U-Turns and full circles: Two decades of agricultural reform in Malawi 1981-2000

This paper traces the evolution of Malawi's agricultural policy over the past two decades. During this period the World Bank has played a key role in shaping policy reform through its Adjustment Loans. Three distinct reform phases can be identified: 1981-87 when policy was dominated by the dogmatism of the World Bank's "pricist and state minimalist" policies; 1988-94 when a more flexible position was taken by both the Bank and the Malawi Government both of whom acknowledged the structuralist critique of earlier policies; and 1994 to the present when the reform process in agriculture became more politicized and a schism developed between the Bank and the Government. This latter period is used to illustrate some of the unresolved policy issues pertaining to similar low-income agrarian economies. © 2003 Elsevier Science Ltd. All rights reserved.