by Alejandro Bendaña
| Nearly three years ago, the World Bank and the IMF came up with its Poverty Reduction Strategy Initiative (1). In what amounted to a tacit admission that globalisation and debt relief schemes were not benefiting the poor (to say the least), the Bretton Woods institutions now insisted that "pro-poor economic growth" strategies were indispensable. As a corollary to the new discourse and as a further explanation for the persistence of poverty and inequity, the multilateral institutions and their principal rich countries shareholders went on to argue that "bad government", including official corruption, were fundamental obstacles to development. How convenient to wed the rediscovery of poverty to mal governance! This blame-the-victim approach shifted attention away from the economic model which in fact produces poverty and facilitates corruption. What is more, assuming a hypocritical defence of civil society demands for participation, the Bretton Woods institutions devised the Poverty Reduction processes which in effect increased the power of the multilateral institutions over national governments and national economies. Indeed, Washington enlisted NGOs (ostensibly in representation of civil society and the poor?) to participate in officially sanctioned poverty reduction strategy consultations and in anticorruption campaigns. So now the donors, their corporations and their WB/IMF pose as the defenders of the poor and the allies of civil society in the holy crusade for development. Talk of participation and national ownership notwithstanding, the rules of engagement precluded critiques of the neoliberal structural adjustment and liberalisation measures. That is, what mattered in the PRGF (Poverty Reduction and Growth Facility) (2) was growth more than poverty. Old wine in new bottles: growth is indispensable, liberalisation produces growth and investment, and eventually the benefits of growth and reform will trickle down to the poor. The same with good governance. From the good economic governance that encompassed forced adoption of WB/IMF-sanctioned financial policies, governance now encompasses adopting "politically-correct" social, commercial and now administrative "reforms". The fight against corruption focused on forms of corruption such as bribery and public sector waste that discouraged private, and especially foreign, investment the life blood of economic growth in the neoliberal cannon. Unsurprisingly, the "nationally owned" Poverty Reduction Strategy Papers (PRSPs) matrixes tend to look much the same across nations, featuring privatisation of public utilities and other liberalisation measures as critical to fighting poverty! A Jubilee South/Focus on the Global South study on PRSPs concluded that International Financial Institutions (IFI) conceptions of participation tended to be uniformly narrow. By and large, participation as originally conceived takes the form of inviting some non-governmental organisations (NGOs) to offer their perspectives on a pre-prepared document. Where consultations were taken to the field, interpretation of those perspectives tended to be a selective value-laden exercise. In most cases, the translation of these perspectives to policy actions remained beyond the reach of most members of local civil society, especially the poor themselves. |
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| For its part, the anticorruption measures demanded by Washington all focused on the public sector and the judiciary (to insure "clear" guarantees for investors). Little was said as to the relation between privatisation and corruption, about abuses carried out by the corporate sector, of the fact that corrupters and corrupted tend to work together, as for example with debt and credit deals. More importantly, the issues of corruption inherent in unequal structures and systemic corruption simply do not fit in the anticorruption discourse. By the same token, good governance refers to nation states in the South, leaving global good governance to be interpreted and applied by the rich countries themselves in neoliberal fashion. |  Caracas, Venezuela © J. Maillard / ILO |
| NGOs in the South and the North were taken for fools with a strategy that supposedly required borrowing countries to consult with their citizens and to define national development strategies. As a result, the neoliberal donor-defined global system is further reinforced, allowing the model to relegitimise itself by saying it worked with citizens and it did not tolerate corruption. PRSPs will not alleviate poverty, because they do not address macro-economic and structural concerns. Policy matrixes take the form of policy conditions in order to obtain external financing. Dependence is reinforced, and the conditions are politically explosive, as they entail further belt-tightening, job-losses, increases in electricity and water prices. Indeed, the model demands more dieting in order to end hunger. | Unsurprisingly, the "nationally owned" Poverty Reduction Strategy Papers (PRSPs) matrixes tend to look much the same across nations, featuring privatisation of public utilities and other liberalisation measures as critical to fighting poverty! |
| The insistence on greater economic and political conditionality is part of a the US-defined process to create not only states but indeed "civil" societies that will be market-friendly and private-enterprise oriented. Of course "market democracies" contribute to the centralisation of power and wealth in the North as well as the promotion of US strategic interests. As opposed to an anti-corruption focus that only places the blame on politicians and individual policies, a people's governance approach emphasises the centralisation of power itself as inducive to corruption and abuse. Yet PRSPs by adding to conditionality, notwithstanding claims of ownership and participation, place even more power in the hands of the Bretton Woods institutions. What is the alternative? People's governance at the national and international level. Rules of engagement guided by human need, not corporate greed. Another world is possible, and its construction begins by exposing the lies and false promises emanating from Washington, the donor agencies and the multilateral agencies. The countervailing power will not be found among those very forces, including governments and civil society organisations, that collaborate with privatisation notions, and themselves become objects of poverty-producing, corruption-inducing privatisation. At the end of the day, the struggle against impoverishment and corruption, rooted in decades and centuries of anticolonial resistance, is inseparable from the continuing struggle for national and international democracy. Social forces themselves, including labour, will continue to name the system – capitalism – and organise themselves around a truly democratic ideology based on self-determination. Notes: 2. Poverty Reduction and Growth Facility (PRGF) was previously called the Enhanced Structural Adjustment Facility (ESAF). The IMF changed the name of this facility to diffuse criticism of Structural Adjustment Policies. It contains the terms and conditions of an IMF concessional loan to a low-income country. |
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