Structural-adjustment programmes were lending arrangements offered from the 1980s by the IMF and World Bank to indebted countries across Africa, Latin America and Asia, conditioned on market reforms. Borrowers were required to cut public spending, devalue currencies, privatise state enterprises, remove subsidies and open markets to trade and investment in exchange for loans and debt relief. These conditions squeezed government budgets and rolled back the state's role in services and housing. Their economic and social results were widely contested and often harsh for the poor.
They starved municipal services, infrastructure and public housing programmes just as cities in the Global South were urbanising fastest. The retreat of the state accelerated the growth of informal settlements and self-built housing across rapidly expanding cities.