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Periodical article | Leiden University catalogue | WorldCat |
Title: | Zimbabwe: Structural Adjustment, Destitution and Food Insecurity |
Author: | Chattopadhyay, Rupak |
Year: | 2000 |
Periodical: | Review of African Political Economy |
Volume: | 27 |
Issue: | 84 |
Period: | June |
Pages: | 307-316 |
Language: | English |
Geographic term: | Zimbabwe |
Subjects: | economic policy food policy famine Agriculture, Natural Resources and the Environment Development and Technology Economics and Trade Politics and Government international relations |
External links: | https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/03056240008704461 http://ejournals.ebsco.com/direct.asp?ArticleID=400EBA1E15930C4CEB0A |
Abstract: | This article examines the persistence of hunger in food surplus Zimbabwe during the 1990s. It combines a discussion of the literature on hunger with an analysis of the Zimbabwean economic structural adjustment programme (ESAP) using the 'entitlements' theory, which treats starvation as the inevitable outcome of a collapse in effective demand for food. Proponents of the entitlements approach have successfully pointed out that generalizations drawn from aggregate variables such as food availability per capita imply nothing about the distribution of food. The article questions the extent to which ESAP and increased food production have contributed to food security and welfare. It notes that destitution resulting from structural adjustment policies has increased food insecurity by eroding the purchasing power of large sections of the population. The article further argues that in addition to economic causes, destitution is exacerbated by the effective lack of accountability on the part of the key decisionmakers. The Zimbabwean example shows that increasing the supply of food to a population is insufficient to mitigate starvation; increased supply needs to be matched by adequate means for the population to consume the produce. Bibliogr., sum. |