African Science Fiction and the Planning Imagination

2017 ◽  
Vol 4 (2) ◽  
pp. 237-257 ◽  
Author(s):  
Matthew Eatough
Keyword(s):  
Science Fiction ◽  
Structural Adjustment ◽  
Poverty Reduction ◽  
Free Market ◽  
Welfare Programs ◽  
Institutional Planning ◽  
Structural Adjustment Programs ◽  
Reduction Strategies ◽  
The International Monetary Fund

AbstractThis essay examines the recent rise in popularity of science fiction in Africa. I argue that this growth can be traced to key shifts within the logic of structural adjustment programs. Over the last twenty years, the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund (IMF) have begun to place a heightened emphasis on “poverty reduction strategies” (or PRSs). These PRSs have taken the two organizations’ longstanding commitment to free-market policies and adapted them to the rhetoric of social and economic justice by suggesting that “sustainable” welfare programs can only be constructed through the “long-term” benefits of well-planned “institutions.”As I show, this vision of long-term development has encouraged a move toward fictional forms capable of speaking to elongated temporal scales. Using Nnedi Okorafor’s novelLagoonas my primary example, I investigate how sci-fi narratives have struggled to represent social agency within thelongue duréeof institutional planning.

Austerity in Africa

Focaal ◽  
2019 ◽  
Vol 2019 (83) ◽  
pp. 51-61 ◽  
Author(s):  
James Pfeiffer
Keyword(s):  
Foreign Aid ◽  
Social Services ◽  
World Bank ◽  
Structural Adjustment ◽  
Poverty Reduction ◽  
Large Scale ◽  
Public Health Systems ◽  
Structural Adjustment Programs ◽  
International Ngos ◽  
Reduction Strategies

Austerity across Africa has been operationalized through World Bank and IMF structural adjustment programs since the 1980s, later rebranded euphemistically as poverty reduction strategies in the late 1990s. Austerity’s constraints on public spending led donors to a “civil society” focus in which NGOs would fill gaps in basic social services created by public sector contraction. One consequence was large-scale redirection of growing foreign aid flows away from public services to international NGOs. Austerity in Africa coincides with the emergence of what some anthropologists call “audit cultures” among donors. Extraordinary data collection infrastructures are demanded from recipient organizations in the name of transparency. However, the Mozambique experience described here reveals that these intensive audit cultures serve to obscure the destructive effects of NGO proliferation on public health systems.

scholarly journals Foreign Lending Dilemma and Poverty in Pakistan, India and Bhutan: A Panel Data Analysis

2017 ◽  
Vol 3 (1) ◽  
pp. 39-46
Author(s):  
Mariam Abbas Soharwardi ◽  
Hina Ali ◽  
Mujahid Ali
Keyword(s):  
Developing Countries ◽  
World Bank ◽  
Structural Adjustment ◽  
Poverty Reduction ◽  
Panel Data Analysis ◽  
Bank Lending ◽  
Structural Adjustment Programs ◽  
Foreign Lending ◽  
The Impact ◽  
Adjustment Programs

Purpose: In developing countries foreign lending becomes a problem now a day instead of spend this lending for the development purposes. Ultimately this problem causes poverty in these countries where usage of foreign lending is not in proper ways. The purpose of this study is to investigate the impact of IMF and World Bank lending on poverty in Pakistan, India and Bhutan. In this study corruption, GDP, unemployment, secondary enrolment, and external debt are used as independent variables and poverty headcount ratio as dependent variable. Study finds out the relationship of corruption, unemployment and external debts with poverty and showing the positive relationship while secondary enrolment and GDP showing negative relation with poverty. Moreover study finds out that lending of IMF and WORLD BANK mostly causes poverty in these developing countries instead of reducing poverty because of corrupt government's weak policies for the distribution of loans. It is examined that the countries with strong policies and non-corrupt government can take full advantage of these lending for poverty reduction. But it is noticed that the countries which are the members of IMF structural adjustment programs are facing more poverty problems as compare to those countries which are not involved in these programs or even have less numbers of lending. Those countries are much better than the countries involve in structural adjustment programs.

