Abstract

Many other authors have documented the harmful effects of the SAP’son global poverty and inequality. Even World Bank experts have admittedthat these policies have failed to achieve the desired effects. Accordingly, theSAP’s were replaced by PRSP’s – Poverty Reduction Strategy Papers. Thename strongly suggests that these papers would be more poor friendly.Closer examination reveals old wine in new bottles – policies known toworsen poverty continue to be pushed as effective anti-poverty measures.The reasons why PRSP’s will not make any impact on poverty is detailed inthe report by Cheru (2001) cited earlier. This is an often repeated historicalpattern, where anti-poor policies have been deceptively justified on fallaciousgrounds. For those who are genuinely interested in helping the poor, it isuseful to outline some of the arguments used to justify crushing the poor, andthe historical contexts in which these ideas emerged.