bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025_split huggingface dataset:
Career problems and issues of senior level public servants in Papua New Guinea
Authors: Sundeen Richard A. 
Published: July 2007

AbstractThis paper describes some of the career problems and issues faced by senior level officers of the Papua New Guinea public service. Restrictive educational and personnel policies prior to independence and subsequent rapid localization of the public service have led to a senior level administrative corps that is predominantly male, relatively young and inexperienced. These circumstances provide the context for a description and analysis of the perceived career impediments of 46 senior level officers, including career opportunity deficiencies; inadequacies of management; inadequacies of knowledge, skills, and abilities; lack of opportunity for decision making and implementation; political influence; inadequacies of staffing; decentralization; lack of procedural guidelines and professional standards; and miscellaneous problems. The analysis suggests that the twin purposes of establishing a career service and rapidly localizing the public service have worked against each other and resulted in career problems such as those perceived by the officers. Greater attention needs to be focused on organizational design, interpersonal relationships, and career development in order to reduce these impediments.
Rapid labour data collection for secondary crops: Cocoyam and soybean farming systems in Nigeria
Authors: Knipscheer Hendrik C. 
Published: July 2007

AbstractThe challenge to effective farming systems research is to find methods of system appraisal that maximize the use of existing information and are timely while maintaining a certain measure of accuracy and validity—in other words to achieve rapid rural appraisal. The comparative method for the collection of labour utilization for secondary crops is based on a combination of literature study and field survey. Farmers compare foodcrops of which labour utilization data are known with crops of which the labour requirements are unknown. From the rankings, the labour use of the unknown crops can be derived.The comparative method was applied for cocoyam and soybean farming systems in Nigeria. In both cases absolute labour data derived correspond with relative labour data provided by the farmers themselves. The method, therefore, seems to be a quick, but nevertheless reliable, method by which generally applicable labour utilization data can be obtained.
Management performance for rural development: Packaged training or capacity building
Authors: Honadle George H. , Hannah John P. 
Published: July 2007

AbstractDevelopment project training has two objectives: a direct objective to improve organizational performance and an indirect objective to enhance an organization's ability to function effectively within a changing environment. Traditional training approaches that emphasize knowledge transfer fail to meet these objectives because they are place‐oriented and thus emphasize giving standardized training to groups of unrelated trainees at a particular facility; they emphasize teaching the skills trainers know rather than determining management needs or building upon knowledge trainees already possess; learning is expected to occur by inference from artificial examples rather than by attacking real problems; trainees are generally drawn from only one management level at a time; actual performance and skills are not examined; and training is treated as a discrete event rather than as just one ripple in a constant stream of management development activity.To overcome these six weaknesses, an alternative approach is advocated. That approach has two major chaacteristics: it is action oriented and it has an organizational capacity development bias rather than a transfer of knowledge to individuals bias. The action orientation and enhancement orientation are described in detail, the approach is illustrated by a Jamaican example, and implications of adopting an action‐based approach are specified. The authors contend this alternative approach is practical, necessary, and rewarding to those who engage in it.
Administrative reform in Haiti: Problems, progress and prospects
Authors: Garcia‐Zamor Jean‐Claude , Mayo‐Smith Ian 
Published: July 2007

AbstractA growing awareness among officials in Haiti of the need for public service reforms has resulted in the reorganization and revitalization of the country's Administrative Reform Commission (Commission Administrative). At present there is no uniformity in organization, procedures, regulations or remuneration between the different government agencies. The bureaucrats have little security and the bureaucracy is completely dominated by the executive branch of government. Coupled with this, owing largely to the budgeting system, the public service has developed into virtually two separate services, one dealing with development and the other with recurrent tasks. The number of public servants has doubled in the past decade. The Administrative Reform Commission has identified its priorities including the creation of a unified career service system, a restructuring of the bureaucracy and decentralization. This article comments on the Commission's proposals and the problems of implementing them.
Regional government in the Sudan
Authors: Alassam Mukhtar 
Published: July 2007

AbstractDecentralization has been a central concern in the Sudan and has inspired a far reaching restructuring of government. Following a transfer of substantial functions from central government ministries to province councils in 1979 new regional governments were created in 1980 as a level of government between provinces and the central government. This article describes the reasons for the introduction of regional government, the aims for it and the structure of government created.
Power to the people? Decentralizationin Papua New Guinea
Authors: Standish Bill 
Published: July 2007

