Poverty Reduction Strategy Paper (PRSP) 2003-2005.

This Poverty Reduction Strategy is a nationwide sectoral document, set also by referring to the MDGs, that adopts a twin-track approach in dealing with the problem that needs to be faced together with the creation of an environment conductive for the achievement of economic growth, creation of job opportunities, better services and effective social safety for the poor. Main goal of the Strategy is, therefore, reduction of poverty by 13.1% in the three-year period considered by the document. This may be achievable through appropriate economic growth that will lead to increasing real GDP, together with effects of the population policies that seek to reduce the annual population growth. Besides the overall goal, the Strategy also seeks to achieve a number of sectoral objectives leading to overall poverty reduction, namely (i) coverage of social services, including rate of health care coverage, health facilities in the rural areas, enrollment in basic education, reduction of the gender and regional gaps; (ii) improvement of infrastructure, such as production of water for domestic use, public water networks in rural and urban areas, sewerage treatment plants, electricity coverage, road construction and maintenance; and (iii) ensuring social protection, in particular social welfare, social pensions, training and job opportunities for handicapped persons, and orphans, street children and beggars issue.
To help eliminate hunger, food insecurity and malnutrition, the Government aims at (i) sensibly reducing percentage of population suffering from food poverty and starving people; (ii) expanding sustainable fisheries production, also to provide food; and (iii) improving agricultural capacities, irrigation schemes to achieve food security.
In order to make agriculture, fisheries and forestry more productive and sustainable, the Strategy proposes interventions to (i) raise irrigation efficiency and introduce modern irrigation methods and systems to improve the efficiency of using wastewater; (ii) improve the efficiency of rainwater harvesting by expanding the construction of small and diversionary dams, water dikes and distribution canals; (iii) maintain and rehabilitate mountain farm terraces; (iv) support less water-intensive crops and improve rain-fed sustainable crops, such as date palms, cotton and cereals; (v) promoting bio-protection and resistance to plant diseases and aphids; (vi) support agriculture research; (vii) improve livestock grazing to meet the needs of domestic consumption and direct attention to higher milk yield and faster growing livestock to increase subsidiary products, such as wool and dairy products; (viii) improve the capacities for honey production and eliminate the diseases that afflict honeybees; (ix) support productive activities in agriculture, fisheries and livestock grazing; (x) encourage optimal exploitation of the fish wealth, so as to help raise output without affecting the fish stock reserves encourage traditional fishing; and (xi) increase incentives for attracting local and foreign investments in fisheries sector, especially with respect to setting up fish and marine life farms.
To tackle rural poverty, main interventions will aim at raising the capacities of the rural areas through (i) promoting rural development by improving the infrastructure and reducing the typical migration to the cities; (ii) connecting rural areas to markets, easing access to services, in particular for education and health, through the expansion of the roads network; (iii) supplying rural areas with potable water and setting up suitable wastewater sanitation systems to preserve the environment, and increasing the coverage rate of electricity supply; (iv) developing the sources of new and renewable energy; (v) providing basic health services in the government health facilities; (vi) promoting the enrollment of girls in education to reduce the gender gap between males and females; and (vii) expanding decentralization and community participation in the water resource sector.
To enable more inclusive and efficient agricultural and food systems, the document provides, among others, for (i) supporting the expansion of food manufacturing, textiles, and clothing, so as to enable them to enter foreign markets; (ii) enhancing infrastructure to the extractive industries, which could contribute substantially to increasing economic growth and the foreign currency revenues and to creation of job opportunities in the areas where the mineral ores are found; (iii) involving the farmers and users in the integrated management; (iv) encouraging the formation of Water Users Groups; (v) improving economic and social conditions of women through a set of initiatives including better access to land, credit and social services like health and education, food and water; (vi) giving incentives to the private sector to investing in agriculture production and marketing and to adopt projects outside the densely populated areas, with a view towards creating extensive and diversified job opportunities, in addition to those projects that promote integration between agriculture and industry; (vii) conserve agricultural land by financing a number of projects and activities related to irrigation and water structures and in the areas of agricultural productivity and marketing, with community participation; (viii) supporting the role of women and youth in environmental conservation; and (ix) linking the centers for agricultural and fisheries production with the internal markets and the export outlets, so as to work towards reducing the cost of transporting the commodities and individuals, stimulating the creation of a market, which justifies the establishment of large projects.