Neo-liberal globalisation and its social consequences
The accelerated processes of globalisation that have characterised the last decade and a half in world history and the forces and interests that have emerged to dominate and propel them have brought to the fore a broad range of issues and concerns that touch directly on global and local-level equity and justice both generally as they pertain to the developmental experience and more specifically as they are being played out in the social sectors of which health and education occupy a place of prime importance.
Although, at one level, globalisation appears to promise a great deal of opportunity for progress and advancement, the process, in the way in which it has been shaped in the contemporary period, has also been accompanied, at another level, by a sharpening of socio-economic disparities and inequalities among nations and within countries. Evidence suggests that the main winners from globalisation represent a small and diminishing minority even as millions, including many who once formed part of or aspired for the middle class, have been pushed to the bottom of the social ladder into poverty and misery.
A plethora of explanations have been advanced as to why the process of globalisation has not been accompanied by social gains and has, instead, resulted in the erosion of some of the achievements recorded in an earlier phase of development. While some scholars point to the fact that the current experience of globalisation is driven by the narrow concerns of international financial investors with a strong short-term, speculative orientation that is inimical to the overall interests of the working poor and the real sectors of economies, others have suggested that the problems that have arisen are traceable directly to the neo-liberal ideological principles and doctrinal foundations on the basis of which the process of globalisation is being governed and which has resulted in the enthronement of a narrow and limiting market logic in the policy process.
There is clearly some truth in the various competing explanations which have been offered as to why the problem of inequality would seem to have worsened on the back of globalisation. But over and above these is the question of the state, particularly in the developing countries, and the erosion and delegitimation not only of its role in the developmental process but also the erosion of its broad policy planning and implementational capacities at the same time as the efforts at supplanting it with the private sector and/or non-governmental organisations have failed to live up to expectations.
When this is taken together with the fact that in the African context, the free market orientation of policy premised on deflationary macro-economic principles has failed to deliver growth and has instead widened the boundaries of poverty, it is easy to begin to understand why the problems of inequality and injustice have worsened. It is here, in my view, that the problem ought to be located in the first place.
The Making of the Post-Colonial African State and Social Policy:
The state, whether in developed or developing countries, played an important historical role as a social actor. The high point of the development of the social state came in the period immediately after the Second World War with emergence and spread of different variants of social democratic and welfare regimes in response both to popular domestic pressures by the working poor in Europe and as a direct response to the challenge of an ascendant socialism/communism most eloquently symbolized by the Bolshevik Revolution and its initial spread across Eastern Europe and Asia.
The post-War context of the consolidation of the social state coincided with the period of late colonialism which also witnessed for the first time in the colonial experience, a deliberate and conscious investment of effort in the promotion of “development” which included greater attention to the promotion of infrastructure, the nurturing of local industrial processing and the expansion of health and educational facilities and expenditure.
At independence, African states were, not surprisingly, invested with broad-ranging social responsibilities which were integral to the anti-colonial social contract on the basis of which the nationalist politicians mobilized the populace for the independence struggle. Central to the contract was the promise of the expansion of social policy in a direction which would significantly improve the health and nutritional status of the populace, expand access to education and offer greater opportunities for employment. African countries succeeded in varying degrees in achieving the goals which they defined: in the period to 1980, the livelihood prospects of the populace were generally improved - life expectancy maintained an upward trend even as child and maternal mortality showed improvements.
The expansionary economic policies which African governments pursued in the 1960s and 1970s had a great deal to do with the successes which they recorded. With growth rates averaging 5 to 7 per cent and star economic performers like Cote d’Ivioire and Kenya clocking up to 9 per cent average growth rates, it was possible to expand the social expenditure of the state particularly with regard to health and education. Policy was geared to promote the inclusiveness of marginal groups and subsidies were employed to improve the reach and coverage of the educational and health targets of the state.
