structural adjustment

Syllable breakdown

Dictionary meaning

a set of economic policy reforms — including trade liberalisation, privatisation of state enterprises, deregulation of markets, fiscal austerity, and currency devaluation — imposed on developing countries as conditions for receiving loans from the International Monetary Fund and World Bank during the 1980s and 1990s; structural adjustment programmes were extensively applied across sub-Saharan Africa and produced profound social consequences including cuts to public health and education spending, the dismantling of agricultural marketing boards that had supported smallholder farmers, and the weakening of infant industries; while proponents argued they restored macroeconomic stability and long-run growth, critics — including Joseph Stiglitz and African scholars such as Thandika Mkandawire — argued they deepened poverty and set back human development by a generation