Economic and Food Policy Reforms

Abstract

Development strategy in Nicaragua underwent several important changes during the mid-1980s which were to have far-reaching economic, political and social implications. Less emphasis was placed on ‘development’, ‘growth’ and ‘modernization’. Rather, the government stressed the need to create a ‘survival economy’ geared towards defence and the production and provision of basic goods. This involved not only important changes in the structure of resource allocation but also in the composition of the dominant alliance; more specifically in relations between the state, on the one hand, and the peasantry and the ethnic groups of the Atlantic Coast on the other — relations which had become increasingly strained. Neither was the emphasis any longer on the rapid elimination of poverty and improvements in levels of living of the population in general. Instead, attention shifted towards defending the levels of living of specific social groups.