World Bank Development Policy: A SAP in SWAPs Clothing

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Steven J. Klees University of Maryland
Education and development rhetoric over the past decade has increasingly focused on the idea of partnerships as central to improving policy.Based on the need for more and better partnerships, sector wide approaches (SWAPs) to development activities have been adopted and extended by many agencies, especially the World Bank (henceforth The Bank).Many hope that partnerships like those associated with SWAPs will change the nature of two decades of neo-liberal economic policy in which Structural Adjustment Programs (SAPs) enforced by The Bank and the International Monetary Fund (henceforth the IMF or The Fund) wreaked havoc throughout the world.In this paper, I examine the current fervor with partnerships and their embodiment in the rhetoric surrounding SWAPs and The Bank's extension of SWAPs.While I use some of the literature specific to education in this analysis, the underlying problems with these partnerships can only be understood only by looking at their broader applications, which, unfortunately, are yielding development policies that will likely be as devastating to educational and social services as were the SAPs of the last two decades.

Partnerships
I am not able to think of a term that has so rapidly been diffused in development circles as "partnership."Partnership has been much easier to accept than earlier terms, like "empowerment" or "participation," which had to be co-opted from their original association with alternative, critical views of development theory and practice.There have always been joint undertakings, of course, but nowadays most projects have multiple partners, and almost no agency undertakes a project alone.A principal rationale for expanding partnerships has been the clear failure of even very successfullooking education and other social sector projects to be expanded to a scale where they can have a significant impact.In theory, partners working together can make this happen, through pooling resources and better coordination and management (King, 1999).
One of the most appealing elements of the rhetoric on partnering has been the idea of multilateral and bilateral aid agencies collaborating with NGOs and other civil society organizations, with the rationale of involving grassroots participation and local knowledge.However, we need to keep in mind that this partnering with NGOs began in the 1980s as a direct result of the ideological shift in the U.S. and the U.K. to neo-liberal policies that emphasized a diminished role for the public sector.Working with NGOs instead of governments became a part of the de-legitimization of government.While many NGOs continue to have very progressive agendas and staff, this major shift of The Bank and other aid agencies to financing programs through NGOs resulted in the creation of more right-wing NGOs, more cutthroat competition among all NGOs, and a more dominant role being played by international NGOs (Klees, 1998;Mundy, 1998;Nelson, 1995).
Today, there is almost nothing of the Bank's or other aid agencies that does not prominently feature partnership.The Bank's 1999) Education Sector Strategy report, its first official statement on education policy in two decades, devotes one whole chapter of the report (out of seven) to "Partnering: A World of Opportunities."They say: "The job of strengthening education is too big for any single institution" (p.17).The Bank proposes partnering with governments, parents and communities, NGOs and foundations, the private sector, teachers and teachers' organizations, and international, regional, and bilateral organizations.This is partnering with a vengeance: no one is left out.At least, almost no one--The Bank's willingness to partner with teacher unions appears to be very limited.Teacher unions are only mentioned once in the entire report and that is where the Bank suggests that unions want "to maintain the status quo" and "can grind change to a halt" (p.3).In the chapter on partnerships, there is a section on teacher "organizations" which admits they must be given an opportunity to participate not only in implementing reform, but also in developing new programs.As in all cases of consultation with the civil society, however, the information provided, the views expressed and the interests represented by the various participants must be weighed in the balance --with the ultimate decision being a political one.The interests of teachers, as workers, have to be considered in relation to the preeminent interests of students and their parents, as consumers (p. 19).No other potential "partner" is singled out for such a caution, and "consultation" is not partnership.While civil society features prominently in Bank rhetoric in this report and elsewhere, note that the report gives it the same caution and consultative role as teacher organizations.Despite these reservations, The Bank is pleased to tell critics that they are working with progressive civil society groups, for example, their well-publicized partnership with Oxfam (2000) in the "Education Now" campaign, or even that they are quietly holding indirect talks with the Zapatistas.
