Ladies and gentlemen, good day and thanks to Professor Badie and his colleagues for availing me this opportunity to participate in this Massive Open Online Course. I would like to talk about the impact of structural adjustment policies programs known as SAPs on social welfare in Africa. As you know, an underlined assumption in the Bretton Woods system is that all countries passing through difficulties can ask for economic assistance at times of needs. Countries with sound market based economic institutions passing through accidental setbacks can ask for help without going through adjustment. Unlike countries whose economies are based on state led institutions passing through hardships and deep seated economic problems can ask for help only after undertaking structural adjustment policies to allow multilateral financial economic institutions to assist them with the guidance of the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank. African countries belong to the second category, whose economies are based on state-led institutions and as such require assistance for them, to require assistance they must undertake structural adjustment policies meaning that their economy they had to be structurally adjusted in order to allow financial and economic international institutions to come their aid the mediation and guidance of the IMF or the World Bank. But SAPs or structural adjustment policies came to Africa through different phases and in different formats One can distinguish three phases: the pre-SAP period beginning during the 50s up to 60s and 70s, then a transition to the 70s and 80s and then a third phase from 1990s onwards. During the first phase, when African countries obtained their independence, most of them had successfully managed somehow to manage a sound economy, thanks to a booming demand for export of raw material from Africa and also thanks to favourable treatment from Keynesian welfare states government at that time in West Africa. In the second phase, beginning in the 70s and 80s, things were different for many African countries. The Keynesian welfare state in Europe came to an end, paving the way for market led neoliberal governments: Margaret Thatcher in Britain, Ronald Reagan in the United States, Helmut Kohl in Germany. And their economic difficulties were compounded by an added factor, precipitated by the high oil prices as the result of the Arab-Israeli war in 1973. Non-oil African producing countries had met severe difficulties in balancing their accounts leading to deficits in their internal and external accounts and economic hardships. And for them to get assistance according to Bretton Woods system as I mentioned earlier, they had to undertake severe structural changes in their economy, by cutting public expenditure, by privatizing public assets, by removing subsidies from economic basic social services like education, like health and this has met with difficulties in some countries when they have tried that. For example there were food riots in Egypt during Sadate and unlike before, these policies were not met by support because as I mentioned, the market led neoliberal governments in the western countries raised the slogan of “trade not aid” meaning that if they would like to receive aid they have to accept the conditionalities set by the IMF and the World Bank. The transition ended in 1990s with the collapse of the soviet bloc at that time and also with the neoliberal ascendancy again worldwide this time combined with globalisation. And the main thesis here is that globalisation intertwining with the structural adjustment policies had reinforced the negative impact of SAPs. Most of the African countries, almost about 44 countries have accepted structural adjustment policies from 1990 onwards and the so called socialist state that in the past were taking sides of the Soviet Union; most of them shifted sides from a state economy to a market economy like Angola. Even the African National Congress have dropped their socialist agenda and accepted market led reforms in South Africa during the post-apartheid. So all in all most of African countries have adopted that some they did it gradually, others they did it through terrible choc, for example, in my own country (Sudan), the new government in 1989, they have adopted full scale structural adjustment policies, laying the thousands of civil servants and workers out of office, freezing wages and this had serious impact on the livelihood of the people. To give one example, the richest 20% of the population had their share in the national income increasing from 48% to 76%. The 30% -the population representing the middle class- had their share of the national income declining from 30% to 17%. And the rest, the 50% of the population, the poor, had their share of the national income dropping from 22% in 1970s to 7% in late 1990s. So one can imagine the negative impact on the social welfare of the population in that country. So the general impact of SAPs on the welfare in Africa varied, in some countries there were indications that to some extent it worked, for example in Tanzania, rural people increased their income much more than urban people. In West Africa, also there were indication of economic stabilization and economy starting to pick up. In Angola also there were indicators that it was working but not in all countries. So in a way there is variation so to speak in terms of the impact but generally there are 5 indicators which leads one to say that the minuses are more than the pluses when it comes to giving a general evaluation of a structural adjustment program. For example, one : the livelihood of the workers and rural producers have been affected badly: wages have been frozen and freeing prices does not go to include also freeing the prices of labour, that’s why for example real wages fall by almost 70% in Tanzania as the result of that. Another also big minus for the structural adjustment in Africa is its impact on women, for many observers, they saw that it’s gender biased in the sense that women were unemployed, laid off and actually women also bore most responsibility for the livelihood the household. Now for example many women are working in the informal sector, street vendors etc.. and we all remember for example the incident in Tunisia, the case of Mohamed Bouazizi for example a street vendor whose mistreatment by the local authorities led to ignite the so-called vence of Arab spring all over. Another minus that also might be quoted that African governments abdicated their responsibilities towards basic social services like education, like health. Now these are looked as commodities. In the past, governments had the responsibility to provide them as social services, now they are commodities in the market. It is no longer possible for the poor family to send their kids to schools or for example to get medication as less they have an income for that. The Fourth element also showing the big minus of the intertwining of globalisation with structural adjustment policies is that it encourages consumerism and also the importation of luxury goods by the well to do families and by rich families in the urban centers. Another major minus is that structural adjustment policies were based or predicated on authoritarian governments, the IMF and the World Bank seemed comfortable to negotiate these conditions with rulers who are not elected, and it is a big question why for example these institutions pursue economic liberalization while they are not supporting political liberalization, they both go together. So by way of concluding, one may recall the proposal by the ECA (economic commission on Africa) in 1989 calling for adeling for fruitful consultation between the financial international institutions, between governments both in Africa and outside Africa, and between academics, between civil society, activists also to try to consider and revisit these structural adjustment policies. It is not useful to discuss it as a dogma if the realities have shown otherwise, I think that it is high time that we revisit and re-adjust these adjustment policies. Thank you.