AbstractSince 1977, after pressure from secessionists, Papua New Guinea has, with both boldness and hesitancy, sought to decentralize its unitary state. Nineteen elected provincial governments, which are financially dependent on the centre, now control the former colonial districts and the national government public servants within them. National parliamentarians, while competing with provincial governments, have gained strong influence over some of these nominally autonomous bodies. The hoped‐for popular mobilization and the intended sensitization and improved co‐ordination of the public service have not occurred widely, but rather abuses of position, waste of resources and a decline in the legitimacy of the state have resulted. This scheme, which was ill‐suited to the political culture, the country's economic and financial balance and the available human resources, is being re‐assessed at the national level.
Public enterprise in Algeria: Law as a bridge between ideology and reality
Authors: Causey Margaret Cameron 
Published: July 2007

AbstractIn 1971, the Algerian government promulgated the Charte de l'Organisation Socialiste des Entreprises. By means of this Charte it ostensibly sought to reform Algerian public enterprise law and to correct increasingly disruptive problems in public enterprise management. It also sought to reduce the widening gap between workers and the technocratic elite managing the state‐controlled economy. The Charte and its subsequent implementing legislation have been criticized as being, at best, ambiguous; at worst, insincere. Moreover, implementation of la gestion socialiste, as the reform came to be known, was uneven and slow.This article discusses Algerian public enterprise law before and after the 1971 reform. It does so within the context of comparing the utility of applying a symbolic rather than an instrumental view of the role of law in development. On the basis of analysis of the Algerian experience, the article suggests that the symbolic view of law allows a much deeper understanding of the role of law in development, primarily because it allows, if not requires, consideration of the influence of economic, political and social factors on the role of law in developing countries.
Mobilizing local resources in developing countries
Authors: Bahl Roy , Miner Jerry , Schroeder Larry 
Published: July 2007

AbstractMany developing countries are putting increased pressure on local governments to mobilize resources, especially to meet the recurrent costs of operating and maintaining locally sited capital projects. Local taxes, user charges and voluntary contributions are all possible mechanisms to carry out these efforts. Yet several important issues arise whenever these mobilization instruments are contemplated and evaluated.Several, often competing, objectives must be considered when evaluating fiscal instruments including the ability of the mechanism to raise revenues, its effect on economic efficiency, its equity implications and its administrative feasibility. After discussing each of these objectives, we show how numerous constraints, including those imposed by the political/legal system, administrative structure, the economy and the culture of the country, must be recognized while searching for a workable set of reforms that will mobilize additional resources without doing great harm to the other objectives. The key to these reforms would seem to be incentives or disincentives inherent in the revenue structure. Without recognizing these incentives or attempting to alter them, resource mobilization efforts are likely to go astray.
Political change, urban services and social movements: Political participation and grass‐roots politics in Metro Manila
Authors: Rüland Jürgen 
Published: July 2007

AbstractRapid urbanization in the Third World has become one of the most pressing developmental problems of today. Metro Manila, capital of the Philippines, for instance, grew from 300,000 inhabitants in 1903 to more than 8 million in 1980. The authorities were unable to cope with the gigantic socio‐economic problems of such an explosive growth. As a consequence, the urban poor gradually developed their own strategies for improving their adverse living conditions. Social movements emerged, in order to press the government for a more responsive policy towards the needs of the poor. Although the activities of these social movements culminated in the late 60s and early 70s, the imposition of martial law on the Philippines in 1972 had highly negative repercussions on citizen'S participation and community organizing efforts. Since authoritarian regimes have been established in the majority of Third World countries, the article examines the following questions by elaborating on the Philippine experience: how urban social movements are able to exist under authoritarian regimes, whether they are able to contribute to an upgrading of urban services and to what extent they are able to be starting points for a democratization from the grass roots’ level. The findings are that, without a minimum of constitutional liberties and pluralism, urban social movements remain rather short‐lived phenomena and that the improvement of services through urban social movements is bound to fail under a political climate of severe repression. Moreover, the suppression of reformist and participatory movements fuels political polarization.
State intervention and agrarian class formation: Dimensions of the access problem in the Kosi Development Region of NE Bihar, India
Authors: Wood Geof D. 
Published: July 2007

