Adjustment with a Human Face
This was originally the title of a 1987 UNICEF report detailing the negative impact of Structural Adjustment Programmes (SAPs) on health and education. Since the general acceptance of the negative impacts of SAPs, the title is now used to describe policy recommendations arising from the study, which focused on protecting public expenditure on the social sectors, such as health and education.
SAPs have now largely been replaced by the Poverty Reduction Strategy Paper (PRSP) process. Also, World Bank operational guidelines now require analysis of the impact of adjustment programmes on the poor and, in many countries, compensatory measures have been introduced. Critics argue that this is a “social safety net approach” in which social services are not regarded as a part of the normal primary functions of the modern state, but rather as institutions that respond to market failure.