Go to AfricaBib home

Go to AfricaBib home AfricaBib Go to database home

bibliographic database
Line
Previous page New search

The free AfricaBib App for Android is available here

Periodical article Periodical article Leiden University catalogue Leiden University catalogue WorldCat catalogue WorldCat
Title:The Politics of Economic Recovery: The Gambia's Experience of Structural Adjustment, 1985-94
Authors:Cooke, David
Hughes, ArnoldISNI
Year:1997
Periodical:Journal of Commonwealth and Comparative Politics (ISSN 0306-3631)
Volume:35
Issue:1
Period:March
Pages:93-117
Language:English
Geographic term:Gambia
Subjects:economic policy
Politics and Government
Economics and Trade
Development and Technology
External link:https://doi.org/10.1080/14662049708447740
Abstract:A majority of those in the academic and nongovernmental development communities not only contest the data presented by the World Bank and the IMF and the appropriateness of their criteria for successful structural adjustment, but also blame the arrogance and insensitivity of these institutions for many of the failed adjustment experiences. This article, based on a review of The Gambia's experience with structural adjustment between 1985 and 1994, adopts a more measured attitude towards intervention by the international financial institutions, arguing instead that not only did The Gambia's structural adjustment programme (SAP) rescue the economy from bankruptcy, achieve significant microeconomic reforms and avoid widespread deterioration in living standards, but it also owed its success to substantial technical support and advice offered by the international financial institutions. At the same time, recent events in The Gambia have cruelly exposed the limits of structural adjustment in small States with low administrative capacity, a series of exogenous shocks (suspension of cross-border trade by neighbouring Senegal and devaluation of the CFA franc) and one internal 'shock' (the military coup of July 1994) frustrating efforts to consolidate economic reform. The future of the country, then, remains uncertain. Notes, ref.
Cover