The Impact of Structural Adjustment on Women: A Governance and Human Rights Agenda

Abstract

It is now well-established that structural adjustment and stabilization policies (SAPs) undertaken in developing countries to receive condition-based loans from the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund (IMF) have exacerbated conditions of poverty and deprivation for large sections of the population. Several commentators have also shown that these macroeconomic policies are not class-neutral or gender-neutral. The World Banks emphasis on safety nets to cushion the poor from the impact of orthodox stabilization and adjustment policies is an admission that these policies do not affect all sections of the population equally. The human and social costs of adjustment have evoked growing concern and unease at the United Nations among governments and among some donors. These concerns arise out of the institutionalization of the market model of economic growth that has made such growth synonymous with the dominant view of development although it does not favor equity sustainability or redistribution of wealth and resources. Recent UN conferences most notably the World Summit for Social Development in Copenhagen in March 1995 and the Fourth World Conference on Women in Beijing in September 1995 have highlighted the ways in which such economic policies have focused on debt repayment by developing countries at the cost of human development. Specialized UN agencies such as the United Nations Childrens Fund (UNICEF) the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) and the United Nations Development Fund for Women (UNIFEM) have also pointed to the growing human and economic inequalities caused by market driven growth and stressed the need to protect the vulnerable women in particular from marginalization. (excerpt)