To be sure, the post-colonial model of social policy formulation and implementation was not without its problems and some of the problems were to become sources of dysfunctionality that eventually weakened the effectiveness of policy and, eventually, the onset of socio-economic crises. Still, in comparison to the poor growth records of the 1980s and 1990s, the 1960s and 1970s seemed like golden years.
The Onset of Economic Crisis and the Age of Orthodox
The onset of the African economic crisis at the beginning of the 1980s triggered attacks on the social policies of the post-colonial state. While for most African governments, the immediate, almost instinctive response which they had to the crisis in their economies was to curb social expenditures as the core of the austerity measures which they adopted, this attack on the social sectors was carried further and transformed into a dogma in the context of International Monetary Fund/World Bank structural adjustment which had a deflationary, market-oriented thrust that saw and treated the post-colonial state as the problem and not a part of the solution.
The economic crisis management and reform strategy promoted by the IMF and the World Bank drew heavily from an ascendant global neo-liberalism which was one-sidedly anti-state and which was committed to “freeing” the forces of the market under the banner of “getting prices right”, curbing inflation, and promoting the private and/or non-state sector. The consequences of this crisis management strategy were many and devastating from the point of view of the health sector and the health status of the average Africa.
The shift in the structure of incentives which the structural adjustment framework represented and which consisted of efforts at shifting the locus of developmental activities away from the state to market also triggered a brain drain from the social sectors generally and the public health system in particular even as freshly qualified health personnel roamed the streets in many countries unable to find gainful employment.
The immediate post-colonial health system definitely had many problems but there was also a clear vision which underpinned it and which sought to improve livelihood and well-being. During the crisis and adjustment years, this vision was lost and the alternative that seemed to replace it was preoccupied primarily with winning the battle to roll back the frontiers of the state and enthrone the market.
Little initial attention was paid to ways in which the health gains that had been recorded in the lead up to and immediately after independence could be safeguarded. The consequence was that a chaotic situation prevailed in many countries in which the public health system was in a state of collapse and mired in all-round shortages of personnel, equipment and medicaments while the private/non-governmental health system such as it existed proved to be inadequate in many ways even as its services were priced beyond the reach of the working poor.
The decline which was registered in the health status of the average African was dramatic and alarming: diseases which were previously under control or which were well on the way to elimination resurfaced while life expectancy suffered reversals as maternal and infant mortality grew at the same time as the nutritional status of many households declined. The wider framework of economic reform and structural adjustment which was being pursued had clearly taken a toll on the health sector and combined with developments in the health system itself to send alarm bells ringing. Across Africa and the rest of the world, the case began to be made for adjustment with a human face.
The pleas for the modulation of economic reforms in order to give adjustment a human face led to the introduction of a series of interventions which came under the rubric of the social dimensions of adjustment. Overall, most of these programmes failed to achieve the objectives for which they were introduced and there is no greater evidence of this than the worsening of the problems of growing exclusion that they were supposed to help tackle.
The shallowness of the interventions was brought in sharp relief by the outbreak of the HIV/AIDS pandemic which the social dimensions of adjustment were simply unable to address and which accelerated at a time when the capacity of the state and of the public health system had been severely eroded.
Beyond Structural Adjustment and Towards the Social State:
One of the fundamental lessons from the failure of the social dimensions of structural adjustment to have an effect, and a factor which is equally relevant for the Poverty Reduction Strategy Papers (PRSPs) which have been put in place across Africa during the last two years, is that no progressive policy of social advancement can be successful if it is treated as a residual category to serve targeting needs even as the “serious” business of macro-economic policy-making is carried on without a clear social objective in mind.
To be truly effective, social policy must be an integral part of macro-economic policy-making, not a residual add-on. This can only be done if there is a conscious effort to avoid the decoupling of social policy from macro-economic policy formulation as has happened over the last two decades. Such an approach will require, as necessary, the harmonization of economic policies and instruments with the goal of social renewal and advancement built on foundations of equity and justice.
