Dogmatic Development: Privatisation and Conditionalities
in Six Countries
February 27, 2004
Organizations: War on Want and Public International Research Unit
Authors: David Hall and Robin de la Motte
Available: http://www.waronwant.org/?lid=7540
This report looks at how conditionalities and pressures from aid agencies and development banks force developing countries to adopt privatisation policies in public services.
It focuses specifically on the sectors of water, electricity, and healthcare, in six countries: Colombia; El Salvador; Indonesia; Mozambique; South Africa; and Sri Lanka.
It examines the impact of the requirements and policies of the International Monetary Fund (IMF), World Bank (WB), and other agencies including regional development banks, the European Commission (EC) and donor countries. It includes a specific examination of the various ways in which the UK’s Department for International Development (DFID) supports privatisation in these services.
It concludes that the pressures for privatisation have been strengthened
through new structures of ‘globalised aid’; that they create serious limitations
on independent decision-making by developing countries, and generate some
strong political responses; and that policies of development banks and
donor agencies, including DFID, should be reviewed to remove such pressures
and ensure that policy-making in developing countries is determined by
local democratic processes.