ABSTRACT
The lessons that emerged from the country studies varied considerably from program to program. Once the policy review and country studies had been carried out, the most difficult part of the job was to synthesize the results and to produce useful lessons for Department for International Development (DFID). The evaluators felt that during the 1990s DFID had approached poverty reduction in the way outlined by the Bank in its 1990 World Development Report. Organizational factors were critical in developing capacity to address poverty reduction. The key organizational features were the development of professional groups and consequent intersectoral and interprofessional group relations and decentralization. A general conclusion from the country studies was that none of the DFID country programs was optimally designed for poverty reduction. The evaluators maintain the existence of a consensus on income poverty reduction in the late 1990s although there had been competing schools of thought in previous decades.
