1st Edition

Development Projects as Policy Experiments An Adaptive Approach to Development Administration

By Dennis A. Rondinelli Copyright 1993
    224 Pages
    by Routledge

    224 Pages
    by Routledge

    International assistance programmes for developing countries are in urgent need of revision. Continuous testing and verification is required if development activity is to cope effectively with the uncertainty and complexity of the development process. This examines the alternatives and offers an approach which focuses on strategic planning, administrative procedures that facilitate innovation, responsiveness and experimentation, and on decision-making processes that join learning with action. A useful text for academics and practitioners in development studies, geography and sociology.

    Preface. 1. The Problem of Development Administration: Coping with Complexity and Uncertainty. 2. Development Policies as Social Experiments: From Macroeconomic Growth to Sectoral Development. 3. Development Policies as Social Experiments: From Growth-With-Equity to Structual Adjustment. 4. Designing Development Projects: The Limits of Rationalistic Planning and Management. 5. Implementing Development Projects as Policy Experiments: Toward Adaptive Administration. 6. Reorienting Development Administration: Principles, Problems and Opportunities. References.

    Biography

    Dennis A. Rondinelli

    `Now updated to consider the experience of the 1980s and early 1990s, this book offers fresh insight into project design and implementation. ... This book offers an informed critique ... and presents a persuasive argument for reform. Rondinelli's call for greater experimentation, innovation, responsiveness and local participation in project design and implementation should be given careful consideration by both scholars and practitioners of development administration.' - Development Policy Review

    From reviews of the 1st edition: `... the best integration and summation of current "wisdom" on the subject ... represents a Magna Carta for practitioners.' - Economic Geography

    `A succinct, thought-provoking book which should be of interest to all students of regional science, especially those concerned with economic development policies in the Third World.' - Annals of Regional Science