[stop-imf] UN advisor (Sachs) warns Africa against implementing SAPs

[Robert Weissman]

East African Standard (Kenya), February 22, 2005

UN advisor warns Africa against implementing SAPs
By Tom Mogusu

Nairobi - African countries were yesterday warned against blindly implement=
ing structural adjustment programmes (SAPs).

Professor Jeffrey Sachs, the special advisor to the UN Secretary General an=
d Director of the Millennium Development Projects (MDGs) described the SAPs=
 as a disaster, saying they had contributed to the spread of poverty in the=
 developing world.

Sachs said that the SAPs and liberalisation policies that were imposed on t=
he developing world in the late 1980s and early 1990s were based on wrong f=
undamentals.

"You cannot prescribe belt tightening to a people who have no belts," Sachs=
 told the National Conference for Revitalising the Agricultural Sector at S=
afari Park Hotel, Nairobi.

President Kibaki officially opened the conference that is being attended by=
 Cabinet ministers, representative of the private sector and agri-based ins=
titutes.

Sachs poured cold water on the policies, which he said were imposed on many=
 countries by the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank. Privatisa=
tion and liberalisation will not break the cycle of poverty," he said. "Poo=
r countries need more than that. What they need are new investments in basi=
c areas that affect the poor."

At the height of their implementation, the structural adjustment programmes=
 became part of the conditionalities that the donor community tied to relea=
se crucial funding to third world governments.

The SAPs were implemented at a time when most African countries were usheri=
ng in a new era of democracy following the collapse of the Soviet Union. Ho=
wever, the most painful development was the introduction of cost-cutting me=
asures by the third world governments.

In Kenya, some of the cost-cutting measures introduced included cost sharin=
g in public hospitals and schools.

Even though these measures were engineered by Mr Stern Fisher, the then dep=
uty director of the International Monetary Fund (IMF), the donor community =
used them as the yard-stick of how third world economies should be managed.

President Kibaki was the key speaker at yesterday's function. Sachs insiste=
d that the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) provide a clear road-map for=
 poor countries fighting to break the poverty cycle. He described the MDGs =
as a commitment of the rich countries to help the poor - mostly in sub-Saha=
ran Africa.

Through the MDGs, Sachs said, official development assistance would have to=
 be increased by close to 0.7 per cent - which translates to about $140 bil=
lion more than the current flows.

Away from liberalisation and SAPs, Sachs said the Millennium Goals seek to =
win additional investments in critical areas that will open the way for pov=
erty reduction.

He identified the areas as education, basic health, infrastructure, safe dr=
inking water and reducing the costs of agricultural inputs to farmers.

Sachs regretted that rural communities continued to struggle under the weig=
ht of poverty and economic decline. "The crisis requires investments that t=
hey cannot afford," he said.

"What the rural communities need is to be empowered to stop using the tradi=
tional ways of doing things."

Sachs, however, warned that most third world countries were following the w=
rong course in their implementation of the Millennium Goals.