The African Parliamentary Poverty Reduction Network (APRN) brings together parliamentary committees involved in the design, implementation and oversight of poverty reduction policies (including PRSPs). The network promotes greater cross-Africa dialogue among committees and creates opportunities for improving effective implementation of poverty reduction programs, particularly through local level monitoring with community-based civil society groups.

Objectives

The Network’s objectives are to:

• Help strengthen the accountability links between the Executive and the Legislature with the aim of making poverty reduction the overarching objective of national development programs;
• Play a proactive role in ensuring the effective implementation of PRSPs in respective countries through the active participation of parliamentarians and their constituents in poverty reduction dialogue;
• Raise awareness on current poverty reduction related issues and facilitate the collection and sharing of information especially at the grassroots with a view to improving the design of pro-poor policies;
• Ensure the inclusion of all stake-holders, particularly civil society groups representing the poor, in the monitoring and evaluation of poverty reduction programmes;
• Document lessons learned and good practices in poverty reduction in their various countries.

These objectives are met through three main activity sets:

• Establishing an active Poverty Reduction Network. This activity will ensure that the Network becomes institutionalized and sustainable within partner parliaments. Linkages will also be formed with regional parliaments and the Pan African Parliament. A support office has been established in Accra, Ghana to strengthen support to the Network at a regional level.
• Community Monitoring of Poverty Reduction focuses on providing field-based continuous training and upgrading of skills of MPs and staff of key poverty-related parliamentary committees. In countries that have undergone the training, Community Monitoring Pilot Projects will be established.
• Increasing committee policy-making knowledge and capacity on poverty reduction related issues, through strengthening connections with policy institutes. A strong focus will be placed on engaging Poverty Network MPs in policy institute reviews of select African Countries, through a series of workshops on lessons learned, participation of MPs in international assessment sessions, and dissemination of results.