The Christian Churches and Women’s Experience of Structural Adjustment in Nigeria

Abstract

Existing accounts of the impact of structural adjustment programmes1 on the populations of the countries affected have focused, understandably, on their effects on such vital indicators as infant mortality, enrolment in education and decline in real incomes.2 This emphasis has been expanded to provide gendered analyses of adjustment programmes which have derived their significance from their ability to explain the impact of such programmes on households and their differential impact on household members.3 There is another significant dimension to the construction of a sufficient account of structural adjustment programmes which has so far been relatively neglected. Those who have endured adjustment programmes may have had little control over the causes of the crisis or the content and implementation of the adjustment programmes but they have constructed explanations of the situations in which they find themselves. The construction of such explanations has become increasingly problematic as governments implementing adjustment policies have assumed greater political powers in order to silence opposition to these programmes.4