The Environment and Structural Adjustment: Lessons for Policy Interventions in the 1990s

Considerable attention is currently being given to the effects of structural adjustment policies on rural development and poverty in India (Iyer, 1991; Agarwal, 1993; Hauff, 1993; Ranadive, 1993; Von Urff, 1993). In particular, consideration is being given to the alleged effects of such policies on the environment (Reed, 1992; Chossudovsky, 1992; Hauff, 1993). This paper argues, from Latin American material, that the situation of the poor has certainly worsened under structural adjustment policies, but that reduced sustainability needs to be seen against a longer-term perspective. In countries such as Mexico, the current environmental crisis reflects longstanding development priorities, including economic liberalization. the most important consequences for the environment, and the increased participation envisaged under Agenda Twenty One, is the progressive disempowerment of the poor. New policies emanating from the World Bank, and other international development agencies, attempt to include environmental management within their compass. However, they do not facilitate the necessary transfer of control, and responsibility, for the management of local resources, without which sustainable development cannot be achieved. At the global level, structural adjustment could be better applied to the developed countries as well as the developing, in an effort to transform their economies in a sustainable direction, and to close the gap which exists between the conditions of life for the majority in the North and the South.