By the mid-1990s, after more than 15years of adjustment lending, it had become clear thatadjustment programs in Africa had not accelerated growth orreduced poverty, except in a handful of countries. The mainreasons? Recipient governments did not "own" thereform programs, and they perceived the conditionalityattached to the programs as being imposed on them.Adjustment programs were often unresponsive to countryconditions and changes in external circumstances. In mostcases the World Bank and recipient governments did not havea shared vision of what adjustment programs were supposed toachieve. In response to this diagnosis, in 1995 theBank's Africa Region introduced the Higher ImpactAdjustment Lending (HIAL) initiative. The initiative aimedto achieve a quicker, stronger, broader, and longer supplyresponse from structural adjustment programs by: 1)increasing country selectivity and strengthening governmentownership; 2) allowing more flexibility in adjustmentoperations--in particular, introducing new tranchingmechanisms; and 3) introducing performance indicators todefine expected results and assess actual outcomes. Thisnote describes how the approach and design of theseoperations were adapted to achieve higher impact.
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