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Structural Adjustment, Trade Liberalisation and Women's Yvonne Preiswerk et Anne Zwahlen (dir.) Les silences pudiques de l'économie Économie et rapports sociaux entre hommes et femmes Graduate Institute Publications Structural adjustment, trade liberalisation and women’s enjoyment of their economic and social rights Mariama Williams Kamara DOI: 10.4000/books.iheid.6025 Publisher: Graduate Institute Publications Place of publication: Graduate Institute Publications Year of publication: 1998 Published on OpenEdition Books: 9 August 2016 Serie: Genre et développement. Rencontres Electronic ISBN: 9782940503742 http://books.openedition.org Electronic reference WILLIAMS KAMARA, Mariama. Structural adjustment, trade liberalisation and women’s enjoyment of their economic and social rights In: Les silences pudiques de l'économie: Économie et rapports sociaux entre hommes et femmes [online]. Genève: Graduate Institute Publications, 1998 (generated 10 décembre 2020). Available on the Internet: <http://books.openedition.org/iheid/6025>. ISBN: 9782940503742. DOI: https://doi.org/10.4000/books.iheid.6025. STRUCTURAL ADJUSTMENT, TRADE LIBERALISATION AND WOMEN’S ENJOYMENT OF THEIR ECONOMIC AND SOCIAL RIGHTS Mariama WILLIAMS KAMARA December 10, 1998 marks the fiftieth anniversary of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR) which affirmed the essential dignity and integrity of human beings and their entitlement to the means necessary to promote and pro- tect human dignity. The UDHR recognized that human dignity and integrity could be impaired by political, social and economic factors such as restrictions on self expression, torture, racism, sexism, hunger, homelessness and deprivation of other basic necessities of life. It thus recognized the crucial and inextricably intertwine between civil and political rights and economic and social rights. Cold war tensions and malingering on the part of the Western States resulted in the division of these two sets of rights into what was supposed to be two separate but equal covenants on human rights: the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICPR) and the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights (ICESCR). However, in spite of the rhetoric of interdependence and indivisibility between civil, cultural, economic, political and social rights, today, ICPR has become the embodiment of human rights while ICESCR has been treated as the unattractive step-sister. Therefore, unlike ICPR, ICESCR does not have a cohesive, compre- hensive or recognisable framework but rather exists as bits and pieces of pro- grammatic objectives which states may treat as negotiable and which therefore can be withdrawn and otherwise compromised. Other bits and pieces of it have been informally shunted unto the portfolios of the many specialised agencies. For example, the ILO tackles issues such as minimum wage, social security, etc. while UNDP and the World Bank focus on poverty eradication and human deve- lopment, with WHO specialising in health. Since these agencies have no clear mandate with regard to economic and social rights, some of them, most notably the World Bank, have shifted from basic needs and poverty eradication (1960s’s) to structural adjustment (1980s) which effectively contravened the results of prior efforts. Today poverty eradication is back on the agenda of the World Bank. However, the current focus on poverty might simply work to offset the injurious effects of structural adjustment programs (SAPs), and, without careful monito- ring, may not lead to real advances in social development or the achievement of its stated objective – the elimination of poverty. In the current political and social climate of extreme market liberalism, trade liberalism and corporatism, there is even greater danger of further marginalisa- tion of economic and social rights. This is because renewed emphasis on the free market, free trade and a pecuniary notion of competition/competitiveness is crea- ting polarisation between efficiency and equity (Scaperlanda, 1990). This polarisation between efficiency and equity accepts the initial distribution of resources within and between countries and believes that the market (and free trade) generates an optimal distribution of resources and capabilities (Neuberger, 1993). This neo-liberal economic, political and social paradigm is biased towards a particular kind of individual freedom, fervently holds to a pecuniary version of economic freedom (Scaperlanda, 1990), and preaches the unquestioned benefits of specialisation. In practice, corporate rights are valued over human life, and there is very little respect for human dignity. There is also an unwillingness to acknowledge that there might be untoward consequence associated with its single-minded focus on market forces. The International Monetary Fund (IMF), the World Bank (WB) and the World Trade Organization (WTO), in their role as promoters of international economic order and co-ordinators for coherence in international policy-making, constitute the powerful triad that is facilitating the re-orienting and re-structuring of the world economy along this neo-liberal line. It is therefore important that careful attention be paid to the activities of these institutions and their implications for the economic and social rights of men and women. Thus the international human rights system must start examining the issue of agency, and call to account those actors who create, perpetuate and are complicit in the violations of economic and social rights. Poverty and deprivation are not caused by irrational choice or by lack of individual effort. Rather the agents are clearly identifiable. They are: governments and their choices of investment, social, trade and macroeconomic policies; international financial and trade insti- tutions (World Bank, IMF, WTO and regional development banks); transnational corporations and other actors in the international and domestic credit and money markets. These are the same actors who to different degrees are associated with the lack, or the violations, of civil and political rights. The rest of this paper is a tentative examination of the economic and social rights implications of both the Structural Adjustment Programs of the IMF and the World Bank and the trade liberalisation agenda of the WTO ; particular attention is paid to their impact on women’s economic and social rights. Section one pre- sents a brief overview of structural adjustment programs, drawing out implica- tions for economic and social rights, while section two examines in great details the trade liberalisation process and its implications for women’s social and eco- nomic advancement. The concluding section draws some parallels between the reinforce effects of structural adjustment and trade liberalisation and the impli- cations for social and economic rights. Structural Adjustment and Economic and Social Rights IMF programmes and policies since the emergence of the external debt crisis of the 1970s can be summed up into two words: “contain” and “secure”. As a result, the structural adjustment programmes implemented by both the Bank and the Fund have straitjacketed governments and blocked their ability to provide mea- ningful social welfare programmes to meet the needs of the most vulnerable in society. To a certain extent SAPs not only have led to governments’ inability to protect, promote and fulfill social and economic rights but may itself violate these rights. Between 1980 and 1989 there were a total of 241 World Bank/IMF structural adjustment programmes implemented in Africa (Bangura, 1994). Yet recent evi- dence show that at best only a modest growth of about 2.5 per cent occurred bet- ween 1980 and 1991, and that no significant difference exists between the grow- th rates of 1980-1985, when the programmes were being launched, and 1985- 1991, the period when the reforms were expected to yield greater positive results (Bangura, 1994). Apart from ensuring the continued flow of debt service to forei- gn creditors, the other major thrusts of SAPs (especially in Latin America and the Caribbean) have been to further re-orient the economies of heavily indebted eco- nomies towards the global market and to create the conditions for further pene- tration of foreign capital in core parts of the economy. Anatomy of Structural Adjustment Programmes Typically, SAPs involve a five pronged attack of 1) devaluation; 2) assorted free market policies, market determined prices, elimination of subsidies on basics, a freeze on wages, elimination of restrictions on the movements of capital; 3) cuts in government spending; 4) privatisation; and 5) export promotion. Devaluation increases domestic inflation, worsens the terms of trade and causes food prices to skyrocket. Free market engineering worsens this effect as it causes both prices and profits to spiral upwards even as wages and real income stagnate. This coupled with weakened social services, the closure of schools, hospitals, health clinics and the sale of government enterprises also wreaked havoc fragile social and economic environment. Cuts in government spending which are part and parcel of SAPs usually have their most dramatic effect on social services. There are direct effects on employment as well when budget cuts result in civil servants layoffs. Privatisation reduces government assets and control of vital sectors of the economy and opens them to market competition. Too often, this bring about ownership by foreign capital, and capitalisation, of key industries. Generally, privatisation is promoted as the most
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