UK Department for International Development (DFID). He worked for DFID and its predecessor agencies from 1965 to 2003, including periods spent serving in West Africa and South East Asia, and as Alternate Executive Director at the World Bank. Before becoming Chair, Mr Manning worked with the DAC over many years, and was from 2001 to early 2003 Chair of the DAC Task Force on Aid Practices which produced a report on "Harmonising Donor Practices for Effective Aid Delivery" ahead of the High Level Forum in Rome in February 2003. In March 2005 he was Co-Chair at the Paris High Level Forum on Aid Effectiveness.