ABSTRACT
Policy reforms imposed on developing countries through conditionality have greatly weakened the autonomy of recipient countries. The vast majority of poor countries in Africa, and many in Latin America and Asia, have been subject to a series of IMF and World Bank adjustment packages, especially over the last 20 years. These reforms cover all the major economic decisions – budgets, tax and expenditure policies, exchange rates, trade and tariff policies, price policies, privatization, credit policies – such that countries subject to them have very little control over their economic policies. Moreover, sectoral adjustment policies additionally expand the scope of conditionalities – including education and health policies for example. The Comprehensive Development Framework of the World Bank further extends the realm of potential conditionality into the law and matters of governance. Conditionality thus has been a major source of disempowerment whether or not the policy reforms are in the recipient countries’ longer-term interests.
