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Article: Good, but not at election time; Ghana as economic model.(Economic reform in Ghana)(Brief Article)
- Article from:
- The Economist (US)
- Article date:
- April 27, 2002
CopyrightCOPYRIGHT 2002 Economist Newspaper Ltd. This material is published under license from the publisher through the Gale Group, Farmington Hills, Michigan. All inquiries regarding rights should be directed to the Gale Group. (Hide copyright information)
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A market inflicts untold suffering
Does laisser-faire hurt the poor? Ghana's example fuels both views
A WATCHMAN in Accra, arriving late for work, blamed the IMF's programme for heavily indebted poor countries. The story is told by Ghana's president, John Kufuor, to illustrate how quick Ghanaians are to blame all ills on those wicked foreigners who have forced Africans to adopt laisser-faire policies. Since the World Bank and IMF touted it as a "model" reformer in the 1980s, its every failure has been paraded, by those who dislike those policies, as proof that markets make the poor poorer.
They point out, correctly, that after two decades of ...