Mention the name Robert McNamara. Poles of views arise. Put them aside. Appreciate that McNamara brought science to infrastructure investment. He also triggered a surge in infrastructure investment in countries emerging from imperialism. That was the seventies. The surge outlived his reign at the World Bank into the eighties and before structural adjustment programme (SAP) peaked. Many of the new states were caught in anarchy. Institutions (norms and values) were strained. So, did the surge of infrastructure ignore the institution? Does the flaw explain corruption in infrastructure? Was McNamara an angel at the wrong time (at least in Africa)?
Overall, structural adjustment programs are doing a lot of harm to Africa. In which way? Asking a state to stop dealing with vital areas such as education, public administration and health is tantamount to sacrificing the well-being of the people. In the section on fiscal consolidation and privatization, we are talking about not worrying about the vital sectors of the socio-economic life of the people, their well-being!
These invested funds, if they had taken into account the well-being of the human factor that should not be sacrificed, would have produced good results in terms of human development. The imperialist context in which the SAPs were applied made that instead of prosperity, it was the impoverishment of the peoples that followed.
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