ECONOMICS
THE INTERNATIONAL MONETARY FUND (IMF), an international financial institution over which the United States has effective control, has been at the centre of the recent drive to open up the Third World and Eastern Europe
"THE IMF has been humanized" argue many waverers on the left as they try to discredit opponents of this institution, which the French economist Marie-France l'Hériteau has described as "an organ of world power." For the IMF's apologists, Its critics are "doctrinaires" in whom "the IMF arouses conditioned reflexes".: Having "structurally adjusted" Its mode of thinking, this "realistic left" presents the IMF's current doctrine as the expression of a metamorphosis that will turn it into an "institution for cooperation and development and for freeing the Third World of debt."
CHARLES-ANDRE UDRY
HE IMF originated from the desire
T of the United States during the
Second World War to reshape international relations in a multilateralist perspective. At Bretton Woods in July 1944, a set of institutions were established to deal with international payments, financing and trade — for the first time on the basis of treaties.4
These were the IMF, the International
Bank for Reconstruction and Development (World Bank) and the GATT (General Accord on Tariffs and Trade). The
IMF officially began to function in 1945, concentrating on the financial angle in order to intervene in cases of temporary imbalances (capital movements, exchange rates) and allow compensating recourse to
The US was able to get the US dollar accepted as the easiest and most widespread means of international payment, the Gold Standard becoming the Dollar
Standard at $35 to the ounce. The Americans were able to finance their outgoings, among them the reconstruction of Europe, by means of obligatory credits that they controlled; their foreign investments were thus also propped up.
US fights for privileged status
This was the context in which the IMP's statutes were formed. The sum of contributions (shares) from the Fund's members
— counted in dollars, their volume determined according to a series of technical criteria (international trade, reserves and production) — gave the US a privileged status, which that country has fought to preserve even after its relative economic decline became apparent from the start of the 1970s.
In 1968, when the crisis of the interna-
14 tional financial system began, the statutes were amended, requiring majorities of 85% for major decisions and 70% for day-to-day decisions. Votes are in proportion to shares, the latter being revised eve-
In 1970, the US had 21% of the votes, in 1981 20% and in 1990 19.1%. Thus they have an effective right of veto, as do the members of the EEC, if they can agree.
industrialized countries 62.7% of the votes in 1990 as against 35.2% for the other 123 members.
As André Gunder Frank puts it, the voting principle is thus, one dollar one vote (and: no dollars, no votes!). Obviously, the IMF is not going to take decisions that go against the interests of the USA, Westem Europe and Japan.
Executive Board calls the
The IMF's supreme body is the Council of Governors (one per member). However, the outlook and decisions of the IMF are in fact in the hands of the Executive Board, headed since 1987 by the Frenchman Michel Camdessus.
Five permanent directors are nominated by the five biggest subscribers (the USA, Britain, France, Germany and Japan). Saudi Arabia, as one of the big international creditors, has a right to a seat. Among the 15 remaining administrators, most are from countries with a positive balance of payments.
The IMF's resources are provided by the shares of members. Some 25% of these resources are in gold, or other solid money, and the remainder in national currencies. The IMF can borrow within limits to increase its resources.
At first, the shares were accounted in dollars, but since 1969 in Special Drawing Rights (SDRs). These latter are moneassets that can be freely and in the economic interests of the world's rich countries. In a series of articles the Swiss revolutionary Marxist weekly La Brèche has been looking at the real record of this institution and its twin, the
World Bank, in the context of a discussion on Switzerland's join-
Wing the IMF. We publish below a historical article on the IMF by C-A. Udry and an analysis in two parts of the IMF's policies by the same author, as well as a case history of the impact of those policies on the West African countries of Ivo-
Try Coast by J-F. Marquis. * immediately exchanged against the hard currency of a third country. Since 1974, the SDR's value has ceased to be defined in relation to gold or the dollar, but rather against a basket of the most important currencies (the US dollar, yen, DM, pound sterling, the French franc.
Thus, a member country has the right to buy quantities of a money it needs in order to settle its debts on current payments.
This can be done in the framework of "drawing rights". The first slice of credit - 25% of its share — is granted more or less automatically. For the rest - which can go to 125% or even 150% of the share the credit is granted on increasingly tough conditions, involving a mounting programme of financial, monetary and trade measures.
The "conditionality" of IMF lending is embodied in the "letters of intent" agreed and signed between the IMF officials and the country's minister of finance and the detailed memoranda concerning access to lending and the "structural adjustment facilities" created in 1986.
A key tool for the creditor nations
While the IMF has been unable to deal with the crisis of the financial system in the central countries, it has nonetheless become a key tool in the redefinition of the roles of the industrial creditor coun tries and the rest of the world, the debtors This role became clear at the time of Mexico's debt default in 1982, when that country stated that it could not service its debt to private banks.
Until that date the IMF had been encouraging private banks to lend to the Third World, after the recession of 1974-75 and
November 25, 1991 • #217 International Viewpoint the halting recovery in the developed countries had made it difficult for them to find outlets for their money.
These loans were made on lucrative conditions; a significant proportion carried floating interest rates, which went up along with US interest rates under Reagan.
The IMF, in the context of the renegotiation of the South's debt (and later that of the East), plays the role of insurer of the banks against the risk of heavily indebted countries becoming insolvent. The small lender is the bailiff of the big lenders.
According to Dieter Ruloff: "In the era of heavy indebtedness of the 1980s, the IMF has increasingly become an accoun tant, an advisor and a lawyer in matters of debt management and the restructuring of the economies of Third World and Eastern bloc countries."
The IMF has gradually come to use a combination of two systems: that of conditions attached to financing (drawing rights) and that of conditions without financing - in which the supervisory function becomes independent.
Assessments of good and bad behaviour
This consists of providing banks with assessments of the good or bad behaviour of the indebted countries, and thus determining their options. However the content of the conditions has changed over time, as we shall see.
Between 1970 and 1979, only a third of IMF aid involved conditions. Between 1980 and 1989, this rose to two thirds — the debt crisis had struck. In order to meet increased demand from indebted countries, relaxation was on the order of the day.
Nonetheless, countries with debts to the IMF who used their drawing rights well above the value of their shares have had to repay. By 1990 repayments were more than new lending, thus capital is now flowing towards the IMF.
The IMF's supporters assert that: "its work is now aimed at the medium or long term. Stabilization is no longer sought in the short-term, but in a period of five to ten years. The previous demands were too tough and had a de-stabilizing impact." In other words, rather than conditions aimed at short-term stabilization (volume of credit, public deficit, volume of hard currency reserves over the trade balance), now there are structural adjustments (privatization of public enterprises, customs policy, price policy, exchange rate management and so on).