For macro-economic policy-making to succeed in advancing the frontiers of social policy in a manner that is equitable, just and inclusive, it would also require to generate growth without which it will not be possible to expand expenditure. The tragedy for Africa is that the structural adjustment years were characterized by a policy orthodoxy which, by its deflationary logic, stifled growth.
The quest for a social state will necessarily, therefore, involve a revisiting of the macro-economic fundamentals that inform policy with a view to effecting a radical shift from a growth-retarding orthodoxy to a growth-promoting heterodoxy. In sum, the rebirth of a social state in Africa will also simultaneously involve a re-thinking of policy in a direction that could promote what some have conceptualized as developmental democracies on the continent.
* Adebayo Olukoshi is Professor of International Economic Relations and currently the Executive Secretary of the pan-African Council for the Development of Social Science Research in Africa (CODESRIA), which is headquartered in Dakar, Senegal. The above article was based on speaking notes for an address delivered at the third Southern African conference on Equity in Health, Durban, South Africa, June 8 and 9 2004.
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* Click on the link below to read this editorial in Kiswahili.
Athari za utandawazi katika jamii ya Afrika
Na Adebayo Olukoshi
KASI ya msukumo kuelekea kwenye dunia ya utandawazi ambayo imejionyesha katika kipindi cha muwongo mmoja na nusu uliopita kwa hakika imebadili mwenendo wa historia ya dunia.
Msukumo na mbinu mbalimbali zinazotumika kuweka shinikizo la kuimarishwa kwa sera za utandawazi vimeibua pamoja na mambo mengine, namna mbalimbali za vitisho kwa watu wa kada zote za watu maskini duniani. Hofu hiyo inatokana na ukweli kuwa pamoja na athari zingine utandawazi unaelekea kudhoofisha hata huduma muhimu kwa maendeleo ya jamii, hasa sekta za afya na elimu.
Ingawa utandawazi kwa namna ya kificho unaonekana kama ndiyo sera kuu ya kuchochea maendeleo, utekelezaji wa sera hiyo umeandamana na ubaguzi mkubwa katika nyanja za uchumi kati ya mataifa na hata baina ya watu wa taifa moja.
Ni dhahiri kuwa katika sera hii ya utandawazi wanaofaidika ni kikundi kidogo sana cha watu na ambacho kadri utandawazi unavyokua ndivyo kinavyozidi kuwa kidogo zaidi na na kujiimarisha zaidi kwa kuchuja na kuwatupa mbali hata watu waliokuwa katika ile kada ya kati ya wana maendeleao. Kada hii pia kutokana na sera za utandawazi inajikuta ikiogelea katika kada ya chini iliyogubikwa na lindi la umaskini hohehahe.
Kuna hoja kadhaa zinaelezea ni kwa nini sera ya utandawazi haiendani na manufaa au mafao kwa jamii badala yake wanaofaidika ni watu wachache walioshika mpini wa kisu cha uchumi.
Wataalam wanasema hata mafanikio ambayo hapo awali yaliweza kupatikana kabla ya mfumo huu, sasa yameanza kumong’onyoka kutokana na nguvu ya utandawazi.
Utandawazi umeshindwa kukuza uchumi wa dunia kwa ujumla badala yake kuimarisha uchumi wa nchi ambazo tayari ni tajiri kwa sababu wawekezaji wa kimataifa wenye mitaji mikubwa wamejiwekea mikakati ya muda mfupi ya kujilimbikiza mali kwa kutumia sera ya utandawazi bila hata kujali maafa kwa mamilioni ya wavuja jasho maskini walioko sehemu mbalimbali duniani.
Kwa upande wa Afrika sera ya utandawazi inaizidishia mazonge kwani hata sera ya ubinafsishaji tu, ambayo ndiyo maandalizi ya utandawazi wenyewe tayari imesababisha mtafaruku kiuchumi na kupanua mwanya kati ya matajiri na maskini.
