Adjusting to Economic Crisis

Volume 20 Number 1 January 1989 Edited by: Peter Ngomba and John Oxenham

Over the last two decades the winds have become more persistently chilling for many developing countries whose economies have fallen into the throes of profound and unprecedented economic crises. The halcyon years of the 1950s and l960s, which were characterised by rapid expansion of many socioeconomic sectors, have been replaced by a period of restraint and decline. Falling Gross National Product (GNP) and per capita incomes, retrenchment in public expenditures and cuts in take-home pay have occurred more frequently and proved enduring. 

The articles in this special issue of the IDS Bulletin on 'Adjusting Education to Economic Crisis' attempt to deal with some of these issues. They provide a set of authoritative analyses of the choices currently confronting education policy-makers in hard-pressed economies.

Adjustment of the State: The Problem of Administrative Reform

Volume 19 Number 4 October 1988 Edited by: E.A. Brett

In our view administrative competence in the modern state is just as important for economic performance as getting the prices right'.. Economic inefficiency can stem from excessive state intervention based upon rigid and non-accountable bureaucratic structures, but, like it or not, no privatisation programme can ever remove the main responsibility for economic management from the state and its administrative apparatuses. This being so, the current over-emphasis on prices in the policy debate has led to a neglect of the associated problem of administrative competence and left us dangerously under-informed about how to achieve the equally essential need for administrative reform.

This issue of the IDS Bulletin, like its predecessors in the public policy area,' has therefore been put together to attempt to draw attention to the distinctively political elements involved in the adjustment process, and to the distinctive contribution which political scientists can make to their better understanding. Briefly, this requires an analysis of two distinct but associated issues - the problem of economic< regulation and of public provision.

Nicaragua: Development Under Fire

Volume 19 Number 3 July 1988 Edited by: Gordon White and Kate Young

Five years ago a conference met at this Institute to consider the immediate post-revolutionary experience of Nicaraguan development. At that time we came to several conclusions: first, that the development strategies adopted by the Sandinista government had several features which distinguished them from orthodox forms of socialist development, notably the commitment to a degree of economic and political pluralism.

Second, although there had been significant progress in achieving more equal distribution and meeting basic social needs, Nicaragua's development performance was problematic in certain basic areas [for a more detailed discussion see White and Young 1985]. Third, an already worrying economic situation was being exacerbated by the escalation of the Contra war and the hostility of the Reagan administration.

In November last year a workshop was convened to review the situation four years on. It placed particular emphasis on the way the war has impinged on Nicaragua's ability to deal with its pressing economic problems and implement its distinctive development model. Most of the papers in this Bulletin were presented at that workshop.'

Cash Crops in Developing Countries

Volume 19 Number 2 May 1988 Edited by: Simon Maxwell

The papers in this issue of the IDS Bulletin were originally presented at a workshop on cash crops, held at the IDS in January 1987.1 They deal with an issue which is extremely controversial and one which has become a litmus test of development ideology: to caricature only a little, it sometimes seems we have the World Bank on one side, in favour of cash crops; and on the other side, everyone else, led by the voluntary agencies, against

Stabilisation: For Growth or Decay?

Volume 19 Number 1 January 1988 Edited by: Chris Coclough and Reg Green

In one sense the perceived needs to stabilise virtually all African economies, and to secure their structural adjustment to new external realities, are no longer judged controversial both within and outside the African continent. It is now widely accepted that stabilisation defined as removing untenable macroeconomic imbalances - has become essential. But, at another level, the disagreements have intensified.