Structural Adjustment: The Sapri Report: The Policy Roots Of Economic Crisis, Poverty And Inequality

SAPRIN_00 prelims 9/12/03 4:24 pm Page i ABOUT THIS BOOK A Report on a Joint Participatory Investigation by Civil Society and the World Bank on the Impact of Structural Adjustment Policies One factor, more than any other, has crippled national economies, increased poverty and inequality, and made many millions of people hungry. It is a set of policies, called structural adjustment, that has been forced on developing countries for more than 20 years by the World Bank, the International Monetary Fund and Western aid agencies. Country after country has been compelled, regardless of circumstances, to adopt this ‘one size fits all’ economic strategy that exposes the world’s most vulnerable peoples and weakest economies to the full force of the global market place dominated by the most powerful and richest economies and corporations. Born of a unique five-year collaboration among citizens’ groups, developing country governments, and the World Bank, this book represents the most comprehensive, real-life assessment of the actual impacts of the liberalization, deregulation, privatization and austerity policies that constitute structural adjustment programmes. Its authors, the members of the Structural Adjustment Participatory Review International Network (SAPRIN) that engaged the World Bank’s president in this ambitious and highly participatory endeavour, present the concrete consequences of these policies. The stark conclusion emerges: if there is to be any hope for meaningful development in the countries of the South and for the sustained reduction of poverty and inequality, the Western-inspired and imposed doctrines of structural adjustment and neoliberal economics must go. SAPRIN_00 prelims 9/12/03 4:24 pm Page ii SAPRIN is a global network established to expand and legitimize the role of civil society in economic policymaking and to strengthen the organized challenge to structural adjustment programmes by citizens around the globe. It is composed of broad-based civil society networks in Argentina, Bangladesh, Ecuador, El Salvador, Ghana, Hungary, Mexico, the Philippines, Uganda and Zimbabwe, which along with non-governmental organizations based in Europe, Canada and the United States comprise SAPRIN’s Steering Committee. The network has brought together trade unions, small business and farmers’ associations, environmental and indigenous peoples’ organizations, women’s and community groups, religious and human rights organizations, development and research institutes, NGOs, and associations of youth, pensioners and the disabled. SAPRIN’s diverse programme has included extensive citizen mobilization, local workshops and national public fora, participatory field research, economic literacy training, and the development and promotion of alternative economic policy proposals at the country level on four continents. At the global level, SAPRIN’s advocacy work vis-à-vis the World Bank, United Nations age