Ndiyo maana, iwapo tunataka kujadili mstakabali wa utandawazi ni vema kuanza kuijadili hofu inayoletwa na sera hiyo kwa njia ya ubinafsishaji unaoendela katika Afrika. Mabadiliko hayo yamesababisha kukosekana kwa haki na badala yake kukithiri kwa uonevu kuwezesha wenye nguvu za kiuchumi kuwapoka hata kidogo walicho nacho watu maskini.
Afrika yageuka koloni mamboleo
Dola, iwe katika nchi inayoendelea au nchi iliyoendelea ndiyo chombo kikuu kinachosimamia maendeleo na ustawi wa ya jamii ya dola hiyo.
Nguvu za dola zilijionyesha kwa wazi zaidi mara baada ya Vita Kuu ya Pili ambapo kulijitokeza aina mbalimbali za mihemuko ya maisha na hivyo kutakiwa kuwa na dola za kusimamia ustawi wa jamii hizo kutokana na maafa ya vita, hasa nchi za Ulaya ambako kuliathirika zaidi.
Kipindi hicho ndicho pia ambacho ukoloni ulikuwa ukifanya juhudi za maksudi kujaribu kuwekeza mitaji katika miundombinu zikiwemo barabara, viwanda na kupanuka kwa sekta za afya na elimu kwa malengo ya “maendeleo.”
Hata hivyo, halikuwa jambo la kushangaza baada ya uhuru wa nchi nyingi za Afrika kujikuta zikikabiliwa na majukumu mengi ya huduma za jamii, jambo ambalo pia lilitumika huko nyuma wakati wa kupigania uhuru kama fimbo dhidi ya ukoloni.
Kwa hiyo majukumu mapya ya dola za Kiafrika baada ya uhuru yalikuwa pia kuongeza huduma za afya na elimu na kuongeza uwigo wa ajira na pia kuboresha lishe kwa wananchi, jambo ambalo dola nyingi zilifanikisha kwa viwango vya kuridhisha
Mafanikio hayo yalijitokeza katika kipindi cha 1980, ambapo hali ya maisha ya jamii nyingi za Afrika zilionekana kuwa na maisha bora zaidi na kiwango cha maisha kikaonekana kukua zaidi na hata vifo vya watoto wachanga vikaonyesha kupungua.
Matokeo haya hata hivyo yalitokana na sera za serikali mpya ambazo zilianzishwa kipindi cha 1960 na 1970 huku uchumi ukikua kwa kiwango cha asilima tano hadi saba, kama ilivyokuwa katika nchi ya Cote d’Ivioire na Kenya ambako uchumi ulikua kufikia wastani wa asilimia tisa.
Enzi za Mtafaruku wa Uchumi
Sera mpya za Shirika ya Fedha Duniani (IMF na Benki ya Dunia (WB) iligeuza mafanikio ya mfumo huo na kutagaza ibada za sera za kurekebisha uchumi ambazo kwa namna moja zilikuwa zikionyesha kuwa chanzo cha matatizo ya uchumi wa Afrika ni serikali za Kiafrika.
Mtafaruku wa uchumi wa Afrika kwa hiyo ulichukua nafasi ya mafanikio ya miaka ya 1980s na kuanzisha lawama dhidi ya mifumo ya uchumi ya dola mpya baada kupata uhuru toka kwa wakoloni wa kizungu.
Baadhi ya serikali hizo kwa hiyo hazikuwa na jinsi nyingine isipokuwa kujaribu kuokoa uchumi wa nchi zao kwa kupunguza mafungu yake katika huduma za jamii.
Menejimenti na usimamizi wa mikakati ya marekebisho ya uchumi iliyopendekezwa na IMF na Benki ya Dunia ilizingatia zaidi mfumo wa uchumi huria duniani ambao kwa ujumla unahimiza dola kutojihusisha na usimamizi wa masuala ya uchumi na maendeleo ya jamii.
Sera hii inaelekeza kuachia “huru” nguvu za soko huria kwa kuzingatia “nguvu za masoko”, kuzuia mfumuko wa bei na kuhimiza watu binafsi kushika uendeshaji wa sekta hiyo.
