The Pain of Economic Reform

Introduction

During the 1980s, international lending institutions imposed economic reforms on Third World countries in an attempt to make their economies more efficient. The developing countries—burdened by overwhelming debt and unable to recover from the effects of high energy costs of the 1970s and the international recession of the early '80s—have had little alternative but to implement these often painful austerity measures. Although international lenders point to progress, critics say the reforms may be doing more harm than good, especially in the poorest nations of sub-Saharan Africa.

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