Message-ID: <Pine.SOL.3.91.970724012507.5248I-100000@nbc.ksu.ksu.edu> Date: Thu, 24 Jul 1997 01:25:56 -0500 From: kerry miller <mailto:astingsh@KSU.EDU> Subject: World Bank Launches Review of Structural Adjustment (fwd) To: mailto:DEVEL-L@AMERICAN.EDU
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** Topic: IPS: SAPRI Launched **
** Written 12:58 PM Jul 21, 1997 by dgap in cdp:econ.saps **
Copyright 1997 InterPress Service, all rights reserved.
Worldwide distribution via the APC networks.
*** 15-Jul-97 ***
Title: DEVELOPMENT: Time-Out in Structural Adjustment Fight
By Abid Aslam
WASHINGTON, Jul 15 (IPS) - After years of sparring, the World Bank
and its critics have agreed to examine the impact of structural
adjustment programmes (SAPs) on borrowing countries.
''We have to get away from the boxing match,'' Bank President
James Wolfensohn said Monday, in launching a 'Structural
Adjustment Participatory Review Initiative' (SAPRI), aimed at
charting the future course of economic reform programmes by
learning from past mistakes.
Two years in the making, the initiative is the first SAP review
to bring together the Bank, its government clients, and 'civil
society' - non-governmental organisations (NGOs), labour unions,
women's and peasants' associations, and other citizens' groups.
A five-day 'global forum,' ending Friday, will put the finishing
touches on their plans before starting reviews in Bangladesh,
Ecuador, Ghana, Hungary, Mali, Uganda, and Zimbabwe.
The Bank will try to persuade critics that its economic reforms
have helped to kick-start economies in developing countries and
attract foreign investment - a theme constantly hammered home by
the bank's chief economist, Joseph Stiglitz.
Citizens' groups will seek to show the Bank, and governments,
that reforms have helped foreign investors and local elites but
not the small farmers and workers in home-based industries who
make up the ''real economy''. For these producers, the experience
has been more like ''major surgery without anaesthetic,'' says
Argentine senator and human rights activist Graciela Fernandez
Meijide.
During the next 12-18 months, the initiative is expected to
blend oral testimony, public hearings, and other information-
gathering methods practiced by grassroots groups, with the
statistical extrapolations traditionally favoured by Bank
economists.
The point is to ''look at the effects of policies on...both
winners and losers, but with particular emphasis given to
understanding the impacts on those who have not benefitted, and
those who have not participated, in the policymaking process,''
says an official description of the project.
NGOs say they hope the findings will persuade the Bank to drop
or dramatically overhaul its policy prescriptions.
''Yes, there's a new social policy,'' says Doug Hellinger,
executive director of the Washington-based Development Group for
Alternative Policies (D-GAP). He acknowledges progress in
addressing NGO concerns over the social consequences of Bank loans
but ADDS '' we need a new economic policy.''
Bank officials say their policy advice and conditions for
lending may become more specific to each country as a result of
the more detailed information they hope to gather in the next
year.
''The first thing to learn is that structural adjustment is not
one thing but a number of things,'' says Wolfensohn. ''If specific
things haven't worked, we'll change them. But, after 50 years, we
must have done something right!''
Bank, NGO, and diplomatic sources agree that SAPs have moved
long beyond the traditional manipulation of countries' balance of
payments, or the difference between national income and
expenditure. Programmes now encompass sectoral and 'second
generation' reforms in areas such as labour and financial markets,
as well as the judiciary.
No one here is predicting an end to structural adjustment
programmes. Nevertheless, SAPRI gives a voice to ''those unable to
put forward their opinions'' when SAPs were put in place, says
Claudio Lozano, director of the research arm of the Argentine
labour union, the Congreso de los Trabajadores Argentinos.
This is why parliamentarians and NGOs in Argentina, Brazil,
Mexico, and the Philippines - countries that have not signed on to
SAPRI - say they will pursue similar reviews of their own.
''It's not just what structural adjustment has done but also
what's been neglected as a result...the poor,'' says Maitet Diokno-
Pasqual of the Philippine Freedom from Debt Coalition.
The Philippines was once considered a leading candidate for
participation in SAPRI, but the government has since pulled out.
The Bank and local officials have touted the country as a SAP
success story, Diokno-Pasqual says, ''so we don't know what
they're...afraid (SAPRI) would reveal.''
She notes, however, that the greatest official resistance to
the initiative came from the finance ministry, headed by former
World Bank official Roberto de Ocampo. In addition to his cabinet
post, Ocampo is what Filipinos call a ''presidentiable'' -
meaning he wants to run for president in next year's elections.
Ocampo may reason his chances of winning will increase if he
keeps his country's SAP record under wraps - particularly since he
is adjustment's main enforcer, economists say.
Could Ocampo's strategy backfire? Veteran Mexican politician
Victor Quintana says the Mexican government suffered a series of
setbacks in this month's elections in large part because of
widespread dissatisfaction with economic policies, and public
frustration at being kept in the dark while these were made.
In Brazil, many legislators have as little information about
the government's economic plans and dealings with the Bank as do
the people, says Ivan Valente, a Workers' Party Congressman.
Valente says he is particularly troubled that the government often
borrows money from the Bank with only rubber-stamp approval from
the Senate.
El Salvador, whose participation was considered a sure thing,
withdrew from the initiative at the last minute, amid Government
allegations left-wing groups were seeking to dominate the ranks of
citizens' organisations taking part in the tripartite review.
At an estimated cost of around four million dollars, the
initiative is being financed by the Norwegian government and
private foundations, with the Bank and NGOs adding their own
labour and facilities. Funding from Sweden and other countries may
be in the pipeline, Bank and NGO sources say. (END/IPS/aa/mk/97)
Origin: Washington/DEVELOPMENT/
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