The most notable education partnership of the 1990s, "Education for All" (EFA), has demonstrated some of the key problems with partnership fervor.With almost the whole world as partners, EFA has, at best, had very modest results, and some would call it an "abject failure" (King, 2000;Torres, 2000;Bennell, 1999, p. 1).Halfway though the decade, The Bank was a leading player in the surprisingly uncontested shifting of most EFA goals from the year 2000 to 2015 (Development Assistance Committee, 1996).With all these partners, no one is to blame, failure is unfortunate, and we move on to the next decade.
The partnership fervor has also stifled critique, debate, and alternatives.Prior to EFA, Bank policies were constantly and openly challenged by major aid agencies--for example, it was UNICEF that gave us Structural Adjustment with a Human Face in the 1980s (Cornia, Jolly, and Stewart, 1987).Since the formation of global EFA partnership, this has visibly changed.Formerly vocal critics of The Bank and its policies, like the Canadian and Scandinavian aid agencies, UNICEF, and UNDP may still offer criticisms, but much more softly and privately.Partnership has also softened the critical voices of many NGOs and other civil society organizations.

SWAPs and Their Offspring
Sector wide approaches (SWAPs) got their start at The Bank as SIPs (Sector Investment Programs).A genuine SWAP is supposed to have six features: be sector-wide; based on a clear and coherent policy framework; local stakeholders are supposed to be fully in charge; all main donors must agree to it; implementation must be developed jointly; and it should depend on local capacity, not technical assistance (Jones, 2000;Buchert, 1999;Harold and Associates, 1995).In theory, the SWAP seems to be simple logic--all donors are supposed to work together in a country with the government and other local stakeholders to come up with a joint educational or other sectoral plan and cooperate to achieve more relevant and effective policies, more efficient management, and larger scale outreach through the pooling of resources.
In practice, few applications of SWAPs are documented and those that are do not remotely meet the six conditions above (Jones, 2000;King, 1999).The Bank now admits to "overoptimism," that SWAPs must "now be seen realistically as a long-term ideal" (Jones, 2000, p. 276).The real consequence of SWAPs is that forcing consensus on a sector program makes donor power stronger and more monolithic.Aid recipients become even less able to find space to follow their own agendas, which they do now, for example, by taking advantage of the different agendas of donors, sometimes playing one donor off against another.Moreover, the donor community is a world of very unequal power.Coordination easily becomes control.The donor community itself is worried about these issues.Roger Iredale (1999, p. 50), formerly of the United Kingdom's Overseas Development Authority, is "concerned about the concentration of power implicit in SWA [Ps]."Wim Hoppers, of the Netherlands Government Development Cooperation, talks about the resulting "concentration of the grip that we as Northernbased agencies have on poor countries' education systems" (1999, p. 31).Moreover, The Bank sometimes slips and actually puts in print the agenda that Iredale, Hoppers, and many others, fear.In discussing its comparative advantages as an aid agency it points out that "The Bank can use its position as the largest external source of funds in most developing countries to encourage other partners to contribute to priority activities" (World Bank, 1999, p. 21).That is, its priority activities.
Based on the SWAP idea, the rhetorical touchstone of current Bank development policy is its "Comprehensive Development Framework" (CDF).The CDF is Wolfensohn's brainchild, initially proposed by him in 1995, soon after he became president.It is supposed to be "a holistic approach to development," based on developing a crosssector, long-term vision and plan.It needs to be "owned" by the country, but based on consultation and partnership with all stakeholders.A key feature of the CDF is that "(…) social concerns [are] treated equally (…) with macroeconomic and financial concerns."It is "designed to be a means of achieving greater effectiveness in reducing poverty" (World Bank, 2000b, p. 21).It is also designed to move countries towards a broad range of other outcomes, such as: clean governance; participatory democracy; universal primary education and strong secondary and tertiary systems; a health system focused on family planning and childcare; expanded social services and safety nets; and environmental protection (World Bank, 1999, p. 6;World Bank, 2000b, p. 21).
