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n e o l i b e r a l af r i c a
on national economies. What emerged in the 1980s was that key
economic indices (inflation, interest rates, current account deficits,
exchange rates) became the material through which the World Bank
and the IMF would rank-order national economies according to
the extent that they had liberalised. It also provided an evidential
base for the IMF to categorise states according to their progress in
neoliberal reform. Those countries in a state of delinquency would
raise concerns not only for the IMF or the World Bank, but also a
raft of other international agencies, bilateral, multilateral, private
and public. ‘Off track’ would lead to frozen or cancelled grants or
loans, and a likely adjusting down of other indices concerned with
investment risk and creditworthiness, as ten countries were in the
early 2000s, with Zambia undergoing severe delays in the release
of tranches (Jubilee Research 2003: 18). The World Bank also
produces rankings according to Country Policy and Institutional
Assessments, which evaluate six aspects of policy, much of which
clearly translates into a fealty to neoliberal reform. Again, these
indicators affect donor and perhaps also international companies’
interest in any specific country. And, if the latter require more
neoliberal rank-orderings of potential sites for investment, the
Bank also offers a ‘Doing Business Index’ which is, again, entirely
dedicated to the rights of property.
Liberalisation was also pursued – albeit awkwardly – through
trade reforms, largely through the final GATT round. This final
round – dubbed the Uruguay Round – aimed to agree a range of
principles that would then usher in a new institution: the World
Trade Organisation. The WTO was designed to produce a univer-
sal and semi-independent body to ensure equal treatment between
trading nations and a progressive ratcheting down of tariffs, non-
preference and other controls of trade – not only in goods but also
in services and knowledge. Thus, we can see that neoliberalism
emerged centrally through the increasing prominence of the World
Bank and the IMF and their use of conditionality effectively to
define the repertoire of social and economic policy.