2005 Review of the Poverty Reduction Strategy Approach - Balancing Accountabilities and Scaling Up Results

Policy Papers ◽  
2005 ◽  
Vol 2005 (67) ◽  
Author(s):  
Keyword(s):  
World Bank ◽  
Low Income ◽  
Poverty Reduction ◽  
Scaling Up ◽  
Low Income Countries ◽  
New Approach ◽  
The World Bank ◽  
Reduction Strategies ◽  
Poverty Reduction Strategy ◽  
The International Monetary Fund

In December 1999, the World Bank (the Bank) and the International Monetary Fund (the Fund) introduced a new approach to their relations with low-income countries, centered around the development and implementation of poverty reduction strategies (PRS) by the countries as a precondition for access to debt relief and concessional financing from both institutions. These strategies were also expected to serve as a framework for better coordination of development assistance among other development partners.

Decentralization in One Valley

2019 ◽  
pp. 21-49
Author(s):  
Amy C. Offner
Keyword(s):  
Political Economy ◽  
Structural Adjustment ◽  
Western Hemisphere ◽  
Weak States ◽  
The Great Depression ◽  
Structural Adjustment Programs ◽  
The World Bank ◽  
Form Of Government ◽  
International Authority ◽  
The International Monetary Fund

This chapter talks about decentralization, which was in fact an enduring and characteristic form of government in the Americas by the time of the Great Depression. It was reimagined and redeployed twice during the subsequent years, first as a developmentalist prescription to expand the responsibilities of weak states, and later as an instrument to break down established state functions. During the 1980s, Colombian economist Eduardo Wiesner had served as the Western Hemisphere director for the International Monetary Fund (IMF), pushing through structural adjustment programs throughout the region. By the 1990s, he was an advisor to the World Bank and an international authority on state decentralization. The power and example of decentralized corporations have reordered the political economy of the region and the very terms in which political economy was discussed.

scholarly journals The anthropology of austerity

Focaal ◽  
2019 ◽  
Vol 2019 (83) ◽  
pp. 1-12 ◽  
Author(s):  
Theodore Powers ◽  
Theodoros Rakopoulos
Keyword(s):  
Policy Process ◽  
Structural Adjustment ◽  
Global South ◽  
Comprehensive Analysis ◽  
Comparative Approach ◽  
Historical Continuity ◽  
Structural Adjustment Programs ◽  
Temporal Consciousness ◽  
Global North

This introduction posits that austerity is an instantiation of structural adjustment programs (SAPs) and thus must be revisited in two ways, involving its historical and geographical rendering. First, anthropological accounts should think of austerity in the long term, providing encompassing genealogies of the concept rather than seeing it as breach to historical continuity. Second, the discipline should employ the comparative approach to bring together analyses of SAPs in the Global South and austerity measures in the Global North, providing a more comprehensive analysis of this phenomenon. We are interested in what austerity does to people’s temporal consciousness, and what such people do toward a policy process that impacts their lives. We find, in this comparative pursuit, instead of Foucauldian internalization, dissent and dissatisfaction.

scholarly journals CONDITIONAL CASH TRANSFER SCHEMES AND THE POLITICISATION OF POVERTY REDUCTION STRATEGIES SCHEMES AND POLITICISATION OF POVERTY REDUCTION STRATEGIES

2015 ◽  
Vol 28 (83) ◽  
pp. 19-31
Author(s):  
Juan Fernando Bucheli
Keyword(s):  
Poverty Reduction ◽  
Conditional Cash Transfer ◽  
Economic Benefits ◽  
Conditional Cash Transfers ◽  
Cash Transfer ◽  
Negative Consequences ◽  
Social Investment ◽  
Political Alliances ◽  
Reduction Strategies

Conditional Cash Transfers (CCTs) in Latin America has been marked by a closed top-down process led by coalitions of politicians and technocrats who have chosen patronage relationships as the most convenient interaction with beneficiaries of social programmes. The existence of this type of relationship forces beneficiaries to take part in long-term political alliances in exchange for economic benefits. What seems to be a symbiotic relationship for the parties ultimately can have negative consequences in terms of democratic values and a financial opportunity cost to implement more efficient social investment. The more the exchange persists, the more permanent welfare dependency will prevail in the region.