AbstractThe theme of this paper is that access has to be discussed along a number of dimensions simultaneously, and that the language of discussion must discard the ‘David and Goliath’ metaphor of the individual versus the large organization. Access is a relationship which occurs systematically, not by chance. Its structural forms are determined by the formation and dissolution of social classes. Although access is more about power than rationality, to be examined more by reference to class struggle than culture, certain groups and classes are structurally unable through both processes to connect with alien criteria of resource allocation. At the same time the development of the bourgeois state and the transformation of rich peasants into rural capitalists cannot be completed without the incorporation of petty owners, tenants and labourers for the appropriation of their surplus value. This is maintained through the ideology of inclusion (populism) which presents access as an opportunity rather than a problem, and operates through the language of community, target groups, special programmes, extension and decentralization. The discussion in this paper is pursued in the context of material collected during fieldwork in the north‐east of Bihar State, India where land reform, irrigation and intensive agricultural programmes have been undertaken since the early sixties.
Field‐level perspectives on Maharashtra's Employment Guarantee Scheme
Authors: Lieberman Samuel S. 
Published: July 2007

AbstractThis paper examines the implementation of the Employment Guarantee Scheme (EGS), the large scale rural works programme in operation since 1974 in the Indian state of Maharashtra. The analysis of programme management and execution of individual EGS projects draws on the experiences and observations of the unique cadre of employment officers, from different departments, with field‐level responsibilities. The first section of the paper describes the organization which administers EGS and reviews the body of directives which guides EGS field operations. Subsequent sections discuss the background characteristics of field functionaries and focus on various problems encountered and solutions adopted by these officers in implementing EGS projects. The discretionary powers enjoyed by field officers as a result of the absence or impracticality of government guidelines for many issues influence the implementation of the project and make officials vulnerable to political pressures. The implications of this discretion need to be recognized by the Government of Maharashtra. Knowledge gained from EGS operations needs to be used to prepare officials for project work.
Evaluating development policies and programmes in the third world
Authors: Smith Thomas B. 
Published: July 2007

AbstractThe issues and methodologies of programme evaluation have largely been developed within the North American context of an open and competitive political process. The policy cycle in Third World nations, especially authoritarian regimes, is a closed system with little consultation with affected target groups, suppression of criticism of government officials and policies, and a severe weakness in policy implementation. Third World governments prefer evaluation methods such as cost‐benefit analysis which will not undermine fragile regimes by indicating problems in the policy formulation and implementation process. However, the most useful form of evaluation is implementation analysis, which can pinpoint the reasons why policies succeed or fail.
Brazilian technocrats and economic development policy
Authors: Bruce David C. 
Published: July 2007

AbstractAre there factors of continuity that help in predicting economic development policy in Third World countries? What groups will influence policy as regime types change? In Latin America today several military regimes are shifting to civilian leadership. Technocrats could provide continuity as new decision makers face difficult economic choices. The Brazilian case provides a dramatic example, given the prominent role played by technocrats during the military regimes since 1964 and the increased electoral activity begun in 1982. This study evaluates the role and potential future impact of Brazilian technocrats. It uses the example of Brazilians trained or otherwise influenced by the U.N. Economic Commission for Latin America (ECLA). Given that ECLA has been a major force in promoting development policy involving planning and import substitution, the Brazilians in question could affect major policy change during the current economic crisis.
Mobilisation and legitimisation: The political ambiance of plan implementation
Authors: Bernard Deryck M. 
Published: July 2007

AbstractThe paper examines the structure of political decision‐making which forms the context of regional plan generation and implementation in inchoate states. The established ideas of political science are built upon to suggest a three‐tiered structure of power brokerage in which the planner as bureaucrat and technocrat functions in the middle tier. The constraints and opportunities which affect the functions of planning are related to the priorities of government and political elites. The regional planning paradigm is highlighted as an example of the problems of the conflicting interests of professional planners and the state. Whereas regional planning is directed at spatial equity and local development, states are preoccupied with political legitimacy and the spaljialisation of power. Further, the regional paradigm does not recognise that the way in which a state derives its ideology and development strategy impinges on the political interpretation of the aims of planning. The paper concludes that planning and implementational mddes need to make explicit recognition of the political conditions in inchoate states and develop more realistic forms of action.
Trends in development administration: The continuing challenge to the efficay of the post‐colonial state in the third world
Authors: Luke David Fashole 
Published: July 2007