This amounts to "a deepening of its interventions, an assumption of greater power on the definition of economic policies, and thus, in the last resort, a reduction in the sovereignty of the debtor states. "9
Such adjustment policies are aimed at safeguarding the conditions for growth,
However, concrete results do not seem to confirm such optimism. According to the recent World Bank report,° annual average growth of GDP in Latin America and the Caribbean from 1980 to 1989 was negative at -0.7%. Per capita domestic investments fell by 5.4%.
Private consumption per capita fell at a rate of 1% a year — with the brunt being borne by the poor and some sections of 1 62%. more stan o
4.1% a year.
Meanwhile exports grew until 1989, when they stagnated, and trade balances again slid into deficit. The income from these exports went on debt repayment.
It would be hard to argue that these countries have not indeed structurally adjusted, but it would also be hard to brilliant — and from the point of view of essential social services there has been a real disaster.
### Honouring foreign commitments But for the IMF an economy has "adjusted" when it is able to "honour its foreign commitments", by exporting capital to the centre.
It might be replied that the weight of the debt has been too heavy, but that the Brady Plan is going to change that.
In fact the reductions in interest rates and/or debt forgiveness by private banks have been more limited than was predicted. The gains, furthermore, must be offset against the increase in debt owed to official creditors.
Thus, such an operation - underpinned by provisions for unpaid debts prepared by the Western banks, which furthermore, they have been deducting from their tax returns - does not mean that the banks are going to grant new credits. The negative flow of resources
The Bank of International Settlements sums up thus a decisive advantage of the 1. Georges Plomb in Coopération, May 30, 1991. 2. Marie-France l'Hériteau, "Le FMI et le Tiers Monde", PUF-IEDES, Paris, 1986. 3. Le Dossard 153, Numéro spécial 969 de Domaine public, André Gavillet-Pierre Imhof, with the collaboration of Mario Carera. 4. On the historic background and functioning of these institutions see: Robert Fraser, "The World Financial System", Longmans, London, 1987. 5. André Gunder Frank, "No escape from the laws of World Economics" in Review of African Political Economy, no. 50, 1991. 6. Withdrawals of dollars are bought with the country's own currency. Thus, if Mexico wants to withdraw dollars from the Funds, it pays in pesos. Since it does not cost Mexico to produce pesos, this "purchase" of dollars is in fact a form of credit. 7. Lettre d'information CH +6, no. 54, May 1991. 8. Domaine public, op. cit. p. 21. 9. Marie-France l'Hériteau, "Le Nouvel Etat du
ECONOMICS negotiated remission of a portion of the debt: "by giving more legitimacy to unpopular measures destined to increase economic efficiency and the capacity to service the debt, it [the reduction of the debt] can reinforce the chances of success of structural adjustment programmes."I
Let us look in more detail at the IMF's "philosophy". Such stabilization policies and structural adjustment programmes!? presuppose a rationality of balances on the world scale, of supposed "points of natural equilibrium" directly attainable through "healthy management".
Thus, the distortions and historically established hierarchies of inequality which underpin the world economy are not taken into account.
These involve such things as unequal exchange between primary products and manufactured goods, or the rise in interest rates provoked by the US debt, resulting from Reagan's military Keynesianism. This is not to speak of the profoundly inegalitarian distribution of resources and revenues within the dependent countries.
As Bernis has pointed out "in itself equilibrium does not mean a thing, if you do not say what structure this equilibrium has, at what level it exists and for how long. "13
Violent state intervention required
Moreover, the neo-liberal policies promoted by the IMF also, paradoxically, require violent state intervention to reach their fixed objectives - among which debt repayment is central. Even so, the state is required to abandon its social obligations at the very time when the social costs of structural adjustment call out for increased services.
The horizon of the stabilization policies — many of whose features have persisted into the epoch of structural adjustments — was formed by the balance of payments, which measures the totality of transactions
This balance falls under two main headings: current transactions exports, trade balance, spending on transport, tourism, insurance and so on) and Monde, Bilan de la décennie" Ed. La Découverte, Paris 1990, p. 161. Bank, Washingnom prid and Paul Butt, Werly Bank, Washington p. 11 and Paul Burkett, Crisis in the Third World: The Contradictions of World Bank Policy" In Monthly Review, December 1990. 11. Banque des règlements intemationaux, Rapport annuel, June 11, 1990, Bâle, p. 175. 12. Among the literature on this theme, one can cite: Komer and Maass-Siebold, "The IMF and the Debt Crisis", Zed Books, London 1990; Sue Branford and Bernardo Kucinski, "The Debt Squads: The US, the Banks and Latin America", Zed Books, London 1990; T. Killick et al, "The Quest for Economic Stabilization: the IMF and the Third World", Heineman, London 1984; T. Killick and S. Commander "State Divestiture as a Policy Instrument in Developing Countries" in World Development, 1989. 13. G. de Bermis and Maurice Bye, "Relations cono- 1 5 miques internationales", Dalloz 1987, p. 685.
International Viewpoint #217 • November 25, 1991
ECONOMICS capital movements (entry and exit of capitals, bank loans, investments by multinationals, debt servicing and so on).
Starting from the capital movements, the IMF arrives at the level of current transactions. On this basis it decides the volume of hard currency needed by a country to cover debt servicing, the payment of dividends to multinationals, royalties and so on. The stabilization plan then tackles the "imbalances" by reducing global domestic demand which is considered excessive in relation to domestic (savings) and external capacities debt servicing). The central objective thus becomes to increase exports and cut imports, so that dollars can be exported to the creditor banks. In the accord signed with the IMF the indebted country has to promise that no obstacle will be put in the way of the payment of dividends, royalties and so on.
There are many ways to intervene on the question of imports and exports. Drastic budget reductions are one. If wages and the number of state employees are cut and subsidies are suppressed, it is highly will contract and imports of both foods and consumer
Across the board wage freezes, leading fall in purchasing power through inflation, form part of the same approach. While the IMF proposes to "allow market forces to function freely" by getting rid of the "distortions" introduced by social subsidies and price controls, there is one price that remains subject to control — that of wages.
### Devaluation holds back
Massive devaluations also hold back imports by increasing the prices of imported products. Thus, according to the last GATT report, in 1989 exports of developed countries to highly indebted under-developed countries were at the same level as in 1980.14
The IMF is unconcerned by the thought that if imports are cut back there will be a lack of essential supplies or aging of the productive apparatus (implying a drop in
The application of the same pro-export recipe to all indebted countries has meant competition between them, with a disastrous effect on raw material prices, all the more in that new substitute products tied to new technologies are now available in the imperialist countries.
