by Mike Mandebvu, Zimbabwe, 21 August 1997
THEME = STRUCTUR.ADJUSt.
The Bank's latest Country Assistance Strategy (CAS) document for Zimbabwe reads as if it was written for busy executives to read quickly - and reach conclusions that fuller information would show to be unjustified. Some of the fuller information is even hidden in the document itself.
For example, it states that Zimbabwe is doing well; life expectancy was higher in 1995 (at 58yrs) than in 1980 (56 yrs), and child mortality was lower in 1995 than in 1980, but admits that both indicators are worse now than when "adjustment" began in 1990. Employment growth has overtaken population growth in the '90s - true, but the growth has been in plantation agriculture, where the reported average wage is equal to the legal minimum, and that will not buy a quarter of a family's basic needs. Non-agricultural employment grew in the '80s almost as fast as population, but from 1990-95 grew 1.3% for a population growth of about 15%.
A recent Zimbabwe government study on the extent of poverty has its defects - true. It grossly under-estimates the extent of poverty among farm labourers. So the CAS document rejects the survey's estimate that 61% of the population are poor; repeats the error about farm labourers and pulls its own figure from a hat; 25%.
The CAS concludes that Zimbabwe has a rosy future in agriculture. Of course the production system needs to be "drought-proofed" before the next major drought, and a lot of people need to be resettled from poor and arid land, on to better soil. It is nice to know the Bank recognises the need for resettling the poor and landless, but unfortunately this is no longer Zimbabwe government policy, and anyway, it would require government interference with the market, on a scale the bank would not tolerate. The writers of the document could not have known what is already clear now, that the next major drought is likely to come in the 1997-8 season.
There were rumours of a World Bank plan for the de- industrialisation of Zimbabwe a few years ago. That is still being followed, if this CAS is anything to go by.
"Transparency" includes consulting selected NGOs, as representatives of civil society. Unfortunately, many NGOs only represent their donors. Those which try to represent a wider public, are less likely to accept invitations to a meeting with no agenda issued beforehand. One such was held in Addis Ababa in March, another in Abidjan in August. For the August meeting, invitees were encouraged to accept, by being told that named critics of structural adjustment from within Zimbabwe, were being invited, such as Dr.Ibbo Mandaza, director of the prestigious Southern African Political & Economic Series and its associated publishing house. This was not true. Although the list of invitees had been seen in the local office of the World Bank, they apparently were not issuing the invitations. So far it is not clear who did issue them.
This sounds like an effort to co-opt a few gullible NGOs to lend a semblance of credibility to the Bank's claim that it is consulting civil society, while in fact sidelining government institutions. True, the State has tried to control too much in the recent past, but it is an institution that society needs. If we are concerned with the welfare of the poorest and weakest, the State cannot be consigned to the scrapheap, but that is what the Bank seems to be trying to do.
END