Pan-African News Agency June 2, 1998
Harvard Guru Questions Role Of Structural Adjustment
DAKAR, Senegal (PANA) - Harvard Economics professor Jeffrey Sachs has made one of the most incisive criticisms of World Bank and IMF-inspired Structural Adjustment Programmes in Africa, saying they have done more harm that good to growth in many countries.
''I believe we are at the end of the World Bank and IMF structural adjustment in Africa or I believe we should be,'' he told delegates at the just-concluded 34th annual meeting of the African Development Bank group in Abidjan, Cote d'Ivoire.
The criticism of the Bretton Woods institutions, which generated a huge applause especially from African Central bank governors, did not, however, go down well with Jean-Louis Sarbib, one of the two vice-presidents of the World Bank in charge of the Africa region who also attended the 27-29 May meeting.
But Sachs was insistent, saying while African countries have made considerable development efforts in the past 20 years, the performance of their economies remains dangerously poor.
He cited some basic flaws in the adjustment programmes, pointing out that the multilateral finance institutions cannot force good governance on Africa through their complex loan conditionalities.
The strategies of the two institutions have caused a delegitimisation of governments in Africa, he said.
The average programme of the Bretton Woods institutions, he noted, carried 117 conditions most of which are unworkable and partly reflect their need to create jobs at their bases in Washington.
He said there is direct conflict between policy advice given to African countries and strategies needed to promote economic growth and high-interest low-inflation strategy was suffocating economic growth on the continent and elsewhere.
He said such strategies also showed a glaring lack of regional focus as there is little attempt to plan adjustment strategies outside national frameworks even though the basis for promoting trade, such as roads, telecommunications, ports, power grids, water basins and migration policy, needed to be planned on regional basis.
But Sarbib, was not amused by Sachs's comment, though he acknowledged that the Bretton Woods institutions have made some mistakes.
''It may have been a very entertaining talk but amounts to a misreading of current data on African econmies,'' he said.
''I have been working on this continent for years, the French banker added, pointing out that the World Bank has been making progress on regional programmes.
Sachs would not yield, insisting that the bank and fund SAP formula was not producing the growth that Africa needs.
''African countries cannot wait until 2060 to get a 1000-dollar per capita income,'' he emphasised. ''The critical flaw was that the programmes had not succeeded in diversifying Africa's productive base and promote exports.''
It was absurd, he said, that ''no sub-Saharan African country, except Mauritius, was a significant exporter of clothing and textiles.''
The Bretton Woods institutions have in recent months come under severe criticism from various quarters over their adjustment programmes especially in Africa and the Third World.
Just in May, UNESCO Director-General Federico Mayor told them to keep off educational issues which are outside their field of competence.
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