Structural Adjustments Programs (SAPs) in Emergency Relief
Although SAPs have the potential to increase the well being of people in emergency situations, when applied by outsiders and unconnected to local realities, they end up creating more harm than help.
Throughout the 1990s, most Southern African countries experienced long–term economic decline, which has generally been attributed to poor economic growth, drought and other disasters, civil conflict and population movements, economic mismanagement, an unfair trading environment linked to the decline in prices for exports, and poor control over decision–making.
Popular tools advanced by industrial countries to reverse the economic decline of these countries are called structural adjustment programs (SAP). Created in the late 1970s, SAPs are aimed at changing the structure of a developing country’s economy to correct underlying problems that lead to economic declines. Initiated by the World Bank, structural adjustment programs have generally increased privatization of government functions and increased support for export production of agriculture commodities.
SAPs have generally succeeded in reducing government budget deficits, eliminating hyperinflation, and maintaining debt payment schedules. While SAPs may improve a country’s balance of payment results, a major negative side effect has been an increase in poverty and unemployment. In fact, SAPs can contribute to the structural causes of poverty by advancing reforms that eliminate minimum wages, weaken environmental laws, reduce or eliminate social programs that help the poor, and promote rapid privatization of government enterprises, allowing well-connected elite to profit from the monetary benefits.
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| Crops in the Seke Communal Lands were affected by drought. By: Heather Robinson ©Oxfam America |
The countries affected by the drought in southern Africa are all involved in structural adjustment programs. In Malawi for example, Pauline E. Peters, a social anthropologist at Harvard University, studied the effects of market liberalization on poor families. Market liberalization has provided new income opportunities through the sale of tobacco and maize, but the related profits have gone solely to elite business leaders, while the poorest have experienced a deterioration in their income and food security. Food security means that people have access to the adequate diet for living a healthy life. It includes five key components: food sufficiency, maximum autonomy and self-determination, reliability, equity, and ecological sustainability.
But as SAP changes have taken place, fewer and fewer people have had Food Security in southern Africa. As farmers are encouraged to grow crops for export, they are dependent on the global economy and global price fluctuations. Lower commodity prices translate to lower income. Matched with higher demand and prices for basic food crops, the majority of the people in southern Africa have been left vulnerable and without food security.
Although structural adjustment programs elaborated within a clear national development program have the potential to increase the well being of the population overall, when applied by outsiders and unconnected to local realities, they end up creating more harm than help. Instead, structural adjustment programs should be designed with respect to existing conditions and within a clear national development strategy.