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Topic: Structural adjustment programs


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In the News (Mon 21 Dec 09)

  
  Structural Adjustment: Tanzania
Structural adjustment programs attempt to correct economic imbalances and improve efficiency of developing and transitional economies, thereby setting the state for further development.
A common problem exists, however, when structural adjustment is concerned: The environmental impacts of adjustment are "complex, ill-defined, and difficult to bound." Therefore, the authors used many techniques to design a model that identifies price and non price factors which determine responses to structural adjustment.
Structural adjustment is responsible for a 13% increase in land area used for tobacco farming.
www.colby.edu /personal/t/thtieten/macro-tan.html   (1186 words)

  
 Ghana: lurching toward economic rationality World Affairs - Find Articles
Structural adjustment has not yet brought about economic recovery in the continent, but it will likely remain a major economic strategy unless there is a dramatic change in an international policymaking environment.
However, structural rigidities, rooted in the concentration of trade in a few commodities and in the failure to modernize its infrastructure, caused unstable growth with little improvement in the employment and income of the majority of the population.
When structural adjustment programs were initiated in the early 1980s, the World Bank and the IMF expected that a limited number of "macro-level" policy reforms, epitomized by the phrase "getting the prices right," would establish a framework for resumed economic growth.
www.findarticles.com /p/articles/mi_m2393/is_n2_v159/ai_18972379   (801 words)

  
 Structural adjustment - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Structural adjustment is a term used to describe the policy changes implemented by the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and the World Bank (the Bretton Woods Institutions) in developing countries.
Structural Adjustment Programs were often criticised for implementing generic free market policy, as well as the lack of involvement from the country.
Structural adjustment policys emerged from two of the Bretton Woods institutions, the IMF and the World Bank.
en.wikipedia.org /wiki/Structural_adjustment_programs   (2446 words)

  
 The World Bank & The IMF
That is, economies under adjustment are stuck in a low-level trap, in which low investment, increased unemployment, reduced social spending, reduced consumption, and low output interact to create a vicious cycle of stagnation and decline, rather than a virtuous circle of growth, rising employment, and rising investment, as originally envisaged in World Bank theory.
Structural adjustment loans from the World Bank and the IMF were given to indebted countries to enable the latter to make their immediate interest payments to the western commercial banks.
Structural adjustment also worsened what was already a very skewed distribution of income, with the result that today, the top 20 percent of the continent's population earn 20 times that earned by the poorest 20 percent.
www.zmag.org /ZMag/articles/july94bello.htm   (2256 words)

  
 BusinessWorld  Internet Edition
SAPs multiplied during the Third World debt crisis of the early 1980s, and an important reason was strong pressure from the Bank and IMF on countries to adopt policies that would facilitate the repayment of their debts to the big international commercial banks.
In 1998-99, criticism of the IMF rose to a crescendo and went beyond its stubborn adherence to structural adjustment and its serving as a bailout mechanism for international finance capital to encompass accusations of its being non-transparent and non-accountable.
It goes to the nature and structure of the two institutions itself: Secrecy, non-accountability and an incapacity to learn appears to be inherent to the two institutions, James Wolfensohn and his NGO liaison John Clark's reformist energies notwithstanding.
www.zmag.org /CrisesCurEvts/Globalism/bello.htm   (1985 words)

  
 Structural Adjustment Programs
Structural Adjustment loans (SALs) began to be provided to debtor countries in the last years of the McNamara era.
Since structural adjustment programs covered so many dimensions of economic policy, agreeing to an SAL was virtually to turn over the control of a country's economy to the World Bank and the IMF.
Comparing countries which underwent stabilisation and adjustment programs with those that did not, over the period 1973-88, IMF economist Mohsin Khan found that economic growth was higher in the latter than in the former countries.
www.converge.org.nz /pirm/structur.htm   (1246 words)

