Do PRSPs empower poor countries and disempower the World Bank, or is it the other way round?

Policy reforms imposed on developing countries through conditionality have greatly weakened the autonomy of recipient countries. The vast majority of poor countries in Africa, and many in Latin America and Asia, have been subject to a series of IMF and World Bank adjustment packages, especially over...

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Bibliographic Details
Published inGlobalization and the Nation State pp. 310 - 342
Format Book Chapter
LanguageEnglish
Published Routledge 2006
Subjects
PRSP Formulation
Full PRSP
CDF
WDR
National Ownership
D Tr
National Empowerment
PRSP Document
Op M
PRSP Process
Lib Er
Prs
Civil Society
IMF Document
NGO Participation
Civil Society Participants
NGO Forum
Debt Relief
Ghana’s PRSP
PPAs
PRSP Country
Poverty Reduction Strategies
T Ra
PRSP Initiative
Online AccessGet full text
DOI10.4324/9780203323441-18

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Summary:Policy reforms imposed on developing countries through conditionality have greatly weakened the autonomy of recipient countries. The vast majority of poor countries in Africa, and many in Latin America and Asia, have been subject to a series of IMF and World Bank adjustment packages, especially over the last 20 years. These reforms cover all the major economic decisions – budgets, tax and expenditure policies, exchange rates, trade and tariff policies, price policies, privatization, credit policies – such that countries subject to them have very little control over their economic policies. Moreover, sectoral adjustment policies additionally expand the scope of conditionalities – including education and health policies for example. The Comprehensive Development Framework of the World Bank further extends the realm of potential conditionality into the law and matters of governance. Conditionality thus has been a major source of disempowerment whether or not the policy reforms are in the recipient countries’ longer-term interests.
DOI:10.4324/9780203323441-18