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Paper short abstract:

This paper places the current Mozambique's IMF support program in the context of SAPs 'return' to Africa. It argues that the reform package associated with this has socioeconomic and political implications that have led to class conflicts and tensions around accumulation and social reproduction.

Paper long abstract:

The World Bank-IMF structural adjustment programs (SAPs) have returned to Africa, along with their tight fiscal and monetary stabilisation measures. In Mozambique, SAPs ‘return’ follows another crisis of the system of capital accumulation. ‘Initiated’ in the second half of the past decade, it has been exacerbated by an unprecedent debt crisis (associated with the so-called ‘hidden debts’), and further by the impacts of natural disasters, followed by the COVID-19 pandemic and, more recently, by the commodities price crisis attributed to the Russia-Ukraine conflict. SAPs ‘return’ to Mozambique is currently reflected in the ongoing three-year (2022-2025) IMF support program which started in June 2022, and has been justified by these crises dynamics and narratives. It is set to ‘support sustainable and inclusive growth and long-term macroeconomic stability’, by focusing on tight monetary and fiscal policies, including tax administration and public expenditure reforms.

This paper places the current IMF support program in Mozambique in the context of SAPs ‘return’ to Africa. By offering a radical political economy critique of SAPs and alternatives, the paper argues that the overall reform package associated with the current Mozambique’s IMF program has socioeconomic and political implications that have led to class conflicts and tensions around the conditions of accumulation and social reproduction. These have precipitated a ‘state-sponsored’ and contradictory process of class restructuring around opportunities of capital accumulation, which, besides in conflict with the IMF program, does not address the structural and political economy dynamics relevant for a broad-based strategy of economic and social transformation.