The IMF/World Bank programme in Zambia : its impact on food security

Abstract

This study analyses the impact of the Structural Adjustment Programme designed in the 1980s by the World Bank and for the most part by the International Monetary Fund (IMF) for the Republic of Zambia on that country's food security situation. Empirically, the study demonstrates that Zambia's food insecurity problems were exacerbated by the IMF/World Bank Programme. Moreover, it is demonstrated that the most vulnerable groups of Zambian society -- the rural and urban poor, and specifically women, children, and youth -- experienced the greatest deterioration of their food security condition. It is shown, contrary to the standard World Bank/IMF view, that Zambia's condition of crisis (as it unfolded in the late 1970s and early 1980s), came about as a result of factors which were exceedingly extrinsic to Zambia's control. Moreover, it is argued is that both the World Bank and especially the IMF neglected to consider these critical factors when writing out the prescription for Zambia's economic ailments. In so doing the Bretton Woods institutions assumed the leadership role in the package of forces that contributed to the deterioration of social conditions in the country -- notably the food security situation. The study concludes by drawing some general parallels between the case of Zambia and sub-Saharan Africa and by making some general observations and recommendations regarding IMF/World Bank adjustment programmes.