Katabaro, Joviter K.; Mbeaez, A. V. Y.
Description:
Developments in the World Economy in the 1980s, and certainly the 1990s as
well, have witnessed polarity of development experiences between developed and
developing countries. The disappointing performance of the economies of the
latter countries, especially the issue of poverty, led to debates centering around
policies that will bailout these economies.
Among the regions that have been a subject of much research and policy
prescriptions is Sub-Saharan Africa, with the 1980s and 1990s being basically
a period of structural adjustment programmes designed to improve
macroeconomic performance. After almost a decade of implementing SAPs in
most Sub-Saharan African countries, the debate is now even more heated-on
whether adjustment does or does not work. The World Bank, the architect of
SAPs, is on the defensive pointing out that SAPs can work given certain
conditions (Husain, 1994).