Presenter: STEPHEN LANICH

Faculty Sponsor: Deepika Marya

School: UMass Amherst

Research Area: Globalization and Development

Session: Poster Session 6, 4:15 PM - 5:00 PM, Auditorium, A47

ABSTRACT

This project examines why the Bretton Woods institutions, the World Bank and International Monetary Fund, have failed to generate sustained, sovereign, and domestically driven development across African economies. Drawing on case studies from Senegal, Zambia, Kenya, and Ghana, the research traces how World Bank lending reinforced colonial patterns of raw‑material extraction, while IMF stabilization programs imposed neoliberal conditionalities that restricted policy space, weakened state capacity, and entrenched long‑term dependence. Although these interventions occasionally stabilized macroeconomic indicators, they did not catalyze structural transformation. Instead, repeated cycles of borrowing, austerity, and privatization produced what this study identifies as a “loan‑cycle trap,” in which countries return to the IMF not because reforms succeeded, but because the underlying economic vulnerabilities remain unaddressed.

By examining how alternative lenders such as the BRICS New Development Bank, the African Development Bank, and Chinese national policy banks provide infrastructure‑focused financing without the neoliberal conditionalities that have historically constrained African governments, this project highlights how these models can enhance domestic developmental gains and support more sovereign economic strategies. At the same time, political experiments such as the Alliance of Sahel States demonstrate how partial “delinking” can be used to reclaim monetary and policy sovereignty in response to decades of externally imposed Western constraints, while countries like Ghana illustrate how improved resource capture can expand domestic revenue bases and reduce reliance on external lenders. These developments show how alternative financing and political strategies can better support Africa’s development goals, emphasizing approaches that expand sovereign economic decision‑making.