In 1989, the average price of such products, excluding oil, was still less than 33% of what they were in 1980.15 Finally, when raw material prices are directly expressed in dollars, devaluations do not increase exports. To all this should be added the protectionist measures in place in the developed countries for some sec-
16
Thus the improvement in the trade balance is largely a result of the cut in imports, involving brutal recessions and the increasing impoverishment larger swathes of the population.
Towards the end of the 1980s the accent changed to "structural adjustments" with the idea of exercising a more precise control over the range of export products, goods manufactured internally and on
This new orientation shifts the centre of concern from the trade balance to the implementation of free market policies internally, although servicing the debt
The new line is summarized in a recent report by Switzerland's Federal Council: "Several countries have engaged in a fundamental re-direction of their economy; with a slimming down of the public sector, de-regulation of the financial sector, liberalization of the exchange regime and the encouragement of both foreign and domestic private investment."16
Hyper-inflation and protracted crisis
But in fact these programmes have done nothing to assist development; rather than growth we have seen rampant hyperinflation and protracted crisis.
The fall in wages and the contraction of the domestic market it entails works against the modernization of industries producing for the domestic market. This favours precarious and speculative investments aimed at exports, which, in any case cannot compensate for the withdrawals from the trade balance resulting from the debt repayments.
Complete opening of frontiers in the framework of the present international division of labour does not automatically bring about the optimal resources, but it does allow the multinationals to reconquer markets.
It is accompanied by sweeping privatizations, which amounts to selling off strategic enterprises at cut price, given that the selling price overlooks the historic fact that this public sector has historically financed the private sector, both foreign
Mereover, the income the state gains from these sales goes towards servicing the debt and providing incentives for mul-
Thus the domestic cut-backs turn into a further transfer of wealth abroad, reinforced by the removal of any restrictions on the repatriation of profits by investors Furthermore, the liberal tax policies which are promoted by the IMF — no taxes on unearned wealth and inheritance and no progressive income tax — work against investment of any kind in the long 14. "International Trade 89-90", vol. 1, GATT 1990, 15. "Report on development", op. cit. p. 15. 16. Feuille fédérale, vol. 1, February 19, 1991, p. 393.
T HIS conceals a central fact; in a
given society, national or international, it is social relations which condition the workings of the "market". The "laws of the market" do not function in isolation from the relations between economic actors.
The IMF knows this as well, in practise. To allow the "free functioning of the market" in the countries where it intervenes — in the sense of their passive adjustment to the needs of the world economy, polarized around the rich industrialized coun
— it imposes changes in the relations between economic actors, for example, between importers and exporters, wages and profits, multinationals and the "host country", towns and the countryside. The IMF is a strongly interventionist force.
The measures that it proposes reveal that the "rationality of the market" is connected to the irrational reality of the social system. The former recreates the latter in an evolving inter-action: unemploymentpoverty; "privileged allocation of resources for forestry" and ecological catas trophes; or polarization between the flows of goods and riches on an international level (free transfer of the profits of multinationals and debt payments).
Before going further, should recall that the IMF — and World Bank's — analyses are aimed at modifying a country's domestic economy, since it is felt that it is always internal deficiencies that provoke external imbalances. The touchstone here is the balance of paywhich measures the totality of transactions between a given country and the outside world, including imports and exports of goods, services, flows from foreign investments to debt repayments. Starting from this idea, the IMF and World Bank propose a set of measures affecting final demand (in the short term) and the provision of products with an emphasis on exports in the longer term).
The measures taken
Measures are taken involving: the sup pression or reduction of subsidies on basic goods in order to free resources for "better use"; the freeing of agricultural prices (aimed at increasing them for the producers); lower wages; the lifting of barriers to imports to favour investment in exportoriented sectors; higher real interest rates, in order to favour local saving; devaluations of the local currency to stimulate exports (exporters gain more local currency for the hard currency they earn, and imports, becoming more expensive, fall; lifting of restrictions on capital transfers (for example, the profits of multinationals).
The result of this conception - that it is "domestic deficiencies" that are the key
— is clear: the crisis in those countries that have historically found themselves on the periphery of the world economic sys-
A world in the IMF's
ECONOMICS ecological disaster, a stepping up of the exploitation of women and children and so on. In a lesser form the polarization finds its way into the heart of the North itself with the hunger and homelessness of millions in the USA.
These socio-economic effects cannot be separated from the type of global growth which the IMF measures aim to adapt the
THE IMF's apologists present its economic policies as being in line with natural (thus scientific) economic rules — the economy here being considered as equivalent to the market.
CHARLES-ANDRE UDRY tem is attributed simply and solely to the exhaustion of their own development model. The role of colonial and neocolonial history is totally ignored, and the central target of criticism is the "bad management" of their governments.
The crisis is thus treated as if separable from the effects of integration into a hierarchical world system, with all this implies in terms of flows of capital, goods, productivity differences, technical, cultural, military and food dependence and in terms of the alliances formed between the elites of the North and South. In the IMF's world view, each country is treated as an independent unit, governed by macroeconomic rules which are the same for all the remedies proscribed
For the past two decades a mixture of the exhaustion of growth models and regressive external constraints has been at work in the Third World. The former includes: extreme inegalitarianism in income redistribution, in which popular consumption falls while luxuries are sucked in; a spatial polarization of economic activity; agricultural paralysis and rural exodus. The latter involves a series of forms of dependency, whether financial, technological, commercial, cultural or in food and
All this leads to an unprecedented crisis. Some countries — such as Mexico and Brazil — fall more and more under the sway of the centre; others are virtually wiped out — as in Africa and Latin America. A Fourth World is born and dies at the same time.
However the combination of external and internal factors has to be placed in its context - the totality of really existing capitalism worldwide, in which the economies of the South occupy a subordinate position. This positioning over-determines the working out of the crisis and makes the internal economy even more fragile. The oft-cited exceptions - South Korea, Taiwan or Singapore — have also had exceptional histories, not to speak of the application of policies quite different from those now being promoted by the IMP.
A look at the structure of the world economy will enable us to more easily grasp the logic behind the policies imposed on dozens of countries by the IMF and World Bank. The increase in economic interdependence over the past 25 years has mainly affected the countries of the centre (North America, Western Europe and Japan), both in terms of investments and trade.
