What does ‘Structural Adjustment’ mean?
In order to view the videos online at Big Picture TV, you need to install the Macromedia Flash Player 8 (or later) and have Javascript enabled in your browser.
About the video: ‘What does ‘Structural Adjustment’ mean?’
Structural adjustment is the term used by the IMF to describe the loan conditions it imposes on indebted countries. These conditions include not only trade liberalization, but also deregulation of industry and privatization of state-owned industries and services. Such conditions prevent governments from managing basic services such as health, education or water. Dr Khor argues that governments should be able to manage these basic services if they so choose. They should also be able to control key aspects of their own trade policy. Governments must be entitled to protect the livelihoods of small producers and manufacturers by placing tariffs on unfairly subsidized imports – many of which come from Europe or America. Failure to do so generates poverty and joblessness, and further exacerbates the “de-industrialization” already underway in much of the developing world.
Total views: 5,181
Filmed: London, UK on 15 July 2005
Credits: Interviewer - Marcus Morrell Camera and Editor - Marcus Morrell
Copyright © 2005 Big Picture TV
About Martin Khor
Martin Khor is the Executive Director of the South Centre (an intergovernmental organisation of developing countries based in Geneva, Switzerland) since 1 March 2009.
He is the former Director of the Third World Network (TWN). He has led TWN since its inception in 1984, advocating on behalf of citizen groups throughout the developing world on a wide number of development issues. These include environmental sustainability, the protection of human rights and the impact of corporate-led globalization. A former economist and university lecturer, he is also an advisor and consultant to a number of United Nations agencies and other important international bodies. Dr Khor is author of several books on WTO reform, international trade and the global economy.
Other videos with Martin Khor
Martin Khor
What are the effects of debt on the developing world? (Part 1)
In this two-part series, Martin Khor addresses issues relating to debt and international trade. Since the debt crisis began in the 1970s, many developing countries have had to agree…
Recorded: 15 July 2005
Martin Khor
What are the effects of debt on the developing world? (Part 2)
In this two-part series, Martin Khor addresses issues relating to debt and international trade. Since the debt crisis began in the 1970s, many developing countries have had to agree…
Recorded: 15 July 2005
Related videos
John Cavanagh
Are corporations too powerful?
John Cavanagh gives examples of ways in which global corporations have set the world’s financial institutions – the IMF, World Bank and WTO (formerly GATT). Oil companies…
Recorded: 13 April 2005
John Perkins
What does an ‘economic hitman’ do?
John Perkins describes his work as an economic hitman (EHM) and reveals a game that’s “as old as empire” – and one that has taken on terrifying new dimensions…
Recorded: 28 January 2005
Paul Rice
What is difference between Fair Trade and Free Trade?
Recent studies by the World Bank conclude that the benefits of free trade and economic liberalization have failed to reach the world’s poorest people. Rice notes that many…
Recorded: 27 March 2006
Lynne Twist
What is money really for?
Lynne Twist describes how our relationship with money has become corrupted. She notes how consumer society sees money as an end rather than a means and that we have lost the ability…
Recorded: 21 May 2004
Jane Goodall
Case Study: The TACARE Project
Primatologist Dr. Jane Goodall talks about TACARE – a pilot project she set up in Tanzania to…
Recorded: 1 September 2002
Vandana Shiva
Why does biodiversity loss matter?
Dr. Shiva talks about the damaging ecological effects of agricultural monoculture – the large-scale production of single crops. She goes on to warn that the loss of biodiversity…
Recorded: 12 September 2004
