CONTENTS | ANB-BIA HOMEPAGE | WEEKLY NEWS
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Kenya |
ECONOMY
Policies pursued by the IMF and the World Bank do not encourage economic development.
A look at Kenya’s predicament
Deep in the plains of Kano, along the shores of Lake Victoria in Kenya’s Kisumu district, Atieno and other members of her village, still struggle to contend with the annual floods that normally wreck their crops and affect their harvests.
In Kenya, where poverty levels are estimated to affect 56% of the population, most of the poor living on less than a dollar a day, are found mainly in the rural areas and in small communities originating from the same rural areas, in urban areas.
Atieno and her fellow villagers are subsistence farmers, producing just enough food to feed their families. However, they would like to produce enough cash crops to provide extra cash for their families and improve their standard of living. Their area was once designated as a rice-growing area by the National Irrigation Board. But these days, there’s no more rice, following the collapse of the irrigation system.
What’s going wrong?
Firstly, the irrigation infrastructure has collapsed because of protracted leadership wrangles, on-going farming problems and the unreliable climate. Secondly, since the early 1990s, Kenya has had to accept the World Bank-imposed Structural Adjustment Programmes to enable the government access credit. These Programmes do not always take into account local needs. Thirdly, in the past, farmers were able to rely on the presence of government agricultural officers who came at regular intervals to offer their advice on when to plant and what seeds to use — a kind of master-servant relationship. Now, it’s up to the farmers to take the initiative and ask for help from the Ministry of Agriculture. And they’re not always prepared to do this. The fact is, most farmers have never really embraced modern agriculture methods. They still prefer traditional way of farming. This is because in most instances they find modern farming methods very expensive and unsustainable, taking into account their increasing levels of poverty. Because of past ways of doing things, farming communities tend to wait for government officers to «bring» development to them — and they wait in vain.
Farmers also have to contend with the fact that the government over the years has embraced a liberalization policy vis à vis the agricultural sector. This policy has increasing exposed the farmers’ products to undue competition from heavily subsidized products coming from developed countries.
It is possible nowadays to find products like eggs and oranges from South Africa, being sold more cheaply than Kenya’s own products. These countries have the superior advantage of subsidies and marketing strategies that their governments have deployed in order to get markets for their products. Because of this, Kenyan farmers have either to contend with lowering their prices to match those of imported products, or simply not produce them because they can’t get good prices.
Cost-sharing
Professor Yash Tandon is Director of the International Southern and Eastern African Trade Information and Negotiation Initiative (SEATINI). He maintains that developing countries have to contend with imperialistic attitudes when negotiating for better trade terms. In a series of public lectures organized by Action Aid Kenya and the Henrich Boll Foundation, Professor Tandon said: «Trade in developing countries is heavily influenced by foreign domination, undemocratic domestic rule and the current global crisis of security and profitability. In most instances, Western European and Anglo-Saxon empires collude, in order to push for liberalization of trade and capital flows and restructuring of third world countries, markets and resources for their own benefit. The resultant burden is normally shifted to the weaker and more vulnerable members of society, and this is where the poor, who include a high percentage of women, meet with difficulties».
Because of the policies proposed by the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and the World Bank and adopted by those governments which need to access financial aid support, people such as Atieno, are now expected to have to make a formal request and then to pay for services granted, on a cost-sharing basis previously covered entirely by the government.
The fact is, there is little evidence that policies pursued by the IMF and the World Bank really encourage economic growth in poor countries.