### Significant markets
However the countries of so-called "intermediate income", such as Indonesia, Brazil or India, represent significant markets for the North, even if millions are starving. Some have undergone a relative expansion — nonetheless, the trade balance remains in favour of the centre. Furthermore, the North dominate even in terms of food production — with big grain surpluses in the EEC and the USA. In fact, two thirds of raw materials come from the industrialized countries. Nonetheless, a small number of countries — the South East Asian "dragons" or Brazil - have become more active on the market in manufactured goods.
The countries of the Fourth World (including most of Sub-Saharan Africa) are far less significant from the point of view of the centre, to which they are tied by the debt and the production of cocoa or coffee. Finally, countries without great commercial or industrial importance can take on importance for geo-strategic reasons - this is true of Central America and the Caribbean for the USA. Coun tries of the South can, furthermore, act as intermediaries in dubious financial operations, which result in capital flowing North (thus the BCCI scandal), or serve as markets for arms sales, without any mechanical relation to their economic weight.
The globalization of the economy at all levels - from information technology to consumption models — is a reality, but it is structured around "centres" and produces extreme inequalities and increasing dependency. In most countries, hard hit by stagnation and crisis, this globalization has a negative impact in terms of income distribution, education, employ ment, basic social services, relations between the big cities and countryside, economies of the South to. They are in no way the product of mainly internal causes, or of "irrational" management before the IMF intervention.
This polarized globalization finds a social and political basis inside the countries of the South. The IMF's structural reform programmes are accepted by the ruling classes of the South. Sometimes they negotiate on details, but when the elites finally decide to adjust, it is because they see benefits for themselves in terms of income and power. Passive adaptation to the commands of the IMF to prioritize exports to the centre rather than growth or effective development' is a social option of the elites. They are subordinates, but well-paid subordinates.
A number of economics ministers in the South are former functionaries of the World Bank or the IMF itself. It goes further. Thus, "one of the main advisors to Mr. Carlos Bonilla - Peru's minister of economy and finance — is an IMF official directly paid by this body."2 The IMF and World Bank form a "kind of parallel government which is not accountable to civil society."3
This is also the conclusion of MarieFrance l'Hériteau and Christian Chavagneux: "the inequality of power inside the IMF is a good symbol of the integration of the global economy into a project defined by a few countries. 554
Eric Fottorino, the author of reference works on raw materials, points out "the main thing: the Third World is not the master of its own destiny. It is the big loser from trade, confronted with more powerful competitors who protect access to their own markets in a thousand ways... The Third Worldists of the 1970s talked of 'unequal exchange'. This impoverishment by means of trade continues... If the volume [of coffee] exported has risen by 4%, income has dropped by 22%. The effects of the rules of the liberal game are brutal enough for the rich nations, which see the rise of new poor and other declassed elements "beyond the law"; these rules are hardly suitable for the fragile economies of the Third World. Ten 1. See Samir Amin: "L'Eurocentrisme", Economica, 1988, "La faillite du Développement", l'Harmattan, 1989 and "L'Empire du chaos", L'Harmattan, 1991. 2. Michel Chossudovsky, "Pérou "ajusté", Péruviens écrasés" in Le Monde diplomatique, October 1991, p. 15 3. Michel Chossudovsky: "Comment éviter la mondialisation de la pauvreté" in Le Monde diplomatique, Sep tember 1991, pp. 45 4. Marie-France L'Hériteau-Christian Chavagneux: no For dur, bai, incarional et les pays du ties 1 7 monde", PUF, 1991, p. 243.
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International Viewpoint #217 • November 25, 1991
ECONOMICS years after the first structural adjustment programmes of the IMF and World Bank, one can see the extent of the ethnocentrism and indifference to others that has been at work.
"Rather than looking for solutions related to the particular country, with its particular stage of development, its values, its culture, its weaknesses and strengths, the South has been shackled together behind Washington, with human losses which the UN now recognizes. " Fottorino here points up two facets of polarized globalization: on the one side, a "transnationalization" modelled on the North, on the other a polarization (impoverishment by trade) with its inegalitarian logic.
A pertinent question
In a conference on the subject of raw materials Patrice Robineau of UNCTAD asked a pertinent question: "it would be interesting to do a study on the responsibility of the international financial institutions [IMF and World Bank] whose role has been important in creating overcapacity in production for certain types of product; it is rather paradoxical that, while wanting to foster the free play of the market, they have in fact stimulated supply by fostering projects in sectors where medium or long term demand seemed saturated." Translated, this means that the IMF and World Bank have planned for the medium and long term to perpetuate the process of impoverishment by trade.
To stimulate exports, to pay the debt for example, these institutions create overcapacity in raw material production in the South. This results in a downward pressure on the prices of these products.
Another form of robbery, and one quite as terrifying, follows the same logic. "For several years, developing countries have, in order to keep servicing their debt, had 18 to make an overall transfer of nearly $40bn a year to the profit of the developed countries. And there is little hope of seeing this flow reversed.". This is confirmed by the World Bank's World Debt Tables for 1990-1991, which show that the transfer from South to North in 1989 for private loans alone was $30.9bn in
Meanwhile we find that "from 1986 to 1988 the credit granted by the IMF to developing countries was negative."*10 to the above-cited Tables: "Furthermore, the IMF has tried out overall negative flows in recent years."" A reading of the Tables and the OECD's Examen annuel du Comité d'Aide au Développement shows that from 1985 to 1989 transfers to the IMF exceeded
It is concevable that this flow will be reversed in coming years, but this will not cancel out the effects of the recent past, nor, above all, will it change the financial transfer that the IMF helps to organize.
The World Bank also managed a net transfer of resources in favour of itself. It came out of its last exercise ahead by $1.2bn, an increase over previous years. If the Bank's special reserves are taken into account, it had more than $2bn. Thus the World Bank is reimbursed by its debtors and then places the money on the finaficial markets of the North.
Impoverishment by trade and transfer of scarce resources from the poor to the rich. This is the world which the IMF helps to 5. Eric Fottorino: "Le festin de la terre. L'histoire des matières premières", Lieu Commun, 1988, and "Les années folles des matières premières", Hatier, 1988. 6. Le Monde, September 17, 1991. 7. Patrice Robineau: "Les matières premières peuventelles encore être un moteur pour le développement?" Centre de Recherche sur le développement, Université de Neuchâtel, April 1991, pp. 13-14. 8. Rapport de la Commission Sud: "Défis au Sud", Economica, 1990, pp. 19-20. 9. Op. cit., vol. 1, Analysis and Summary Tables, p. 10. "Défis au Sud", p. 59. 11. Op. cit., p. 10.
