Structural adjustment program
Structural Adjustment Program ( SAP , English: Structural Adjustment Program , the Enhanced Structural Adjustment Facility - therefore ESAF program ) called economic measures in countries of the Third World , by the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and the World Bank as a condition for granting loans or debt relief under the HIPC initiative .
The measures, whose origins go back to combating the debt crisis of the 1980s in developing countries, are based on market economy principles. These measures are tailored individually for each country, however, the most the following features: fiscal discipline , reduction of subsidies , deregulation , competitive exchange rates , the reduction of foreign exchange controls , privatization of state enterprises.
In order to receive debt relief, countries must now implement so-called Poverty Reduction and Growth Facility (PRGF). These pioneers of the good governance required by the World Bank, WHO and IMF often surrender some of their sovereign rights . The globalization critic Michel Chossudovsky sums up “The World Bank is present in many ministries in the borrowing countries. The reforms carried out there in health, education, industry, agriculture, transport, the environment, etc. are their responsibility. "
The structural adjustment programs are also criticized by the US economist and Nobel Prize winner Joseph E. Stiglitz . In his book The Shadows of Globalization , he emphasizes that the actions of the IMF were (were) not conducive to the development of the countries of the South, but even harmful.
A study by the development economist William Easterly found no positive effect of structural adjustment programs on economic growth.
literature
- Michel Chossudovsky : Global Brutal - The unleashed world trade, poverty, war , two thousand and one, Frankfurt a. M. 2002, 476 pp. ISBN 3-86150-441-3
- Ernst Wolff : World Power IWF - Chronicle of a Robbery , tectum-verlag, ISBN 978-3-8288-3329-6
Web links
- IMF Lending to Poor Countries — How does the PRGF differ from the ESAF? (English, French, Spanish)
- Thomas Siebold: The social dimensions of structural adjustment - an interim balance (PDF; 6.6 MB) . INEF report No. 13, 1995 Duisburg.
- Thomas Fritz: Global Production, Polarization and Protest in: Thomas Fritz, Christian Russau, Cícero Gontijo: Production of Dependency: Value Chains . Investments. Patents. Edited by FDCL , Berlin, October 2005, 1st edition, ISBN 3-923020-31-7 (PDF file; 223 kB)
Individual evidence
- ↑ Global Brutal - The Unleashed World Trade, Poverty, War , Chapter 1.3 (p. 69)
- ^ William Easterly: What did structural adjustment adjust ?. In: Journal of Development Economics. 76, 2005, pp. 1–22, doi : 10.1016 / j.jdeveco.2003.11.005 .