The objectives of the International Workshop on Tools for the Ex Ante Poverty Impact Assessment of Macroeconomic Policies (EPIAM) were to (1) take stock of the policy implications of what is known about macro-poverty links, (2) provide an overview of current approaches to the analysis of macro-poverty links, their limitations, and constraints on the effective use of these approaches; (3) discuss how tools for Ex Ante poverty impact assessments can be systematically used in developing countries; and (4) outline an agenda for future research.

More than 50 specifically invited researchers and representatives from national and international developmental organizations as well as from civil society attended the workshop. The researchers and civil society representatives came from Armenia, Bangladesh, Ghana, India, the Philippines, Tanzania, Turkey, the United Kingdom, and the United States. The international organizations represented at the workshop were the Intergovernmental Group of 24 (G-24), the International Development Research Centre (IDRC), the International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI), the International Labor Office (ILO), the International Monetary Fund (IMF), the United Nations (UN), the United Nations Development Program (UNDP), and the World Bank. The UK's Department for International Development (DFID) and a variety of U.S. government officials also attended the workshop. Please see the List of Participants for further details.

The first day of the Workshop concentrated on five specific models and/or institutional approaches used for the ex ante poverty impact assessment of macroeconomic policies: the tools of the Micro Impact of Macroeconomic and Adjustment Policies (MIMAP) Network, the Threshold 21 (T21) model, IFPRI's standard model and its extensions, ISODEC's Distributive Effects of Economic Policy (DEEP) model, and the Economic Development and Research Center (EDRC) models. The second day of the workshop concentrated on four roundtable discussions on (1) policy implications of macro-poverty links, (2) gaps in the analysis of macro-poverty links, (3) how to overcome capacity constraints, and (4) the state of the art and an agenda for future research. Lance Taylor and Sherman Robinson were keynote speakers on the first and second day, respectively.

The workshop provided participants the opportunity to share experiences, to discuss a wide range of theoretical and practical issues in modeling macro-poverty links, and to exchange lessons and views. The discussions reflected the wide spectrum of unsettled issues on how to model macro-poverty links (especially with regards to model assumptions and macroeconomic closures). However, there was agreement on

• the usefulness of a wide range of models to assess the impact of macroeconomic policy on poverty,
• the development and extension of modeling macro-poverty links, and
• the importance of collaboration and networking of civil society, researchers, and policy makers.

More specifically, it was also agreed that models should be transparent, especially in terms of assumptions used, and that gender issues are important and worthwhile to build into models as far as such data is available. There also was some (though not full) agreement on the value of relatively simple models, the usefulness of a standard model (like IFPRI's) upon which modelers can build without "reinventing the wheel", and the importance of the social accounting matrix (SAM). Some of the key unresolved issues were related to the importance of disequilibria analysis, the way to analyze environmental aspects, and how to overcome capacity constraints. For more information, please see the Workshop Agenda below, which also links to (a) the available papers/notes and/or presentations of workshop participants and (b) the suggestions made on "where to go from here."