Structural adjustments and their impact on health and society: a perspective from Pakistan

Open Access
Publisher Website
Google Scholar
Abstract
In the back streets of one of Karachi's sprawling squatter settlements, the weary faces of manual labourers lined up for work, tell the tale. Mostly young men from the northern plains and mountains of Pakistan, they descend upon Karachi, the largest port city and the economic hub of the country, in search of employment. For most regular, uninterrupted work is a thing of the past as private construction and public work projects have gradually dwindled to a halt. While the majority are oblivious to the ongoing debates in Davos and Seattle, some are indeed aware of the existence and relevance of the International Monetary Fund (IMF). On probing the rickshaw driver guiding my visit to the area, he thought for a moment before musing that the ‘IMF probably represents the big oil producers’, especially as their visits and Pakistan's agreements with them ‘are always followed by a rise in the price of petrol!’ Few among the intelligentsia in Pakistan, who do know a fair bit about the World Bank and the IMF and the sequential agreements of the government of Pakistan with them on restructuring its debt burden are convinced that the decade-old structural adjustment programs (SAP) have brought about any economic benefit or respite for the common man.