The
remedies
examined
IN THIS article we will examine some of the remedles applied by the IMF and World Bank to indebted countries wanting to borrow.
These are the "conditions" which go with an application for credit from the IMF and WB, or approval from these bodies to the banks who are re-negotlating these countries' debts.
CHARLES-ANDRE UDRY
H OWEVER, first it is useful to
examine the paternalist cisms of "Western experts" who make the "corrupt elites" of the Third World the main bearers of responsibility for the current crisis in the depen-
The hierarchical structure of the world economy is reflected on the socioeconomic level: the regimes of the South are tied in a thousand ways to the developed countries.
Their top-heavy state apparatuses! are inherited from the former colonial power or the new protector power. These states have not been conceived in relation to local needs and resources.
The critics of these regimes overlook an elementary question: what social forces does the North support in the South? A multitude of cases show that Northern support does not go to those attempting to open the way for long-term development based on the needs of the vast majority of the population.
On the contrary, it is those who are seen to be upholding stability and adjustment to Northern needs that get the backing.
And large-scale corruption is unthinkable without its counterpart in the North in profitable contracts (with a little something passing under the table), recycling and capital flight.
The IMF today talks about disarmament, but it remains the case that "the military industries of the developed countries have done all they can to promote the lucrative sale of their material to the South; credit for buying arms has been
November 25, 1991 • #217 International Viewpoint among the easiest to obtain, unless you happened to be a liberation movement.
In the extreme crisis afflicting many countries of the Third or Fourth Worlds, the state acquires a function which is logical from the point of view of its occupants.
According to Samir Amin, the socioeconomic debacle "deprives the state of any possibility of basing its legitimacy on any real development or finding a social base for a strategy that would aid such development. Not only do the peasantry, the working class and the marginal popu lation of the cities have nothing to expect, and know it; even the bourgeoisie can see no perspective of significant development.
"This leaves the direct exploitation of power as a source of personal enrichment, or its indirect exploitation through pseudo-private economic activities, whose profitability depends exclusively on relations with the administration."* The profitability of the latter depends in turn on the connections that the state has with the North.
But let us move on to the liberalization measures proposed in a structural adjustment plan. Schematically, for the IMF, finance is a means for imposing adjustment to the dominant international economic model.
It is not primarily concerned with ensuring the repayment of the debt, even if this is also done with rigour.
### Massive devaluation
A massive devaluation of the national currency in relation to strong currencies such as the dollar or the Deutschmark is one of the first remedies prescribed.
A big and sudden devaluation has a recessionary impact, accompanied by other mesures (freeing of prices, a wage freeze, budget restraints), produced by the sharp contraction of demand induced by such a package.
According to the IMF, an over-valued currency makes local produce too expensive. This stimulates imports and causes the trade balance to worsen. Furthermore, exporters are not encouraged to invest, since they acquire less of the local currency for the hard currency they earn through should, therefore, improve the relative prices of export products, thus increase production, while reducing internal demand. Imported products being less expensive (in the local currency) there should be less demand for them.
Conclusion: the only course to take is to completely free exchange rates, with dizzying falls in the value of the local currency compared to that of the strong currencies of the North.
However facts do not bear out this reasoning. The demand for many basic products on the world market is not sensitive to price fluctuations (and thus does not
There are many reasons for this.
Demand for some products is saturated, or substitutes are coming into commercial
There are large stocks of agricultural products on the market, owing to price support policies pursued in the rich countries — in 1990 OECD countries granted some $300bn in such support. Owing to the aid, this production — stocks awaiting
— is partially protected from the fall in world market prices.
### Over-production of raw
The servicing of the debt also leads to over-production of raw materials, which lowers prices. The 1991 report from
UNCTAD (United Nations Conference on Trade and Development) underlines the problem: "The need to service the external debt leads to the introduction of macro-economic measures, in particular devaluation, to encourage exports.
"In most of these ["developing"| countries, the raw materials sector is a lot more ready to respond to export possibilities than manufacturing, even if proof exists that devaluations do not necessarily result in increased export income, and, in some cases, do not even lead to a rise in the volume of exports."
In fact, the dependent countries, by definition, do not dispose of the productive flexibility to respond to price fluctuations in the short or medium term or even to qualitative changes in demand from the consumer countries.
UNCTAD expert Patrice Robineau explains that "very often, good information about the [raw materials] markets is restricted to the consuming countries and trans-national firms, notably the big trad-
Many crops, such as cocoa or coffee, require investments that do not pay off for a number of years. Thus, either there is immense pressure to continue with the production of certain goods — or even increase them in a desperate search for hard currency income - although the dollar price has dropped, or the producers are reluctant to invest, since they cannot be sure if a price rise will be durable. Thus the bringing of new land under culti1. Jean-Pierre Gern "Le développement de l'Afrique confronté aux politiques d'ajustement structurel", Centre de recherche sur le développement, Neuchâtel 1987, p. 173. 2. "Rapport de la Commission Sud: Défis au Sud", Economica, 1990, p. 53. 3. Samir Amin: "L'Empire du chaos", l'Harmattan, 1991, p. 104 and Natalja Nzongola: "Revolution and Counter-Revolution in Africa", Zed Books, London 4. UNCTAD: "Trade and Development Report", 1991, S. Patrice Robineau: "Les matières prèmieres peuventelles encore être un moteur pour le développement?" Centre de Recherche sur le développement, Neuchâtel, April 1991, p. 12.
ECONOMICS vation is not an easy matter.
fragile relation export crops and food for domestic consumption may be upset — leading to star-
The mobilization of resources for export leads to a run-down in basic services
(transport, equipment, energy) and this adversely affects the whole economy.
Jean-Pierre Ger, a specialist in development problems, has underlined a crucial problem: "If you devalue to make exports competitive, this means effect the rest of the economy is bearing part of the export costs. If you impoverish the rest of the economy to make exports more competitive, this necessarily makes the impact of exports on the rest of the economy weaker. Being impoverished, it cannot benefit from the extra exports."
The forced devaluations promoted by the IMF imply a growth model based above all on exports or, more exactly, on a certain structure and direction of exports. These two elements are determined by, among other things, the needs of the "centres" and the search for a trade balance
From the point of view of imports, these massive devaluations are no great success. First of all, most of the heavily indebted countries are not able to find substitutes for products previously imported, whose prices now rise due to the devaluation.
