IMPACTS OF ECONOMIC REFORM PROGRAMME ON LOCAL LEVEL RURAL INSTITUTIONS

This book explored the impacts of the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and World Bank''s funded economic reform programme (ERP) on local level rural institutions in Zimbabwe''s two rural districts, namely Gwanda and Nyanga. The book focuses on how local level institutions in Zimbabwe''s rural areas adapted to market oriented reforms introduced in 1991 by the Zimbabwean government. The study demonstrates that the ERP was not, to a larger extent, able to create a conducive environment for the local "modern" institutions (for example, RDCs, WADCOs and VIDCOs) and "traditional" institutions (for example, chiefs, headman and village heads) to adopt strategies that could lead to their empowerment. This was because they lacked financial and material resources for development purposes throughout the reform period. The programme of decentralisation of functions to local institutions was done at a time when local institutions such as RDCs did not have adequate financial resources to implement the decentralised functions.