Structural And Sectoral Adjustment

World Bank Discussion Paper No. 290. Draws on the lessons of experience of developing countries in decentralizing infrastructure and provides new empirical evidence on the quantitative and qualitative effects of decentralization. This collection of five papers highlights the lessons of the World Bank's research and experience on the linkages between infrastructure and decentralization. The paper provides: - A summary of the lessons from World Bank experience, giving a general review of the importance of the decentralization of infrastructure - A review of the institutional aspects of decentralization and their implications for policy design - An empirical assessment of the consequences of decentralization for expenditure levels and performance in infrastructure - An outline for a research agenda on decentralization in light of recent developments in the theory of the firm. - The authors conclude that some degree of decentralization will improve performance in certain areas of infrastructure such as roads and electricity.

Our Continent, Our Future presents the emerging African perspective on this complex issue. The authors use as background their own extensive experience and a collection of 30 individual studies, 25 of which were from African economists, to summarize this African perspective and articulate a path for the future. They underscore the need to be sensitive to each country's unique history and current condition. They argue for a broader policy agenda and for a much more active role for the state within what is largely a market economy. Finally, they stress that Africa must, and can, compete in an increasingly globalized world and, perhaps most importantly, that Africans must assume the leading role in defining the continent's development agenda.

Structural adjustment programmes are the largest single cause of increased poverty, inequality and hunger in developing countries. This book is the most comprehensive, real-life assessment to date of the impacts of the liberalisation, deregulation, privatisation and austerity that constitute structural adjustment. It is the result of a unique five year collaboration among citizens' groups, developing country governments, and the World Bank itself. Its authors, the members of the Structural Adjustment Participatory Review International Network (SAPRIN), reveal the practical consequences for manufacturing, small enterprise, wages and conditions, social services, health, education, food security, poverty and inequality. The stark conclusion emerges: if there is to be any hope for meaningful development, structural adjustment and neoliberal economics must be jettisoned.

Public sector management components of structural adjustment loans (SALs) progressed unevenly, and the outcomes varied with different political, administrative and economic conditions. Change was often incremental and sometimes unsustainable. Reforms linked to specific, actionable steps were more successfully implemented.