Structural Adjustment, Human Needs, and the World Bank Agenda

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Abstract
The economic crisis of the 1970s in sub-Saharan Africa led to a critical evaluation of the rôle of government policies by international agencies, including two contrasting views of the problem by the Economic Commission for Africa/Organisation of African Unity and the World Bank. The E.C.A./O.A.U. largely placed the blame on the deteriorating external environment, emphasising the reduction of income inequality, poverty, and unemployment through a continuation of the state-led introverted development strategy of the previous decade. The World Bank responded in the opposite direction, mainly blaming the inappropriate state policies of the post-independence period, while encouraging a re-focus on economic growth through a structural reversal of the state-imposed impediments to the efficient operations of markets.