UN study urges overhauling international policy approach to African development

Calling for a major overhaul in the international policy approach to African development, a United Nations study released today says new initiatives must be accompanied by outside aid, debt relief and access to global markets.

From Adjustment to Poverty Reduction: What is New?, produced by the UN Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD), reviews over two dozen recent strategy papers by international financial institutions on African development and finds “no fundamental departure” from the past approach which left the poor vulnerable to macroeconomic policies. While the papers do acknowledge the need for social safety nets to protect the poor, they fail to adequately incorporate these concerns into overall development policies.

UNCTAD warns against “quick poverty fixes” that redirect government spending to health and education at the expense of other types of public investment. While welcoming the attention given to raising social development standards, the study cautions that calls for user fees in health and higher education “suggest a misplaced faith in markets as the fairest way to deliver on these goals.”

The strategy papers emphasize improving governance as a prerequisite to sustained growth. In response, UNCTAD cautions that “there should be no illusions” about the pace of institutional improvement, “nor should there be any doubt” that imposing common standards on countries would be counterproductive.

“The idea that fighting corruption by diminishing government resources and responsibilities is off-target,” the study warns, calling for “a focus on quality government, not smaller government.”

Introducing the study at a press conference in New York, UNCTAD Secretary-General Rubens Ricupero welcomed the renewed emphasis on poverty reduction by international financial institutions. “We think they are very much aware of the need for economic growth as one of the preconditions for fighting poverty, and we find much to share with them in terms of the need to balance international support with good national policy, with good governance. We are [also] in favour of the idea of improving access to primary education and public health care – all those points are very positive.”

At the same time, he said when UNCTAD closely examined the poverty reduction strategy papers, they were not substantially different from past approaches, continuing an overemphasis on conditionalities, or provisions tied to aid.