Kwa sera hii, hata vivutio ambavyo vingetolewa kwa watendaji kazi wake viliondolewa badala yake jukumu hilo kuhamishiwa kwa katika soko huria na wakati huo huo kusababisha kuhama kwa wataalam wazalendo kutoka katika eneo la kutoa huduma za jamii kwenda kwenye na eneo la “nguvu za soko huru”.
Mipango ya serikali za kizalendo kuhusu huduma za jamii baadhi yake ili kuwa na matatizo katika utekelezaji, lakini pia ni kweli kuwa ilikuwa mipango yenye malengo mazuri na yaliyo kuwa wazi yaani, kuboresha maisha ya jamii.
Lakini baada ya kuanza kwa marekebisho ya uchumi chini ya miongozo ya IMF na Benki ya Dunia mwelekeo wa mipango hiyo ukaparaganika na nafasi yake kuchukuliwa na watendaji toka sekta binfasi kwa ajili ya kushika soko lililokuwa la vyombo dola.
Kuporomoka kwa huduma za jamii, hasa afya kwa nchi nyingi za Afrika kulikuja kwa kasi ya kutisha baada ya dola kujiondoa, baadhi ya magonjwa ambayo hapo awali yaliweza kudhibitiwa yalirejea. Wastani wa kiwango cha maisha uliokuwa unapanda ukaanza kushuka na vifo miongoni mwa watoto wachana vikaanza kuongoezeka.
Vilio vya malalamiko ili kurekebisha mparaganyiko huo wa uchumi ili kuwepo kwa mfumo mwenye sura ya kibinadamu vilisababisha marekebisho kadhaa. Lakini pia marekebisho haya ambayo yalilenga kuinusuru jamii kutokana na ukali mfumo huu mpya wa maisha hayakusaidia kitu.
Ni kutokana na kuingia kwa Ukimwi, ugonjwa mpya ndipo jumuiya ya kimataifa na watunga sera wake walipogundua kuwa sera za huduma za jamii haziwezi kufanya kazi mbele ya ugonjwa huu usio na dawa.
Kutoka Marekebisho ya Uchumi kulekea Dola ya Kijamii:
Somo kubwa la msingi ambalo tunalipata katika Afrika kutokana na kushindwa kwa sera hizo za marekebisho ya uchumi katika nchi maskini ni kuanzishwa miaka miwili iliyopita kwa sera ya nyongeza ya Mkakati wa Kupunguza Umaskini ((PRSPs) ambayo pia haionyeshi kama inaweza kutoa changamoto la kutosha kukuza uchumi barani Afrika.
Kwa sera yoyote ya uchumi kufanyakazi ni lazima iundwe katika misingi ya kuhusisha jamii ya watakayonufaika nayo na siyo jambo amabalo linaletwa na kupandikizwa toka nje.
Kwa hiyo tunapokazia kuwepo kwa mfumo wa uchumi ambao unakuzwa na dola ndani ya jamii ina maana kuwa wanajamii wenyewe wanatakiwa kushiriki kukuza ichumi wao badala ya kuletewa mikakati ya uchumi toka nje ambayo haiwezi kutekelezeka hapa Afrika.
Kwa hiyo ili kuondokana na mfumo wa uchumi uliopandikizwa, nchi za Afrika na jamii za watu wake wanatakiwa kujitafakari na kuanza kuunda mikakati yake ya uchumi inayozingatia kushirikisha watu wake au kwa maelezo rahisi zaidi uchumi wenye demokrasia ndani. Ni kwa kufanya hivyo bara la Afrika litajenga uchumi madhubuti na endelevu.
· Profesa Adebayo Olukoshi wa International Economic Relations na Katibu Mtendaji wa African Council for the Development of Social Science Research in Africa (CODESRIA), taasisi yenye makao yake makuu Dakar, Senegal.
· Makala hii inatokana na hotuba yake kwenye mkutano wa Haki ya Huduma za Afya, Durban, Afrika Kusini Juni 8 hadi 9 2004.