  
 Does SAP work?
Structural adjustment programs are designed to address instabilities in macro-economic factors and thus the common measurement for the effectiveness of these programs has been to look at the condition of the balance of payments, economic growth, government deficits and inflation.
Fisher (1997) suggests that the IMF needs to “design, negotiate and support programs that are more likely to be implemented and owned [by developing countries].” The unsuccessful result of structural adjustment policies has been that there has been a lack of commitment by developing countries to fully implement the structural adjustment policies.
The nature of structural adjustment policies are in general suppose to alleviate short-run economic crisis by using long-run policy choices.
ucatlas.ucsc.edu /sap/does_it_work.php   (674 words)

  
 WFP Travel Programs: Nicaragua
Structural Adjustment Programs were designed by the IMF and World Bank to help poor countries "reactivate" their economies and make their debt payments, by prioritizing exports and redefining the role of the state.
SAP's were not designed to reduce the debt that a country owes, but to help them make their payments on time.
SAPs force countries to modify their laws to attract foreign investment by removing trade tariffs, eliminating subsidies and price controls, and devaluing the national currency and privatizing state banks.
www.witnessforpeace.org /nicaragua/debtfactsheet.html   (960 words)

  
 Comment on IMF and World Bank Structural Adjustment Programs and Poverty by William Easterly
Bill Easterly's paper on the impact of IMF and World Bank structural adjustment programs on poverty should be troubling to most readers because he believes he has found evidence of an adverse effect of adjustment lending on the link between growth and poverty.
Easterly is careful to distinguish in his conclusions between structural adjustment lending and structural adjustment policies, but he is not careful in his statistical analysis to distinguish between adjustment lending and structural adjustment lending, and he uses the two terms interchangeably in the main body of his paper.
It should not be difficult to improve the efficiency of existing programs ostensibly intended to assist the poorest while reducing their overall cost because too many of such programs are not really directed at reducing poverty but rather at subsidizing the middle class if not the upper class.
www.iie.com /publications/print.cfm?doc=pub&ResearchID=403   (2941 words)

  
 Structural Adjustment Program
Structural Adjustment Policies are economic policies which countries must follow in order to qualify for new World Bank and International Monetary Fund (IMF) loans and help them make debt repayments on the older debts owed to commercial banks, governments and the World Bank.
SAPs generally require countries to devalue their currencies against the dollar; lift import and export restrictions; balance their budgets and not overspend; and remove price controls and state subsidies.
For more information on SAPs, read SAPRIN's report, "The Policy Roots of Economic Crisis and Poverty", a four-year, multi- country participatory investigation into the effects of specific structural adjustment policies on a broad range of economic and social sectors and population groups.
www.whirledbank.org /development/sap.html   (1483 words)

  
 Africa: Structural Adjustment and Rights
In short, a realignment of economic structures is much a matter of realignment of power structures, which more often than not, will be resisted by powerful social and political groups within a given country or powerful forces in the global economy.
Structural adjustment with transformation at the national level must emphasize economic growth that is oriented toward improvement in human development.
It is unrealistic to ask countries like Rwanda, Somalia or Sierra Leone to embrace an "orthodox" adjustment program to rebuild their devastated economies, when heeling the deep scars of war and genocide alone is such a daunting task.
www.africaaction.org /docs99/sap9905.htm   (2697 words)

  
 Banking on Poverty
The ECA's report, "African Alternative Framework to Structural Adjustment Programs for Socio-Economic Recovery" (AAFSAP), criticizes the structural adjustment programs of the IMF and World Bank and their emphasis on export-led growth, privatization of state entities, limiting domestic demand and an overall reliance on market forces.
The ongoing promotion of structural adjustment draws attacks from critics like Hellinger, who fault adjustment programs for their effect on the internal distribution of wealth and for increasing developing countries' dependence on external economic forces.
The report reveals that countries pursuing strong structural adjustment programs had significantly lower rates of growth in the 1980s than ones which did not, though it notes that exogenous factors make direct correlations problematic.
multinationalmonitor.org /hyper/issues/1990/04/wright.html   (1986 words)