scholarly journals Gender Exploitation: from Structural Adjustment Policies to Poverty Reduction Strategies

2003 ◽  
Vol 42 (4II) ◽  
pp. 669-694 ◽  
Author(s):  
Khadija Ali
Keyword(s):  
World Bank ◽  
Structural Adjustment ◽  
Poverty Reduction ◽  
Human Beings ◽  
Middle Income ◽  
The World Bank ◽  
Adjustment Policies ◽  
Reduction Strategies ◽  
Central Argument ◽  
Policy Measures

The aim of this paper is to review the existing empirical research concerning women’s exploitation as a result of policy measures imposed by the World Bank and the IMF, particularly under Structural Adjustment Policies (SAPs). The central argument here is that SAPs have not been successful in achieving their basic objectives of ‘adjusting’ the economies instead, these policies have created severe social problems for the human beings, particularly for the poor and middle-income groups, in the countries where they (SAPs) have been implemented [Beneria and Feldman (1992); Cornia, Jolly and Stewart (1987); Floro (1995); Messkoub (1996) Moser (1989)]. Among these groups, although all members have to mobilise their efforts to support households so as to cope with the economic crisis, women have to bear an unequal share of this burden [Agrawal (1992); Ali (2000); Beneria (1992, 1995); Cagatay (1995); Chant (1991); Elson (1991, 1992a); Feldman (1992); Floro (1995); Reilly and Gorden (1995); McFarren (1992); Moser (1992); Perez-Aleman (1992); Sahn and Haddad (1991); Safa and Antrobus (1992); Stewart (1992); Trip (1992)].

scholarly journals An economic system that crushes the poor

2014 ◽  
Vol 70 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Maake J. Masango
Keyword(s):  
South Africa ◽  
World Bank ◽  
Structural Adjustment ◽  
Structural Adjustment Programs ◽  
The World Bank ◽  
The Poor ◽  
Self Interest ◽  
The World ◽  
The Rich ◽  
The International Monetary Fund

The article focuses on economic structures that crush the poor, especially global economic structures that trap and keep people in poverty. The concept of poverty occupies centre stage in South Africa and many other developing countries. There is no longer a middle class. One is either rich or poor. Globalisation has created a system or program that continues to crush the poor, while also breeding greed and selfishness. The rich always accumulate resources while the poor struggle to make ends meet. These problems are created by the World Bank, the International Monetary Fund, and Structural Adjustment Programs, to name a few. These structures have introduced a system of inequality that widens the gap between the rich and the poor because of self-interest, which continues to crush the latter. The end result is that the concept of Ubuntu or Botho among African communities is destroyed. Injustice becomes the order of the day.

scholarly journals The Effects of Poverty Reduction Strategies on Artisanal Fishing in Ghana: The Case of Keta Municipality

2017 ◽  
Vol 10 (3) ◽  
pp. 68 ◽  
Author(s):  
Peter Mawunyo Dzidza ◽  
Ian Jackson ◽  
Ametefee K. Normanyo ◽  
Michael Walsh
Keyword(s):  
Structural Adjustment ◽  
Poverty Reduction ◽  
Poverty Line ◽  
Alternative Methods ◽  
Systematic Sampling ◽  
Artisanal Fishing ◽  
Adjustment Program ◽  
Reduction Strategies ◽  
Research Findings ◽  
The Government

This paper assesses the level of poverty in Ghana after three decades of successive implementation of numerous poverty reduction strategies including Structural Adjustment Program (SAP) by various governments of Ghana. The Keta municipality in the Volta region, where artisanal fishing thrives, was chosen as a representative sample of the whole country. The authors identified eleven artisanal fishing communities in the selected area using systematic sampling. Data were collected on household consumption patterns. This process was used to determine the profile of poverty using the latest upper poverty line of Ghana and the Greer and Thorbecke (1984) poverty formula. Research findings show that the various poverty alleviation methods implemented over three decades by the Government of Ghana, the World Bank, and the International Monetary Fund (IMF) significantly failed as they have not produced any meaningful effect on poverty reduction in the sample area. Finally, this paper offers further suggestions regarding how this poverty gap may be bridged using alternative methods.

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