Austerity in Africa

Focaal ◽  
2019 ◽  
Vol 2019 (83) ◽  
pp. 51-61 ◽  
Author(s):  
James Pfeiffer
Keyword(s):  
Foreign Aid ◽  
Social Services ◽  
World Bank ◽  
Structural Adjustment ◽  
Poverty Reduction ◽  
Large Scale ◽  
Public Health Systems ◽  
Structural Adjustment Programs ◽  
International Ngos ◽  
Reduction Strategies

Austerity across Africa has been operationalized through World Bank and IMF structural adjustment programs since the 1980s, later rebranded euphemistically as poverty reduction strategies in the late 1990s. Austerity’s constraints on public spending led donors to a “civil society” focus in which NGOs would fill gaps in basic social services created by public sector contraction. One consequence was large-scale redirection of growing foreign aid flows away from public services to international NGOs. Austerity in Africa coincides with the emergence of what some anthropologists call “audit cultures” among donors. Extraordinary data collection infrastructures are demanded from recipient organizations in the name of transparency. However, the Mozambique experience described here reveals that these intensive audit cultures serve to obscure the destructive effects of NGO proliferation on public health systems.

scholarly journals Foreign Lending Dilemma and Poverty in Pakistan, India and Bhutan: A Panel Data Analysis

2017 ◽  
Vol 3 (1) ◽  
pp. 39-46
Author(s):  
Mariam Abbas Soharwardi ◽  
Hina Ali ◽  
Mujahid Ali
Keyword(s):  
Developing Countries ◽  
World Bank ◽  
Structural Adjustment ◽  
Poverty Reduction ◽  
Panel Data Analysis ◽  
Bank Lending ◽  
Structural Adjustment Programs ◽  
Foreign Lending ◽  
The Impact ◽  
Adjustment Programs

Purpose: In developing countries foreign lending becomes a problem now a day instead of spend this lending for the development purposes. Ultimately this problem causes poverty in these countries where usage of foreign lending is not in proper ways. The purpose of this study is to investigate the impact of IMF and World Bank lending on poverty in Pakistan, India and Bhutan. In this study corruption, GDP, unemployment, secondary enrolment, and external debt are used as independent variables and poverty headcount ratio as dependent variable. Study finds out the relationship of corruption, unemployment and external debts with poverty and showing the positive relationship while secondary enrolment and GDP showing negative relation with poverty. Moreover study finds out that lending of IMF and WORLD BANK mostly causes poverty in these developing countries instead of reducing poverty because of corrupt government's weak policies for the distribution of loans. It is examined that the countries with strong policies and non-corrupt government can take full advantage of these lending for poverty reduction. But it is noticed that the countries which are the members of IMF structural adjustment programs are facing more poverty problems as compare to those countries which are not involved in these programs or even have less numbers of lending. Those countries are much better than the countries involve in structural adjustment programs.

African Science Fiction and the Planning Imagination

2017 ◽  
Vol 4 (2) ◽  
pp. 237-257 ◽  
Author(s):  
Matthew Eatough
Keyword(s):  
Science Fiction ◽  
Structural Adjustment ◽  
Poverty Reduction ◽  
Free Market ◽  
Welfare Programs ◽  
Institutional Planning ◽  
Structural Adjustment Programs ◽  
Reduction Strategies ◽  
The International Monetary Fund

AbstractThis essay examines the recent rise in popularity of science fiction in Africa. I argue that this growth can be traced to key shifts within the logic of structural adjustment programs. Over the last twenty years, the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund (IMF) have begun to place a heightened emphasis on “poverty reduction strategies” (or PRSs). These PRSs have taken the two organizations’ longstanding commitment to free-market policies and adapted them to the rhetoric of social and economic justice by suggesting that “sustainable” welfare programs can only be constructed through the “long-term” benefits of well-planned “institutions.”As I show, this vision of long-term development has encouraged a move toward fictional forms capable of speaking to elongated temporal scales. Using Nnedi Okorafor’s novelLagoonas my primary example, I investigate how sci-fi narratives have struggled to represent social agency within thelongue duréeof institutional planning.

scholarly journals Gender Exploitation: from Structural Adjustment Policies to Poverty Reduction Strategies

