Do the Poor Develop the Rich? Taking a Second Look at Structural Adjustment Programmes

Abstract

This paper seeks to argue that the introduction of structural adjustment programmes have not been beneficial to the poor countries and even if there have been any benefits as the World Bank, IMF and other agencies would want us to believe it is the rich countries who have gained from it. The first part of this paper give a brief account of how Structural Adjustment Programmes started and some of the policy implications that a country have to go through if it decides to succumb to the Structural Adjustment Programmes imposed by the World Bank and IMF. The second part deals with the reasons why Structural Adjustment Programmes were introduced and also some of the arguments given by the World Bank, IMF and other neoliberal agencies to support the introduction of Structural Adjustment Programmes. In the third part of this paper I argue why Structural Adjustment Programmes have failed by taking a critical look at the devaluation of a country's currency associated with Structural Adjustment Programmes, the free market orthodoxy doctrine, the Domestic Resource Cost, and Structural Adjustment Participatory Review Initiative (SAPRI). To support the notion that the imposition of Structural Adjustment Programmes and other policy recommendations of the World Bank and IMF are ideologically driven, the fourth part of this paper will elaborate on the case of Zimbabwe right from the time of independence till it was compelled by the World Bank to adopt Structural Adjustment Programmes. The last part of this paper concludes by giving some recommendations which if taken seriously and also adopted by the World Bank, IMF and other multilateral organizations can lead to the success of several programmes which they would want to implement in the future in especially developing countries.