Privatization in the Third World

Moderator

Krogh, Peter F. (Peter Frederic)

Person Interviewed

Sewell, John W.

Young, Peter

Abstract

Examines the growing trend of privatization in the Third World.

Description

For decades America's aid to the Third World focused on development projects- the creation of essential infrastructure that specialists believed would lift economies to a level from which they could develop without further aid. Few countries ever made it to this level, however, and by 1986 the population of the Third World was soaring and economic growth had ceased or gone negative. U.S. and international aid agencies charged with helping the Third World began to look for new ways of stimulating developing economies. One trend rapidly gaining traction was privatization - the transfer of state owned enterprises to the private sector in the hope that free market competition would lead to increased efficiency and profitability. But was privatization the long-sought panacea for the third world's economies some experts claimed it to be, or just another developmental fad? In this episode, host Peter Krogh sits down with John Sewell, President of the Overseas Development Council, and Peter Young, Executive Director of the Adam Smith Institute, to discuss the future of privatization in the Third World.