But it is not possible to do without many of these imports — or at least, the downward pressure has but one limit, death. Here, to paraphrase Keynes', in the short term the poor are dead, as imports (and non-subsidized products) become either more expensive or unavailable
Surge in imports
Since devaluations are accompanied by measures to free trade (and capital movements) the high incomes of the rich can also lead to a surge in imports. This involves more than just luxury products. These imports give birth to much speculative trade, using up a significant part of the export income.
This has been the case with one of the IMF's "good pupils", Ghana.® Thus there are goods in the shops, but most of the population cannot buy them.?
Various studiesl° have shown that it is the rates of exchange (the imperative 6. Jean-Pierre Ger in: "Renouveler le tissu socioéconomique des pays non-industrialisés qui ont sombré dans la crise de Tajustement'" colloquium of October 1990, Centre de la recherche sur le développement, Neuchâtel, EDES, 1991, p. 102 7. The noted economist John Maynard Keynes, when asked about the long term, replied "in the long run we are all dead" 8. Jeune Afrique Economie, no. 147, September 1991, 9. Financial Times, September 24, 1991 and Die Weltwoche, May 25, 1991. 10. Elsa Assidon and Pierre Jacquemot: "Taux de change et ajustement en Afrique", Documentation française, 1989. The study involved 15 African coun 1 9
International Viewpoint #217 • November 25, 1991
ECONOMICS demand for hard currency for particular economic actors) that form the main influence on imports, rather than the uniform "protectionist barriers" created by acrossthe-board increases in import prices caused by repeated devaluations.
Massive and uniform devaluations, combined with complete freeing of trade, do not provide the instruments needed to stimulate a diversification of production, which would then have an impact on exports.
Such diversification would need selective import management — and thus a diversified trade and exchange rate regime, giving preference to certain product flows — in order to have a dynamizing effect on the whole economy, including investments.
The IMF's favoured "devaluationexport" schema further increases dependence of fragile economies on the
And this via an export sector - raw materials - which has little impact on the whole of the economy and which, indeed, often does not even have a future.
This is not to deny that devaluations may sometimes be useful. But this is not what the IM's policies are about; that body imposes an endless downgrading of the national currency, total liberalization of trade, and thus the loss of government influence on this key element of economic management - something negatively confirmed by the oft-cited examples of the South-East Asian economies.
### Problem of income redistribution
Any consideration of the IMF's devaluation policies must take in the related problem of income redistribution in favour of certain social groups.
In general, a devaluation re-distributes wealth since the holders of hard currency (dollars) — mainly people with links to export trade — can get hold of a larger portion of the global income, by exchanging their hard currency for the devalued local currency.
However, this is not the main thing. All the measures in the IMF/WB model come together to bring about a transfer of resources to the economic and social sector involved in exporting. Thus they favour those social groups that take part in the "opening up" of the economy.
"distortions" which are to be attacked by the adjustment programmes are considered as obstacles to improvement of the supreme reference point, exports. This explains the meaning of certain decisions that inevitably flow from making an "accord with the IMF/
• A reduction in the total public sector wage bill (and the elimination of vital state provided services) and wage cuts in 20 the private sector.
This can be achieved directly or indictly. For example inadequate compe sation for nt ation can reduce labol COStS.
• The reduction and abolition of price subsidies on basic necessities, rises in prices for public services and the lifting of all price controls also effectively cut real wages and reduce demand (and thus imports).
In the majority of countries subjected to IMF/WB programmes food prices rise faster than prices for other types of goods.
Insofar as popular consumption (especially in the cities, but also in the countryside) depends directly or indirectly on imports, the rise in the cost of the latter cuts into living standards.
• High real interest rates - supposed to encourage saving - favour incomes engaged in speculation at the expense of others. Thus in general there is a re-distribution in favour of profits and to the detriment of wages.
The reallocation of the resources "economized" by price rises, cuts in subsidies and so on, in favour of agricultural exporters, takes place in the form of the lightening of taxation on exports, exemption from paying tax on imports and less taxes
The IMF and WB have been forced to set up social programmes to offset the worst social effects of this structural adjustment, but these are not put into motion before the re-distribution is in full flood, and are completely disconnected from the essential logic of the adjustment programme as a whole — and thus inef-
Two points are generally made to support the socially regressive programmes of the IMF/WB.
Firstly there is the supposed neutrality of the measures. The second stresses the advantages accruing to the peasantry from the freeing of prices and the devaluations in comparison to the supposedly privileged cities.
The fable of neutral measures
The idea that the measures are neutral is pure* fable. Different economic actors have different possibilities of reacting to an attempt to reduce their income. A wage earner can engage in trade union struggle, if unions are not violently suppressed and
The holder of profits, on the other hand, can convert his money before the devaluation. He can get his capital out of the country using all the channels available in an externally orientated economy.
To stop this happening a control apparatus would be required to prohibit or inhibit precisely that freeing of relations with abroad promoted by the IMF. The pressure on wages, on the other hand, is both demanded by the IMF and can be applied by the state, assisted by unemployment.
Selective import controls would be necessary to ensure that intermediate goods and equipment were favoured over imports of consumer goods not essential for the majority of the population.
However, the deregulation of foreign trade works in precisely the opposite direction. The process of price raises via devaluation is meant to reduce consumption of imports by the less privileged.
### Problems in translating
As to the second point, a number of difficulties arise in translating the effects of the devaluations and freeing of prices into benefits for the peasantry.
1. The liberalization of agricultural prices does not lead inevitably to their rise. At the same time a country opens up to imports, for example of foreign-grown
This puts a downward pressure on food prices - whose rise is important for the majority of the small peasants
For these latter also to benefit from higher prices, there has to be sufficient effective demand — but this has also been reduced by the cuts in purchasing power effected by the adjustment programme.
2. The structure of ownership of agricultural resources (the land and its products) may lead to an increase in the income of a thin layer of owners to the detriment of the smallholders, and a concentration of
3. The effects of devaluation in terms of price rises can cancel out the increased income from higher prices for agricultural
4. The extra income from higher agricultural prices can be taken by intermediaries or even by the state, without the producers seeing any of it.
Liberalization, destroy state selling outlets, leaving the peasants without outlets.
5. In some cases small peasants have direct access to exporting. However the proportion is very small.
In any case these peasants become totally dependent on the fluctuations on the
Furthermore, they have only very limited possibilities to change their production in response to changes in demand.
The relations between the big traders and these cooperatives work out in the end to the benefit of the former.
6. A rural exodus develops with consid erable autonomy from the living standards of the peasants, increasing the urban population. In any case, rural families often depend on urban incomes.
