This research assesses the strategy and activities of The World Bank and the International Monetary Fund (IMF) with respect to Sub Saharan African economic development. The poli cies of The World Bank have been characterized as everything from a new source of revealed wisdom to a recipe for starvation (Green, and Allison, 1983), while those of the IMF have been consistently criticized (Carvounis, 1984). It is necessary to consider both The World Bank and the IMF in this assessment, because their strategies and activities tend to either comple ment one another with respect to Sub Saharan African economic development, or, in combined effect, exacerbate an already bad situation in this region.
The impetus for the creation of an organization such as the IMF was provided by events which wracked the international economy from 1929 to the beginning of the Second World War (Horsefield, 1969). In attempts to maintain domestic economic stability and to retain international market positions, most countries engaged in competitive devaluations, exchange control activities, and imports restriction (Driscoll, 1984). The ori gins of the IMF, thus, may be traced to an international
1 2recognition of the debilitating character of such activities, and of the need to establish some sort of mechanism through which international economic stability could be both created and maintained (Heller, 1990).
Work toward the creation of such a mechanism began during the Second World War, and the IMF was created toward the end of the war, through the Bretton Woods Agreement of 1944. The IMF became a reality in December 1945, when the thirtieth country signed the agreement. The IMF commenced actual finan cial operation in early 1947.
The Bretton Woods Agreement actually created two interna tional bodies. The first was the IMF, which was charged with responsibilities to (1) encourage international monetary coop eration, (2) encourage the remova...