Although the CDF idea has been around The Bank for four or five years, it still has little more content than the paragraph above.From the way reports are written and how The Bank staff have talked about the CDF over the last several years, I infer that no one has a good idea of what it means.The latest CDF proposal (Wolfensohn, 1999) is still labeled a "discussion draft" and just talks about how improvements are needed in all sectors and how an exhaustive list of partners must be involved.On paper, The Bank (1999, p. 20) says CDF is "a compass --not a blueprint" and that they are still "exploring" CDF (p.44) or engaging in "pilot efforts to operationalize it" (p.x).They are supposed to be "testing" it in a number of countries, but progress reports show little progress (World Bank 2000a).
No wonder!The CDF idea is SWAP writ even larger.This would be a SWAP that includes all sectors, all the international agencies, all governmental Ministries, and all the endless other partners to map out a long-term development vision and operational plan!This, in a world where for decades we have been trying unsuccessfully to do "simple" things like getting the education and health sectors to work together, within a country or even within The Bank.And, of course, with The Bank leading this CDF effort, contrary to the stated intent, country ownership becomes more problematic.The Bank's "comparative advantage" vis-à-vis its many partners, including the country itself, gives it unprecedented power over fashioning a global long-term development vision and plan.
While, at least for the moment, CDF is more illusory than real, its essence is incarnated in the new and very real Poverty Reduction Strategy (PRS) process.PRS has grown out of a number of complex social and institutional changes.Most directly, neo-liberal development policy, ethnocentrically, but perhaps accurately, referred to as the Washington Consensus, has been declared a failure (although many would say it has been a resounding success for big business).The economic crisis in Southeast Asia caused very serious damage to the IMF's image as global development architect and The Bank has tried to rush in to fill that gap.In the accompanying melee of institutional infighting and larger political processes, the PRS process was born as a new approach to development policy.
At the 1999 meetings of the World Bank Group, it was agreed that henceforth, before The Bank or The Fund begin any work in a country, they must--jointly--begin with a PRS paper (PRSP), which lays out a plan "to foster growth and reduce poverty" that will serve as a basis for future work (World Bank, 2001b).This PRSP, like the SWAP and CDF, are supposed to be country owned, with the Bank and the Fund playing an advisory role, and they are supposed to be developed with the widespread participation of all stakeholders, from other donors to the grassroots organizations.The Bank's view of the PRSP framework is that it should ensure that the needs of the poor come first.[This will] require a true transformation of society, driven by the countries themselves [and which] must enjoy broad support from the true experts on poverty: the poor themselves.Armed with poverty reduction strategies, countries become masters of their own development with a clearly articulated vision for their future.(…) Countries are in charge, but they are not alone in the fight against poverty.(…) [T]he World Bank and IMF stand ready to provide support to governments in the development of their strategies without in any way predetermining the outcome or undermining country ownership.
I find it hard to believe that anyone can believe this rhetoric, including Bank staff.In practice, of course, PRSPs are nothing like this.While there was initial hope among many NGOs and other civil society organizations that this would be a fundamental change in the orientation and operation of the Bank and the Fund, there is now considerable disappointment, and even the Bank's own evaluations of PRSPs to date show little adherence to the principles proposed (World Bank, 2001b).Other evaluations of PRSPs have been extremely critical.Real participation in PRS processes was seen as non-existent and consultation was described as rushed, superficial, and half-hearted.PRSPs looked little different than the SAPs of the previous decade with the same limited attention to social sector "protection" and the same stringent loan conditions (ActionAid, 2001;Alexander, Grusky, and Dossani, 2001;Oxfam, 2001;Grusky, 2000).