2003 ◽  
Vol 42 (4II) ◽  
pp. 669-694 ◽  
Author(s):  
Khadija Ali
Keyword(s):  
World Bank ◽  
Structural Adjustment ◽  
Poverty Reduction ◽  
Human Beings ◽  
Middle Income ◽  
The World Bank ◽  
Adjustment Policies ◽  
Reduction Strategies ◽  
Central Argument ◽  
Policy Measures

The aim of this paper is to review the existing empirical research concerning women’s exploitation as a result of policy measures imposed by the World Bank and the IMF, particularly under Structural Adjustment Policies (SAPs). The central argument here is that SAPs have not been successful in achieving their basic objectives of ‘adjusting’ the economies instead, these policies have created severe social problems for the human beings, particularly for the poor and middle-income groups, in the countries where they (SAPs) have been implemented [Beneria and Feldman (1992); Cornia, Jolly and Stewart (1987); Floro (1995); Messkoub (1996) Moser (1989)]. Among these groups, although all members have to mobilise their efforts to support households so as to cope with the economic crisis, women have to bear an unequal share of this burden [Agrawal (1992); Ali (2000); Beneria (1992, 1995); Cagatay (1995); Chant (1991); Elson (1991, 1992a); Feldman (1992); Floro (1995); Reilly and Gorden (1995); McFarren (1992); Moser (1992); Perez-Aleman (1992); Sahn and Haddad (1991); Safa and Antrobus (1992); Stewart (1992); Trip (1992)].

New Labor Dynamics of Global Public Finance System

2019 ◽  
pp. 65-73
Author(s):  
Hakan Ulucan
Keyword(s):  
Labor Market ◽  
Labor Markets ◽  
World Bank ◽  
Child Labor ◽  
Structural Adjustment ◽  
Convincing Evidence ◽  
Structural Adjustment Programs ◽  
Labor Dynamics ◽  
Global Financial System ◽  
Adjustment Programs

This chapter examines the effects of structural adjustment programs designed under the supervision of IMF and World Bank on labor markets. These leading financial institutions are part of global financial system and they finance countries. In return, the countries satisfy the requirements imposed by IMF and World Bank. The requirements imposed by IMF and World Bank includes devastating measures for labor market, including privatization, deregulation of labor market, and flexibilization. There is convincing evidence that structural adjustment programs slowdown economic growth so hurts employment. Besides, the labor markets started to be constituted by unsafe work places without rules as a result of deregulations and flexibilizations. Most of the workers lost social security and workplace security. Feminization, child labor, increasing work incidents are the main severe results of the policies designed under pressure of IMF and World Bank on labor market.

Aid Effectiveness

2020 ◽  
pp. 59-76
Author(s):  
Constantine Michalopoulos
Keyword(s):  
World Bank ◽  
Financial Institutions ◽  
Poverty Reduction ◽  
Aid Effectiveness ◽  
Bilateral Aid ◽  
The World Bank ◽  
The World ◽  
Reduction Strategies ◽  
The One ◽  
The Imf

The collaboration the U4 launched at Utstein covered a wide variety of development issues handled by different international institutions. This involved in the first place coordination of their positions at the World Bank and the IMF, and the UN and its funds, programmes, and agencies. The World/Bank IMF were very important both because of the size and extent of their own programmes but also for helping developing countries manage the overall poverty reduction strategies within which all bilateral aid was supposed to fit. Increasing the effectiveness of bilateral aid could only succeed if it were part of a consistent overarching multilateral effort. This chapter starts with a discussion of U4 efforts to ensure that the poverty reduction strategies developed with the help of the World Bank/IMF in connection with debt relief actually reflected developing country priorities. It then moves on to U4’s efforts to improve the effectiveness of UN programmes which tended to be characterized by fragmentation and inefficiencies. The last part addresses the problem of coherence and collaboration between the IMF and the World Bank—the international financial institutions, on the one hand, and the UN and its agencies, on the other.

