Donors As Paper Tigers. With Strings Attached Won't Work T. Killick , December 1997. The Overseas Development Institute in London investigated aid effectiveness. Researchers focused on 21 developing countries being 'structurally adjusted', and concluded that imposition of policies is not good for development - not least since the objectives and interests of donor agencies and recipient governments rarely coincide. The World Bank and other international organizations have become jittery about the benefits of infrastructure privatization under structural adjustment.
Costs appear to be outstripping benefits.
Malthusian thinking is being enlisted to defend inequality and justify, defend or enlarge the rights of private property. The illusion that the poor's economic and reproductive behaviour is the source of most of their misery, and that capitalism and private resource ownership is their only source of hope, will continue to be propagated. Structural adjustment policy in sub-Saharan Africa emphasises rolling back state regulations on finance and investment. Yet the predicted spurt in development has not so far materialised. Poor results could stem from lack of interplay between the flow of information and funds in the formal banking system and informal financial markets.