  
 In Defense of World Bank and IMF Conditionality in Structural Adjustment Programs
In other words, SAPs in their current form ignore the fact that the production base of post-colonial African states is narrow, and that the bulk of these states rely on one or two export products whose prices are often unstable in the international market for their foreign exchange earnings.
Jaycox's argument adds a new dimension to the debate about evaluative criteria for the success of adjustment programs: that to the extent conditionality increases and improves Africa's awareness and appreciation of the problems and choices it faces, that in itself is a measure of success.
The failure of adjustment programs— Fund and Bank-backed or otherwise—to achieve a halt to the erosion of the standards of life (and death) of the poor and vulnerable...is a fact.
www.ewp.rpi.edu /jbdn/jbdnv202.htm   (5049 words)

  
 Structural Adjustment
The structural adjustment loans African countries were offered to deal with their downward economic spirals differed in several important respects from the lending they were used to receiving from the IFIs.
One perspective holds that the IFIs' adjustment programs were so broad and complex as to be almost un-implementable while the other charges the borrowing countries with a lack of commitment and an unwillingness to pursue the full range of needed reforms.
Differential results in structural adjustment are then attributed to the ways that different reforms and different regime configurations interact and the effect these interactions have on the ability of national leaders to sustain reform-minded coalitions.
www.uncc.edu /stwalker/foraid/Chapter4.htm   (8934 words)

  
 STRUCTURAL ADJUSTMENT PROGRAMS (SAPS) IN GHANA
This economic turnaround is attributed to the implementation of structural adjustment policies under the auspices of international financial institutions (IFIs), especially the twin Bretton Woods institutions: the IMF and the World Bank.
At the same time, the impact of the adjustment programs on the general populace has been found to be negative especially with regard to employment generation and the wellbeing of the people (Jonah, 1989; Panford, 1997).
Its seems, however, that the indifference of the institutions to the political excesses of dictators who willingly implemented their sponsored adjustment policies in the 1980s, implied tacit support, either by omission or commission, to rapacious and ruthless dictators who were bent on attaining their political and economic agendas.
www.westafricareview.com /vol1.1/boafo.html   (9319 words)

  
 I. Structural Adjustment Programs
Definition: Structural adjustment is a series of economic policies designed to lessen the role of government in an economy and move it closer to a market economy.
Structural adjustment then is moving the economy away from a command economy toward a capitalist economy - less government ownership and decision-making and more private ownership and a greater reliance on market decision-making.
We can assume that the governments that are undertaking structural adjustment programs want to improve the standard of living for their citizens.
www.harpercollege.edu /mhealy/eco212i/lectures/intro/intro.htm   (1642 words)

  
 IMF Structural Adjustment Programs: The globalization of poverty 05 December 2005
SAPs (Structural Adjustment Policies or Programs) are economic policies which countries must follow in order to qualify for new World Bank and International Monetary Fund (IMF) loans and help them make debt repayments on the older debts owed to commercial banks, governments and the World Bank.
In actuality the amount of foreign exchange that must be generated to meet interest payments and the structural adjustment policies which have been imposed with the loans have had a negative impact on the lives of the vast majority.
An IMF stabilization program began in Senegal in 1980 and a longer-term structural adjustment program in 1986.
www.doublestandards.org /sap1.html   (5985 words)

  
 CEPR - A Survey of the Impacts of IMF Structural Adjustment in Africa
Debt relief which is conditional upon further adherence to IMF structural adjustment programs is unlikely to be effective in redirecting resources to uses that would facilitate economic growth or reduce poverty.
The SAPRIN review of Uganda's experience with adjustment found that "cost-sharing," where patients are expected to pay for a portion of their health care or education, has led to less access for the poor to health care and public education.
Two of the main components of the IMF stabilization program were fiscal adjustment (cuts in government spending) and cuts in credit to the economy (through policies such as higher interest rates).
www.cepr.net /index.php/a-survey-of-the-impacts-of-imf-structural-adjustment-in-africa   (8832 words)

  
 ATTAC France / Versions étrangères / English / Foreign debt, structural adjustment programs and poverty in Senegal
However, it is known that adjustment’ is proposed, by major finance institutions, as a way of reducing domestic public deficits while restoring or reinforcing the capacity of that country to repay its loans.
The existence of SAP tends to modify discussion and debate on the role of the State in income redistribution, and, since the early 1980s, the question of redistribution and equalization of revenues has been de-emphasized or relegated to minor significance, while SAP have taken the prime role.
In urban areas per capita water consumption of some 63 liters/day in 1980 has fallen to 54 liters/day in 1994, and this is particularly the case for the capital city Dakar (per capita daily water consumption falling from 88 liters/day to 69 liters/day in the same period), utilizing data from AFRISTAT published in March 2000.
www.france.attac.org /a3095   (3640 words)

