Structural Adjustment in a Monetary Union — Some Considerations about the West African Franc Zone

Since the early 1980s structural adjustment programmes have become the dominant instrument to improve the institutional and policy framework within which traditional development assistance in the form of lending for individual development projects is embedded. While development institutions, practitioners and scientists alike look at projects as “the cutting edge of development” (Gittinger 1982, p. 3), it became increasingly clear that lending for individual projects alone is unable to cope with the complexity of development issues. A sound economic policy and an institutional environment supporting development are seen as important as a well working technological package for development projects to achieve their objectives. As a result, increased emphasis has been placed in development co-operation on creating an economic policy and institutional environment that is conducive to economic development in general and project performance in particular.