Thus the only allegedly positive effect of the IMF/World Bank's redistribution programmes, referred to all the time in their propaganda, is itself of tenuous reality, in the face of the laws of the free mar-
The Ivory Coast: a model in crisis
November 25, 1991
N the IMF and WB's own figures, the current situation revealing. At the end of 1990 the Ivory Coast's foreign debt was $16.5bn, almost three times what it was in 1980. The servicing on this debt is the highest per capita in Africa, or 63.8% of export income. Between 1989 per capita gross national product (GNP) fell each year, with the exception of 1985. For the 1987-1989 period the fall was 20%.4 While investments were 18% of GNP in 1980, in 1989 they were 6%.S Industrial production rose by 11.7% per year between 1973 and 1980, but from 1980 to 1987 it fell by 2.4% each year.6
From 1981 to 1987, the purchasing power of state employees fell by a fifth.? Poverty has become widespread and inequalities have sharpened. The income of planters of cocoa and coffee - the country's two main cash crops — has fallen by 75% in the past two years. A third of the workforce is unemployed. Between 1980 and 1984 consumption per inhabitant of meat and fish fell by 20%. Investment in health and education has fallen by an average of 2.8% per year since 1978 while the population, of which 70% is less than 20 years old, has been growing by some 4.4% per annum. 1°
This catastrophe has taken place in a country which "administers, with a docility which is in many respects remarkable, the adjustment programmes prescribed by the providers of funds, in particular the IMF" and where the World Bank has applied what is "doubtless its most thoroughly worked out programme" of all those in operation in Black Africa "with the aim of profoundly changing the domestic economic environment."11
It is now fashionable to indict the corruption and mismanagement of the Third World elites, who have led their countries to bankruptcy.!? The Ivory Coast's president of 30 years, Félix HouphouëtBoigny, who has had a new capital built in his native village of Yamoussoukro, including a basilica costing an estimated $280m1 inaugurated by the Pope, is certainly a good example. However this same Houphouët-Boigny and his Democratic Party of the Ivory Coast (PDCI), the only one permitted until 1990, are largely products of colonialism, retaining to this day the support of France, the former colonial power. "The main guarantee of the security of the state continues to be a French military base and the frequent joint FrancoIvorian military manoeuvres."14 Moreover, the model of economic growth which led up to the crisis which erupted at the end of the 1970s was put in place "just after independence and in the following
THE IVORY COAST is considered a model country by the IMF and World Bank. In the 1960s and 70s it opened up to foreign investments and growth based on agricultural exports. In the 1980s, it willingly applied the
IMF and World Bank's stabilization and adjustment programmes. This makes the country a good example of the real effect of the IMF and
World Bank's remedies, all the more in that, more than ten years after the signing of the first structural adjustment programme, *the most recent measures announced by the Ivory Coast's authorities are no more than a very detailed repeat of the original programmes."2 J-F. MARQUIS two decades. "15
In the 1960s and 70s, agricultural products made up more than 80% of the Ivory Coast's exports. Despite attempts to diversify, coffee and cocoa, on which some 400,000 farmers and their families depend, have remained the main cash crops (78% of agricultural exports in 1982). 16 The fragility stemming from this dependence on two products became clear when their world market prices began to fall' in 1978. The Ivory Coast's economy immediately slumped into cri1. John Loxley: "The IMF, the World Bank, and Sub-Saharan Africa: Policies and Politics" in K. J. Havnevik (ed.), "The IMF and the World Bank in Africa", 2. Marchés tropicaux, June, 21, 1991, pp. 1525-1574. 3. "Africa South of the Sahara", London, Europe publications, 1991, pp. 414-434 and Marchés tropicaux, 4. Michael Hood, "Economies of Africa", London, 5. Africa Confidential, April 22, 1991. 6. Africa Recovery, June 1990. 7. Ngha Nguyen and Harmut Schneider: "L'emploi en période d'ajustement: le cas du secteur modeme en Côte d'Ivoire" in Revue Tiers Monde, April-June, 1991, p. 353. 8. Africa Confidential, op. cit. 9. Gilles Duruflé: "L'ajustement structurel en Afrique,
ECONOMICS / IVORY COAST sis.
The trade in these two products is controlled by the Caistab (the Fund for the Stabilization and Support of the Prices of Agricultural Products), another colonial inheritance. Paying the planters a price fixed in advance, it did not transfer all of the increase in cocoa and coffee prices of the 1970s to the basic producers. This was a period therefore of strong growth for the exporters, whose profits margins were guaranteed, and also a build-up of funds in the coffers of the Caistab. On the basis of this income, the state entered upon a vast investment programme (22% of GDP in 1977), involving heavy borrowing, and the long-term foreign debt rose from 26% of GDP 1975 to 55% in 198118.
### Social polarization
Furthermore, the Ivory Coast has remained marked by the type of social polarization consolidated and remodeled by the colonial power. In 1986, the richest 10% of the population took 36% of income.19 The rich coffee and cocoa planters, often absentees, form the historic backbone of the Ivory Coast elite. Their control of the state and of the trade in coffee and cocoa were the historical basis of their wealth. On the other hand the poorest 20% had to make do with 5% of the income (this figure from the World Bank under-estimates the reality, as studies have shown). 2 Among the most deprived are the immigrant workers, notably the Burkinabés, who provide the extremely poorly paid labour force for the cultivation of coffee and cocoa. These immigrants make up more than a quarter of the country's population.21
This social polarization, with its income distribution, its structure of demand (consumption model) and supply (type of investments) tied to the world economy, has had big consequences in terms of economic development.
A portion of investments have been devoted to infrastructures that benefit the Sénégal, Côte d'Ivoire, Madagascar", Paris, Karthala, 1988, p. 121. 10. Marchés tropicaux, June 21, 1991. 11. Gilles Duruflé, op. cit., p. 141 and p. 115. 12. See the article "Deux ou trois choses que l'on sait d'elles" by Charlotte Feller-Robert in Domaine public, no. 1053, September 26, 1991. 13. International Herald Tribune, February 10, 1989. 14. "Africa South of the Sahara", op., cit. 15. G. Duruflé, op. cit., p. 141. 16. Ibid, p. 94 17. Richard C. Crook: "Politics, the Cocoa Crisis and Administration in Côte d'Ivoire" in The Journal of Modern African Studies, June 1990, pp. 649-669. 18. Marchés tropicaux, op. cit., p. 1527. 19. World Bank: Washington, 1990. "Report on world development", 21 20. Ibid.
International Viewpoint #217 • November 25, 1991
ECONOMICS / IVORY COAST Ivory Coast elite and their European managers. Such investments have nothing to do with the country's long-term development needs, not to speak of the population's elementary social needs.
