The IMF, the World Bank and Reconstruction in Uganda

Abstract

A recurring theme in critiques of the IMF and World Bank policies for stabilisation and adjustment is that such policies undermine national economic integration and self-reliance by promoting the greater internationalisation of trade and capital flows.¹ At issue here is the question of the appropriate strategy of economic development and the extent to which countries borrowing from the international institutions to manage immediate crises forfeit control over choice of long term economic strategy. Critics contend that integration into the international economy on the basis of static comparative advantage exposes Third World countries to instability and to constrained long term growth possibilities. IMF and IBRD policies of reducing state intervention in the economy and of allowing market forces and world prices to dictate resource allocation serve, it is claimed, to reassert the logic of the (in Africa’s case) colonial division of labour and promote the interests of international capitalism at the expense of the ordinary people of the Third World. The Fund and the Bank are seen, therefore, as agents of imperialism whose role is that of ensuring the most favourable conditions for the accumulation of capital at the international level. Government dealing with them are seen, in the extreme, as conspiring against the best interests of the people they claim to serve.²