The Impact of Structural Adjustment Programmes on West Africa: The Die is Cast!

Abstract

22 | International Union Rights | 24/1 FOCUS | WORLD BANK AND IMF The end of the Second World War did not just open the window for Bretton Woods’ neo-liberal economic agenda. It also coincided with an aeon of nationalistic consciousness and fight for selfdetermination . Africa was a major theatre of this struggle. By 1960, scores of African countries had their independence. The challenge of setting the continent on a path of socio-economic freedom became the lot of the first generation post-colonial African leaders. The failure of African leaders to apply themselves to the visionary burden, originality and discipline of modern state craft added to the problems of dislocated and neo-colonial economic arrangements handed to the new independent countries. Given the mismanagement of the economies of African states through corruption, nepotism and the coronation of rent-seeking economic models, worsened by craze for exotic goods, it was only a matter of time before African political elite ran the continent into a cul-de-sac. It took about twenty years, post independence, for many West African countries to accept IMF and World Bank “conditionalities” of Structural Adjustment Programmes (SAP). Organised labour, the student movement and progressive branch of civil society became buffers against SAPs. The reasons are not far-fetched. IMF conditions for granting loans included wage constriction, employment freeze, privatisation of public concerns and workforce rationalisation. This forced organised labour and its allies to resist SAP for more than four decades. The Harsh Realities of Neo-liberal Policies Many West African countries were forced by the blackmail of foreign indebtedness and local socioeconomic upheavals to accept structural adjustment as preconditions for accessing loans, grants and so called developmental aid from IMF and World Bank. As public enterprises were shut down or privatised at cheap rates to cronies of African leaders and their collaborators in the West, the capacity of many West African countries to sustain productivity was destroyed. The de-industrialisation of postindependence Africa had begun in earnest. Joseph Stiglitz, a former World Bank Chief Economist, described the SAP-induced privatisation regime as “briberisation”. That was the intention of structural adjustment – to stagnate African countries at the exact point of colonial ruin where Africa was reduced to a mere exporter of cheap raw materials. The strategy worked perfectly well. African countries continued to export its raw materials at ridiculously cheap prices, that were determined by western imperialists hiding under the camouflage of SAPs. Furthermore, IMF’s SAPs imposed a regime of currency devaluation, removal of trade and investment restrictions, withdrawal of subsidies on essential public goods and services, retrenchment of the workforce and deep budgetary cutbacks on social services which were substituted with high user costs. These user costs pre-conditioned public access to healthcare, education and water supply. Akpan Ekpo argues that instead of putting ailing economies on the path to recovery, sustained growth and development, IMF/World Bank’s SAPs imploded into economic strangulation marked by hyperinflation , mass unemployment, evaporation of essential goods cum social services, deterioration in standards of living and widespread social tensions1. Research conducted on the development performance of six selected West African countries Cote d’lvoire, Ghana, Nigeria, Senegal, Sierra Leone and Togo - during the period of structural adjustment shows that they all degenerated into serious economic decline, political chaos and social unrest. The only sunny side to SAPs was some upswing in foreign exports. Ironically, as foreign exports increased, local implosions escalated. The truth is that the much-touted SAP objective of expanding exports and local investment for economic turn-around turned out to be a mirage. Research findings show discouraging assessments against classical measures of economic performance and adverse political cum social consequences of adjustment in the six countries. Statistics show that GDP grew reasonably for all six countries before SAPs (1965-80), but the adjustment period (1979/80-87) recorded discouraging indices of production. For the period 1961-80, GDP for Cote d’lvoire grew by 6.8% but declined to 2.2% during the period 1980-87. For Nigeria, a GDP growth rate of 6.9% pre-adjustment drastically reduced to a negative growth rate of 1.7% following adjustment. Agricultural production during adjustment declined for all countries...