The attempts industrialization through import substitution have foundered on the limitations of the internal market, whose "reinforcement... depends on the... structuring of demand according to income; the more income is concentrated, the less mass consumption exists."?2 At the same time, agricultural exports, controlled by foreign firms, have started off any cumulative process of industrialization; without even mentioning what type of industrialization is appropriate for the country.
The concentration of income has increased the import of consumer goods and favoured capital flight. In the 1970s, up to 7% of GDP was transferred in the form of private income abroad.23
At the time of the fall in raw material prices, the Ivory Coast was heavily in debt, while its investments had not created a new sector capable of raising the hard currency needed to pay these debts. Thus, the need to have recourse to the IMF and World Bank was effectively written into the development model proposed by the North and adopted by the Ivory Coast elite.
An agreement with the IMF was signed in 1981 and has been routinely prolonged since then. Three structural adjustment loans were agreed with the World Bank in the 1980s and a fourth has been under negotiation since autumn 1989.
Ten years of IMF medicine
Ten years of taking the IMF medicine have led only to "the management of stagnation, whereby, from re-financing to refinancing, austerity grows, the costs of the adjustment rise, and the country disinvests, progressively undermining its productive and organizational capacity and compromising, through the constant downward pressure on health and education spending, its human capital.*24 New lending to the Ivory Coast by commercial banks shows the confidence of these latter in the ability of the IMF's remedies to produce a new cycle of growth.2 These loans fell from $634m in 1980 to $22m in 1988 and $1m in 1989. This is a damning verdict on the IMF/WB programmes.
Why have they failed? To extract the surpluses needed to repay the debt, the IMF and WB have promoted increased exports and austerity mesures.
For an initial period, the WB's options (raising of prices for producers, improvement in communications and so on) stimulated coffee and cocoa production. But the market for these products is saturated, not only due to the appearance of new producers (such as Malaysia in the case of 22 cocoa) but also because the same remedies have been applied to other exporting countries, such as neighbouring Ghana. Furthermore, the Ivory Coast's production of cocoa is so dominant on the world market (with 35% of world production) that growth in production in that country is in itself sufficient to tip the price balance. In 1986 the collapse happened, and since then the country has been in an unprecedented financial crisis. At the explicit demand of the IMF the price paid to coffee and cocoa producers has been drastically lowered.26
The other export crops have not been any substitute - they too are not spared the saturation of markets. Only the wood industry has shown signs of life after a long decline, under the impulse of the
This "viable forestry project... may well result in an acceleration of the cutting down of trees and of de-forestation" in a country where the tropical forest, which covered 15 million hectares less than 30 years ago, now covers 1 million hectares. Once again we see the gulf that separates the scenarios of the IMF and WB from the reality of their effects.
Industry, which was to be stimulated by freeing of trade, export incentives and privatization, has gone the same way. Public investment has collapsed and can thus no longer play the motor role for private capital it once did.
Given the generalized and lasting deflationary climate, private enterprise is hardly inclined to pick up the baton: "In present conditions, the appeal to the dynamism of private investment (and it is hard to see from where it will come) is at best nothing but a trick to hide public sector disinvestment."28
And can the IF's supporters find a single example where a country has industrialized without the state playing a leading role? The only beneficiaries of the new conditions have been food multinationals like Nestlé or Unilever, who have been able to extend their operations. But such implants do not act as a motor for the rest of industry; all that happens is that these firms strengthen their grip on the decisive sector of the Ivory Coast econo-
• Wealthy untouched
It is clear enough that "until now, welloff Ivory Coasters have hardly been affected by the austerity policies". Nor will this change. The new prime minister, A. D. Outtara, a former official for the IMF's Africa department, has rejected any mesures to combat capital flight, now estimated at very high levels.29
However these wealthy Ivory Coasters are a tiny minority of the 46% of the pop ulation that lives in the cities, of which 2.5 million (23%) live in Abidjan. 30 Here income distribution is even more unequal than in the rest of the country — in Abidjan the richest 10% get 42% of income. On the other hand, unemployment strikes hardest in the cities and price rises have the most brutal effects. Not surprisingly, studies reveal a marked growth in povert in Abidjan in the 1980s.31
At the same time misleading comparisons are made concerning the wages of the Ivory Coast's state employees - for example stating that teachers in the Ivory Coast earn as much as in Spain. In fact in the Ivory Coast every state employee sends significant sums to their community of origin, usually in the countryside. With the drop in their income by 35% between 1980 and 1988, studies have shown that 40% of state employees in Abidjan have obligations to their communities that are higher than their total income. 32
One can understand from this why the announcement in February 1990 of a new round of IMP-imposed austerity measures, involving wage cuts of between 11 and 40% in the state sector, led to the most serious popular protests since independence. Repression followed, but regime had to retreat and effect a limited
Ten years after signing its first agreement with the IMF, the Ivory Coast is more than ever strangled by debt. In 1988 and 1989, its overall negative transfers to the World Bank rose to $298m.33 The country's dependency has been rein-
This is true with respect both to the multinationals who fight for control over the country's cocoa trade and to the World Bank itself which "is now intervening directly to remodel according to its lights the direction of the nation's choices in such crucial areas as education, insertion in the international environment, and the role of the state in development."35
Nonetheless, the minimal conditions for the economy to take off again are not being created and indeed, are not among the IMF's objectives.
Such a renaissance would require: the cancelling of the debt and the granting of new credits; an improvement in raw material prices; and the creation of a real internal, national and regional, market which could provide a base for cooperation in production. * 21. "Africa South of the Sahara", op. cit. 22. G. Duruflé, op. cit., p. 136. 23. Ibid. 24. Ibid. 25. "'World Debt Tables", 1990- 1991. 26. Africa Confidential, op. cit. 27. Lester R. Brown: "L'Etat de la planète, 1991", Paris 1991, p. 286, and New Scientist, June 11, 1987. 28. G. Duruflé, op. cit., p. 144.
29. Africa Confidential op. cit., and Financial Times, October 10, 1990. 30. "Africa South of the Sahara", op. cit. 31. Claudine Vidal: "Quand les petits deviennent des abe" in Politique Africaine, September 1990, pp. 32. Marie-France Jarret and François Régis Mathieu: "Ajustement structurel, croissance et répartition: l'exemple de la Côte d'Ivoire" in Revue Tiers Monde, January-March 1991. 33. "World Debt Tables", 1990-1991.
34. Agefi, September 17, 1991.
35. G. Duruflé, op. cit., p. 145