Conclusions
The "partnerships" embodied in SWAPs, CDFs, PRSPs, and their ilk are touted as a key feature of the newly developing alternatives to the supposedly harsher neo-liberal, structural adjustment, policies of the 1980s and 1990s.The Washington Consensus has supposedly cracked and the search is on for a post-Washington Consensus (Stiglitz, 2001(Stiglitz, , 2000;;Gore, 2000;Korzeniewicz and Smith, 2000;Broad and Cavanagh, 1999).The rhetoric is now relentlessly focused on "pro-poor" policies.But pro-poor to The Bank still means pro-growth.The experience of the eighties and the nineties led many, including some at The Bank, to conclude that strategies to spur economic growth had made the rich richer, harmed the poor, and vastly increased inequality (Chossudovsky, 1998;Bello, 1994;George and Sabelli, 1994).Now, The Bank is publicizing "new research" explicitly to counteract this view, once again saying that economic growth is the route to the reduction of poverty and inequality.Bank staffers David Dollar and Aart Kraay's (2000) much-publicized paper is titled "Growth is Good for the Poor."Dani Rodrik (2000, p. 10), an IMF consultant and Harvard professor, writes: "The policies that promote growth are not that much different from those that target the poor directly (…)" The result so far has been a SAP in SWAPs clothing.PRSPs churn out the same failed neo-liberal policies of the eighties and nineties.What The Bank and The Fund continue to advocate is more openness to trade and foreign investment; less protection of domestic industry; laws that encourage "flexible" labor markets (i.e., weaken unions and employment safeguards); more emphasis on exports; macroeconomic stability; no new taxes; and small government through privatization, greater efficiency, and contained social sector budgets, but with some attention to protecting the poor--i.e., SAPs with a human face (World Bank, 2001a;Sachs, 2000;Dollar and Pritchett, 1998).
The only thing that seems different about today's policies from those of the past two decades is that they are wrapped in the holistic, participatory, partnership language of SWAPs, CDFs, and PRSPs.And the idea of participatory partnership has become allencompassing.Most mind-boggling is The Bank's publication of a new book Voices of the Poor (Narayan et al., 2000b), which purports to be a distillation of interviews with 60,000 poor people from around the world.As part of the PRSP process, something called a Participatory Poverty Assessments (PPAs) is sometimes conducted.The Bank and The Fund say they now recognize "the ability of the poor to make a valuable contribution to the analysis of poverty and are consulting them directly" through PPAs (Robb 2000, p. 20).Special attention is given to the voices of indigenous people.The Bank has a Website and publications, which try to "capture" their knowledge and use it to inform Bank policy and practice.
With everyone in the world as partners, no one has to take the blame, except perhaps, as usual, the country 1 .The Bank is careful to make clear that it is not responsible for policies that fail.In their Education Sector Strategy report (World Bank, 1999, p. viii), they say that the outcomes that programs are "designed to help achieve (…) are determined by many actors and factors beyond the control of The Bank."This shedding of responsibility combined with the insistence that it is the client, not The Bank, who makes the decisions, culminates in a blame-the-victim outlook, as reflected in the opening of the first chapter of the report: The stakes are high.The choices that countries make today about education could lead to sharply divergent outcomes in the decades ahead.Countries that respond astutely should experience extraordinary progress in education, with major social and economic benefits, including "catch-up" gains for the poor and marginalized.Countries that fail to recognize and respond risk stagnating or even slipping backwards, widening social and economic gaps, and sowing the seeds of unrest (p.1).
Presumably, The Bank will recommend the "astute choices" needed to avoid this frightening future.If the country does not follow them, they will not "catch-up" and "stagnate" or worse.If the country does follow The Bank's astute recommendations and still stagnates or worse, the unfortunate result is outside the control of the Bank and is not their responsibility.
Given this context, Catherine Odora Hopper of HSRC in South Africa writes: "There is no concept that can conjure up a more disturbing propensity for pretence than 'partnerships' in development cooperation at the close of this century" (1999, p. 19).Jesse Mugambi of the University of Nairobi, in an article entitled Partnership between lenders and beggars, writes: "Partnership is the wrong word to describe" relationships when "Africa's share of world trade is less than 2%" (1999, p. 16).
I recognize that there also is a progressive side to all the changes examined in this paper.The change in development rhetoric is important.Participation, empowerment, voices of the poor, and even partnership open more possibilities that the narrow language of economic efficiency.While I do not think there is much difference between the SAPs with a human face of the early 1990s and the PRSPs of today, there is some, certainly, in rhetoric.And perhaps the Washington Consensus has a bigger crack than it did a decade ago, leaving more room for alternatives to develop.Some recent sectoral policy announcements can be seen as positive, such as The Bank promising to not allow lack of resources be a barrier to achieving EFA goals or, after two decades of supporting user fees for basic education and health services, promising to work to eliminate them--if these promises do not prove to be as empty as past ones.The Bank has even set up (very small) divisions that focus on issues like child labor and street children.Within these divisions and others there are Bank staffers who disagree strongly with Bank policy and believe they can work within to achieve significant change.
