SAPRI Takes Off

Worldwide distribution via the APC networks.

*** 15-Jul-97 ***

DEVELOPMENT: Time-Out in Structural Adjustment Fight

By Abid Aslam

WASHINGTON, Jul 15 (IPS) - After years of sparring, the World Bank and its critics have agreed to examine the impact of structural adjustment programmes (SAPs) on borrowing countries.

''We have to get away from the boxing match,'' Bank President James Wolfensohn said Monday, in launching a 'Structural Adjustment Participatory Review Initiative' (SAPRI), aimed at charting the future course of economic reform programmes by learning from past mistakes.

Two years in the making, the initiative is the first SAP review to bring together the Bank, its government clients, and 'civil society' - non-governmental organisations (NGOs), labour unions, women's and peasants' associations, and other citizens' groups.

A five-day 'global forum,' ending Friday, will put the finishing touches on their plans before starting reviews in Bangladesh, Ecuador, Ghana, Hungary, Mali, Uganda, and Zimbabwe.

The Bank will try to persuade critics that its economic reforms have helped to kick-start economies in developing countries and attract foreign investment - a theme constantly hammered home by the bank's chief economist, Joseph Stiglitz.

Citizens' groups will seek to show the Bank, and governments, that reforms have helped foreign investors and local elites but not the small farmers and workers in home-based industries who make up the ''real economy''. For these producers, the experience has been more like ''major surgery without anaesthetic,'' says Argentine senator and human rights activist Graciela Fernandez Meijide.

During the next 12-18 months, the initiative is expected to blend oral testimony, public hearings, and other information-gathering methods practiced by grassroots groups, with the statistical extrapolations traditionally favoured by Bank economists.

The point is to ''look at the effects of policies on...both winners and losers, but with particular emphasis given to understanding the impacts on those who have not benefitted, and those who have not participated, in the policymaking process,''says an official description of the project.

NGOs say they hope the findings will persuade the Bank to drop or dramatically overhaul its policy prescriptions.

''Yes, there's a new social policy,'' says Doug Hellinger, Executive Director of the Washington-based Development Group For Alternative Policies (D-GAP). He acknowledges progress in addressing NGO concerns over the social consequences of Bank loans but ADDS '' we need a new economic policy.''

Bank officials say their policy advice and conditions forlending may become more specific to each country as a result of the more detailed information they hope to gather in the next year.

''The first thing to learn is that structural adjustment is not one thing but a number of things,'' says Wolfensohn. ''If specific things haven't worked, we'll change them. But, after 50 years, we must have done something right!''

Bank, NGO, and diplomatic sources agree that SAPs have moved long beyond the traditional manipulation of countries' balance of payments, or the difference between national income and expenditure. Programmes now encompass sectoral and 'second generation' reforms in areas such as labour and financial markets, as well as the judiciary.

No one here is predicting an end to structural adjustment programmes. Nevertheless, SAPRI gives a voice to ''those unable to put forward their opinions'' when SAPs were put in place, says Claudio Lozano, director of the research arm of the Argentine labour union, the Congreso de los Trabajadores Argentinos.

This is why parliamentarians and NGOs in Argentina, Brazil, Mexico, and the Philippines - countries that have not signed on to SAPRI - say they will pursue similar reviews of their own.

''It's not just what structural adjustment has done but also what's been neglected as a result...the poor,'' says Maitet Diokno-Pasqual of the Philippine Freedom from Debt Coalition.

The Philippines was once considered a leading candidate for participation in SAPRI, but the government has since pulled out. The Bank and local officials have touted the country as a SAP success story, Diokno-Pasqual says, ''so we don't know what they're...afraid (SAPRI) would reveal.''

She notes, however, that the greatest official resistance to the initiative came from the finance ministry, headed by former World Bank official Roberto de Ocampo. In addition to his cabinet post, Ocampo is what Filipinos call a ''presidentiable'' -meaning he wants to run for president in next year's elections.

Ocampo may reason his chances of winning will increase if he keeps his country's SAP record under wraps - particularly since he is adjustment's main enforcer, economists say.

Could Ocampo's strategy backfire? Veteran Mexican politician Victor Quintana says the Mexican government suffered a series of set backs in this month's elections in large part because of widespread dissatisfaction with economic policies, and public frustration at being kept in the dark while these were made.

In Brazil, many legislators have as little information about the government's economic plans and dealings with the Bank as do the people, says Ivan Valente, a Workers' Party Congressman.Valente says he is particularly troubled that the government often borrows money from the Bank with only rubber-stamp approval from the Senate.

El Salvador, whose participation was considered a sure thing, withdrew from the initiative at the last minute, amid Government allegations left-wing groups were seeking to dominate the ranks of citizens' organisations taking part in the tripartite review.

At an estimated cost of around four million dollars, the initiative is being financed by the Norwegian government and private foundations, with the Bank and NGOs adding their own labour and facilities. Funding from Sweden and other countries maybe in the pipeline, Bank and NGO sources say. (END/IPS/aa/mk/97)

Origin: Washington/DEVELOPMENT/

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