Page "Washington Consensus" Paragraph 15

Although Williamson's label of the Washington Consensus draws attention to the role of the Washington-based agencies in promoting the above agenda, a number of authors have stressed that Latin American policy-makers arrived at their own packages of policy reforms primarily based on their own analysis of their countries ' situations.

Thus, according to Joseph Stanislaw and Daniel Yergin, authors of The Commanding Heights, the policy prescriptions described in the Washington Consensus were " developed in Latin America, by Latin Americans, in response to what was happening both within and outside the region.

" Joseph Stiglitz has written that " the Washington Consensus policies were designed to respond to the very real problems in Latin America and made considerable sense " ( though Stiglitz has at times been an outspoken critic of IMF policies as applied to developing nations ).

In view of the implication conveyed by the term Washington Consensus that the policies were largely external in origin, Stanislaw and Yergin report that the term's creator, John Williamson, has " regretted the term ever since ", stating " it is difficult to think of a less diplomatic label.