"Structural Adjustment and Poverty Reduction: A Challenge for Sub-Saharan Africa for the 21st Century"

Tulane Institute for International Development (TIID) presents its
September Seminar under the 1999 Tulane International Development Seminar Series.

Speaker:
Dr. B. Essama-Nssah
World Bank

To  hear and view the seminar click here.

Sub-Saharan  Africa (SSA) is among the poorest regions of the world according to all  relevant  indicators  of  social well-being, and since the early 1980s most countries  in  this region have been experiencing a severe socioeconomic crisis. The  emergence  of this crisis in a region that is rich in natural resources and its  persistence  during  the  last decade suggest that development policies and strategies  have  been  either ineffective or poorly implemented, and raise the issue  of  the  impact  of Structural  Adjustment  Programs in the region. This presentation  is  a discussion of a framework for assessing the effectiveness of structural adjustment policies on poverty reduction, and its application to the case  of  SSA.   Dr.  Essama  Nssah  argues  that both  the initial development strategies  and  the Structural Adjustment Programs that followed them failed to reduce poverty in SSA because they were not imbedded in a fair and stable social contract.   The  real  challenge  faced by SSA governments and their development partners lies in building institutions capable of harnessing all energies within society  to  support  and  sustain  a continuous process of social and economic transformation guided by a vision of true human development.


About the Speaker:
Currently:
Economist in the Operations Evaluation Department of the World Bank working on forest policy issues.

Previously:
Economist in the Africa Region of the World Bank working on  the interface between macroeconomic policies and poverty.

Senior Research Associate with Cornell University Food and Nutrition Program working on the impact of Structural Adjustment on poverty in Africa.

Vice-Dean, Faculty of Law and Economics and Chairperson, Department of Economics, University of Yaoundé, Cameroon.

Lecturer, Department of Economics, University of Yaoundé : Taught International Trade, Mathematical Economics (Graduate level); Econometrics and Mathematics (Undergraduate level).