Many local, national, and international NGOs are engaged in what has been termed "critical cooperation" with The Bank and The Fund, with the hope that it can lead to significant change within these institutions (Covey, 1999;Fox and Brown, 1999).There have been some positive results.NGOs have been instrumental in forcing both institutions to engage in consultations with civil society organizations in their operations, to change some of their policies, and to reduce some of the secrecy that surrounds many of their activities.NGOs have been able to keep the pressure on, in part, by publicizing quickly and disseminating widely the continued bad practices and harmful consequences of The Bank and The Fund (ActionAid, 2001;Alexander, Grusky, and Dossani, 2001;Mundy and Murphy, 2001;Oxfam, 2001;Selvaggio and Henriot, 2001;Grusky, 2000).While all of the actions and changes above have progressive potential, all of them also serve to legitimate a system that is still focused on the profits of business rather than the elimination of poverty, turning out SAPs under the guise of PRSPs.Progressive NGOs are quite aware of the difficult line they walk between cooperation, challenge, and confrontation, often doing all at the same time.I myself hold the most hope for increasing challenge and confrontation.The street protests over the past two years in Seattle, Washington, Chiang Mai, Prague, Seoul, Quebec and elsewhere cause anxiety within the Bank, put Wolfensohn on the defensive, and changed the rhetoric of heads of state.Neo-liberalism has fueled strong social movements of indigenous people, landless people, environmentalists, workers, students and others.These movements increasingly forge real partnerships and directly challenge global institutions and structures.
Alternative summits, like those recently held in Porto Alegre and Quebec, offer hope for more coordinated challenges to neo-liberalism and more attention to alternatives to it.In a world where the end of history and ideology has been proclaimed for a decade, it is hard to remember that there are a wide array of alternative economic and social policies that, for example: establish food security through subsidies; direct growth through government partnership with the private sector and NGOs; have strong participation of citizens in public decision-making; fund social services through progressive taxation combined with large North/South transfers via debt relief and other mechanisms; and develop new structures of ecological economics (Alliance for Responsible Trade, 2001;Wampler, 2000;Korten, 1998Korten, , 1994;;Edwards, 1999;Faux, 1996;Daly and Cobb, 1994;Amin, 1986).I wish to conclude by returning to education.Clearly, to me, we can have no serious educational progress without confronting the development issues raised here.The growing view of education as a human right puts this confrontation clearly on the table.The Bank, despite pressure from other UN agencies, refuses to recognize a basic right to education.Doing so would negate its instrumental and technical means-ends analysis of what is the "correct" amount of educational "investment" needed to achieve economic growth.Moreover, examining the obstacles to fulfilling a child's right to an education becomes even more subversive of the economic order.There is now a U.N. Special Rapporteur on the right to education, Katarina Tomaševski (2001), who writes of poverty as a human rights violation.This leads to discussions of the right to economic survival, the right to a sustainable livelihood.These issues tie educational progress to fundamentally revolutionary economic transformations.
As we move into the 21st century, we will need unprecedented cooperation and coordination from the local level to the global, simply to survive, let alone progress.Such change can be furthered by new partnerships, but not based on some unexamined and idealized "let's all do this together" idea.The concept of partnership, as generally used today, misses, and actually negates, the dissent, struggle, and collective action that are necessary to transform fundamentally unequal, unfair, and oppressive relations into partnerships of mutuality.

Note
As I was doing final editing on this article, the Washington Post (April 28, 2001) arrived with the headline on the first page of the business section: "World Bank Defends Policies: Leader Blames Poverty on Bad Governments."In response to a "small group of protesters" who "chanted anti-bank slogans outside" Wolfensohn "lashed back (…) at critics (…)." World Bank (2001a) . Poverty, growth and inequality.Understanding the debate.Available at: http://www.worldbank.org/html/extdr/pb/pbpovgrowth.htm.