Deaf Ears
No thanks, World Bank says to a critical study
by Chris Strohm
In These Times, June 2002
A global network of nongovemmental groups says the executive
leadership of the World Bank has downplayed and dismissed a new
report that is heavily critical of structural adjustment programs-
and the bank now appears to be trying to bury the findings for
good.
The Structural Adjustment Participatory Review International
Network (SAPRIN), a network of more than a thousand civil society
organizations, spent about four years conducting a joint initiative
with the World Bank and the governments of several countries to
study the impact of structural adjustment programs, delivering
the final, 200-page study to Washington in April. But Stephanie
Weinberg, a member of the SAPRIN global secretariat, says bank
leaders started to dispute the report as soon as critical
findings began to surface. She says the bank has not offered any
concrete ways in which the findings will be reviewed or incorporated
into changing macroeconomic policy, which also violates an original
agreement.
The report, titled "The Policy Roots of Economic Crisis
and Poverty," concludes that structural adjustment measures
have significantly increased poverty, inequality and social exclusion
in the 10 countries studied (Bangladesh, Ecuador, Hungary, Mexico
and Ghana among them). The study found that such programs lead
to a loss of domestic productive capacity and jobs; a reduction
in small farm agriculture, which leads to a loss of food security;
diminishing real wages, workers rights and job security; and reduced
access to affordable, quality services.
In an interview during the World Social Forum in Porto Alegre,
Brazil in early February, Weinberg and other members of SAPRIN
said the bank even tried to stop funding for the study as it was
being done by blocking funds from European governments. "At
the global level we encountered obstacles basically throughout
the entire process," Weinberg says.
In May, Weinberg said that though bank officials at the local
level remained helpful and committed to the study, the bank's
top leadership pressured SAPRIN to conclude the report prematurely
before unilaterally declaring the study over in July 2001.
Susana Cruickshank, a member of the global SAPRIN steering
committee from Mexico, said the bank began to withdraw support
for the study the more it investigated the effects of structural
adjustment. "When [the bank] started seeing that we were
really taking seriously the [idea of criticizing the old model
and the old rationale of structural adjustment," she said,
"this is where the World Bank started cutting off its commitments
with us."
Ironically, the initiative was started with World Bank President
James Wolfensohn's help after the bank challenged NGOs to review
structural adjustment programs. According to the original agreement,
the bank agreed to consider the findings of the initiative in
making "concrete changes in macroeconomic policy" and
to "identify practical and necessary changes in economic
policies that will improve the lives of common people."
The bank's senior leadership had also originally agreed to
hold a high-profile, public forum with SAPRIN to discuss the study
once it was completed. Wolfensohn met with SAPRIN representatives
for 20 minutes when the report was released in April, but Weinberg
says the bank has "aggressively avoided" such a forum.
The bank did recently request a longer meeting, Weinberg says,
but only after the story was featured in European media.
Unsurprisingly, bank officials deny these charges. Coralie
Gevers, an economist who worked on the report, says the findings
are being distributed internally for review at the highest levels
of the bank. "If we send back comments saying we don't agree
with the findings of the report, that doesn't mean we are withdrawing
from it."
She says the bank is planning to hold a meeting in July with
SAPRIN representatives to discuss the findings in detail. SAPRIN
isn't expecting much, however. "No one in the civil society
network has any great illusions about the willingness of the bank
to change," Weinberg says. "And it's more clear than
ever that change is only going to happen by pressure on many different
fronts.
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