  
 :: The Executive Privatization Commission - Privatization & Adjustment Programs In Jordan ::   (Site not responding. Last check: )
During the last decade, Jordan adopted ambitious economic reform and structural adjustment programs aimed at transforming the economic structure of the country to one that generates internal and self-sustaining activity.
To further improve the economic situation and in response to globalization, Jordan has made remarkable progress towards structural adjustment and is courageously facing the new economic trends.
The set of measures leading to structural adjustment included endeavors to access global markets through signing a bilateral investment agreement with the USA, and concluding an association agreement with the EU in 1997.
www.epc.gov.jo /programs.html   (300 words)

  
 CorpWatch : World Bank Fact Sheet
Structural adjustment programs (SAPs) are a set of economic policies required by the World Bank and the IMF as a condition of loans these institutions make to developing countries.
Other adjustment policies include cuts in government spending on health care and education, increases in the cost of food, health care and other basic necessities, mandates to open markets to foreign trade and investment, and privatization of state-run enterprises.
And SAPs themselves, by orienting economies toward generating foreign exchange, are designed to ensure that debtor countries continue to make debt payments, further enriching Northern creditors at the expense of domestic programs in the South.
www.corpwatch.org /article.php?id=444   (1316 words)

  
 SSRN-What Explains the Success or Failure of Structural Adjustment Programs? by David Dollar, Jakob Svensson
To select promising candidates for adjustment, the World Bank must do a better job of understanding which environments are promising for reform and which are not.
To improve its success rate with adjustment lending, the World Bank must become more selective and do a better job of understanding which environments are promising for reform and which are not.
That is likely to lead to fewer adjustment loans, unless there is a significant change in the number of promising reformers.
papers.ssrn.com /sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=569231   (554 words)

  
 Gender Action
Economic policy reforms in the form of Structural Adjustment Loans or Programs (SALs or SAPs) are large IFI investments that require countries to restructure their economies.
Due to pressure from civil society groups regarding the negative human impacts of SAPs, often they have been renamed Poverty Reduction Support Credits (PRSCs) in the case of the World Bank and Poverty Reduction Growth Facilities (PRGFs) in the case of the IMF to indicate their close tie to Poverty Reduction Strategy Papers (PRSPs).
Gender Action monitors the gender impacts of these programs and carries out advocacy with local partners to mitigate harmful effects of donor-driven structural adjustments programs on low-income women and men.
www.genderaction.org /structural.html   (416 words)

  
 CNES: Update on World Bank Structural Adjustment Lending Policy
The extent of the international concern about World Bank structural adjustment policies was evident in the hundred-plus organizations that signed on to the letter within the very short (four day) deadline posted.
There is little guarantee that a consultation on structural adjustment would result in any significant changes in the World Bank's policies, particularly due to the fact that the policies are so central to the World Bank's conception of its mandate and because the scope of the consultation is so limited.
The revised adjustment lending policy may attempt to remove the current cap on structural adjustment lending that limits it to 25 percent of the World Bank's portfolio averaged over 3 years.
www.servicesforall.org /html/tools/letter_world_bank_gci.shtml   (1180 words)

  
 Structural Adjustment Programs
The IMF established the structural adjustment facility in March 1986 as a means of providing concessional financial assistance to low-income member countries undertaking medium-tem macro-economic and structural adjustment programs designed to overcome protracted balance of payments problems and foster economic growth.
SAP's sometimes require that specific policy actions be taken before any financial aid is released.
In response to the concern that SAP's were too focused on macro-economic aspects, and neglecting the rural and poor population, the IMF now also recommends that countries undertake certain measures to alleviate poverty.
www.mtholyoke.edu /~wwainain/saps.htm   (326 words)

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