Publication: Lessons from Large Adjustment Loans
Date
1999-08
ISSN
Published
1999-08
Author(s)
Morrow, Daniel
Abstract
This note presents the lessons from the
assessments that are likely to be most useful to country
directors, and task teams preparing new adjustment
operations. The five adjustment loans (two in Argentina, and
one each in Korea, Malaysia, and Russia) show that applying
basic lessons is not always straightforward, however, and,
sometimes involves making tradeoffs among Bank objectives.
It is stipulated policy objectives are more likely to be
achieved, if there is substantial borrower ownership. To
this end, support for new policies should be established,
towards generating broad political ownership, including
engaging key players in incoming administrations, to help
build ownership of reforms. Moreover, combined, the
Bank's country knowledge and global expertise, can
generate quality operations, that forge local partnerships,
draws on prior experience, and maintains a minimum knowledge
base. This is to say, setting priorities, and sequencing
reforms should be carefully included during the design
phase, with particular attention to avoid excessively broad
conditionality, which may reduce the probability of real
progress on key reforms.
Citation
“Morrow, Daniel. 1999. Lessons from Large Adjustment Loans. PREM Notes; No. 27. © World Bank, Washington, DC. http://openknowledge.worldbank.org/entities/publication/5df6ba21-8c75-51c4-a257-a97f97d04c95 License: CC BY 3.0 IGO.”