2005 Review of the Poverty Reduction Strategy Approach - Balancing Accountabilities and Scaling Up Results

Policy Papers ◽  
2005 ◽  
Vol 2005 (67) ◽  
Author(s):  
Keyword(s):  
World Bank ◽  
Low Income ◽  
Poverty Reduction ◽  
Scaling Up ◽  
Low Income Countries ◽  
New Approach ◽  
The World Bank ◽  
Reduction Strategies ◽  
Poverty Reduction Strategy ◽  
The International Monetary Fund

In December 1999, the World Bank (the Bank) and the International Monetary Fund (the Fund) introduced a new approach to their relations with low-income countries, centered around the development and implementation of poverty reduction strategies (PRS) by the countries as a precondition for access to debt relief and concessional financing from both institutions. These strategies were also expected to serve as a framework for better coordination of development assistance among other development partners.

A Simplistic Approach to Health Policy Analysis: The World Bank Team on the Indian Health Sector

1994 ◽  
Vol 24 (1) ◽  
pp. 151-159 ◽  
Author(s):  
Debabar Banerji
Keyword(s):  
Policy Analysis ◽  
World Bank ◽  
Structural Adjustment ◽  
Health Sector ◽  
Health Financing ◽  
Policy Framework ◽  
Structural Adjustment Programs ◽  
The World Bank ◽  
Health Policy Analysis ◽  
The Impact

A World Bank report on the health sector in India has set out to offer an alternative policy framework to cushion the impact of structural adjustment programs on health services. By choosing health financing as a tool for policy analysis, it has arrived at highly questionable conclusions.

The economic determinants of electoral volatility in Africa

2017 ◽  
Vol 25 (4) ◽  
pp. 621-631 ◽  
Author(s):  
Michelle Kuenzi ◽  
John P Tuman ◽  
Moritz P Rissmann ◽  
Gina MS Lambright
Keyword(s):  
Foreign Aid ◽  
Political Institutions ◽  
Structural Adjustment ◽  
Party System ◽  
African Countries ◽  
Economic Determinants ◽  
Electoral Volatility ◽  
Structural Adjustment Programs ◽  
Prior Literature ◽  
The Impact

Democratic performance and party system institutionalization (PSI) are thought to be integrally linked. Electoral volatility is an important dimension of PSI and has thus been the focus of many studies. Despite the attention given to electoral volatility, its determinants remain elusive. We examine the determinants of electoral volatility in 35 African countries from 1972 to 2010. This study extends the prior literature by analyzing the effects of two previously unexamined variables, foreign aid and structural adjustment, on electoral volatility. Our results indicate that electoral volatility is lower when foreign aid is high, while structural adjustment programs are associated with increased volatility. Our findings contribute to the research on the political economy of aid, illustrating the impact of these economic practices on election outcomes. Political institutions and social demography also appear to affect volatility. Based on our analysis, the party systems of Africa generally do not appear to be institutionalizing.

scholarly journals The Burden of Stabilisation on Provinces and Its Implications for the Social Sectors

2003 ◽  
Vol 42 (4II) ◽  
pp. 783-791 ◽  
Author(s):  
Qazi Masood Ahmed ◽  
Muhammad Sabir
Keyword(s):  
Economic Growth ◽  
Social Services ◽  
Structural Adjustment ◽  
Poverty Reduction ◽  
Negative Impact ◽  
Fiscal Deficit ◽  
Services Delivery ◽  
Poverty And Inequality ◽  
The Cost ◽  
Stabilisation Policies

An agenda of economic reform encompassing a broad range of structural adjustment policies (SAP) is underway in Pakistan since 1987-88. These policies have an adverse impact on the pace of economic growth and created more poverty and inequality in the country [see Bengali and Ahmed (2002); Kemal (2003)]. These studies argues that during the last fifteen years each government is trying to stabilise the economy even at the cost of economic growth and delivery of social services. The negative impact of stabilisation policies on economic growth of the country is reflected in the decline of GDP growth from an average annual growth of 4.6 percent during 1990s as compared to 6.5 percent during 1980s. Similarly, negligence of social services delivery is reflected in the recent UNDP Report (2003), which, show that the ranking of Pakistan has slipped from 136 to 141 along with the decline in many other social sector statistics. The top government officials now also recognise these facts and the relapse of growth oriented policy can be heard more often. Trend in public finance statistics of the country clearly indicate that one of the important victim of stabilisation policies are the expenditures of provincial governments. In last several years the significant portion of onus of containment of fiscal deficit has been shifted towards the provincial governments. The onus of containment of fiscal deficit by all four provincial governments during the last decade has increased from 18 percent to 50 percent, which has devastating impact on the service provision and poverty reduction.

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