Abstract‘Development administration’ has become established and recognized as a distinct enterprise of academic study and practice. This paper visits some of the major themes that have been examined by. the ‘development administration community’ by focusing on common concerns with (1) building effective administrative capacity as part of the development process that is also. (2) responsive and accountable and (3) equitable. It is argued that these persistent themes—amid the diversity of approaches and ideological susceptibilities‐constitute a continuing challenge to the efficacy of the post‐colonial state in the management of development activities.
Managing public commercial enterprises in Nigeria: The case of Kwara State commercial parastatals
Authors: Ihimodu Ifeyori I. 
Published: July 2007

AbstractEmploying the usual profit criterion to evaluate performance of the commercial parastatals in Nigeria, as revealed in the case of Kwara State, the enterprises are a failure. The differences in the management of the parastatals and similar but private enterprises may have accounted for differences in performance. Among the features of management of the parastatals are the role of government in the appointment of chief executives without necessary regard to merit; the relatively poor conditions of service as obtained in the civil service; and the huge debts owed the parastatals by governments. To improve performance, the following measures should be adopted. There is need to remove commercial parastatals from the civil service to attract quality management staff while government control should be substantially relaxed. Improved funding should be guaranteed through the financial houses while government should settle their debts to the organizations. The issue of privatization is worth proper consideration with a view to selling the companies to the private sector.
Risk, insurance and small farm credit in developing countries: A policy proposal
Authors: Mosley Paul 
Published: July 2007

AbstractLending to small farmers is often too risky for commercial banks; consequently extremely high interest rates have to be paid. Agricultural development banks go some way towards solving the problem. However, default rates tend to be high, so that credit has to be subsidized by government grants or overseas aid. One cause of the problem is that loans lack proper security. Risks are increased by uncertainties of weather, disease and produce prices. The paper proposes a system of compulsory insurance of crops and livestock. The risks and associated costs are quantified for one particular case: the Small Farmer Development Programme administered by the Agricultural Development Bank of Nepal. The scheme is assumed to run on a no‐profit, no‐loss basis. The data suggest that the cost of insurance premiums, when added to Bank interest rates, would still leave the Bank competitive as a source of rural credit. The practical problems of implementation are considered and deemed surmountable by reinsurance and graduated premiums.
Regionalization, administrative reform and democratization: Nicaragua 1979–1984
Authors: Downs Charles 
Published: July 2007

AbstractThe article discusses the major events and debates that have taken place during the reform and democratization of subnational government in Nicaragua from the overthrow of the Somoza dictatorship to late 1984. Developments during this period highlight five distinct areas of reform that must be addressed as part of any process of state democratization: (a) selection and maintenance of local officials; (b) integration of popular participation; (c) definition of the range of local authority; (d) resources for local development; and (e) relation to other levels of government. These issues are addressed through a discussion focusing heavily on local government during the first 3 years, then on the experience of the newly created regional governments and decentralization beginning in mid—1982, and finally on the early—and quite divergent—experience with the development of zonal government between the municipal and regional levels. The specific resolution of these five sets of issues is part of the development of the revolutionary process in Nicaragua, and will strongly shape the political and developmental significance of the resulting local government.
The implementation of decentralization: A case study of district planning in Agra District, Uttar Pradesh, India
Authors: Sanwal Mukul 
Published: July 2007

AbstractThough the literature on decentralization has clarified some issues, it has left unsettled the question of the administrative structure for its implementation: who should take what decisions, and at what level? There are limits to the conventional methods of classification. where answers have been sought in terms of Western experience, participation and management. and a legal perspective has been adopted with decentralization seen in terms of fully elected local governments. semi‐autonomous local governments. or coordinating committees. Rather than stress procedures of participation. the substantive content of decision‐making needs to he analysed. A classification of rural development programmes provides an alternative model for the reallocation of functions within the system of government to meet development needs. The case of district planning in Agra District. India. illustrates the process of decentralization. underlines its composite character. and shows the importance of the budget in initiating reform in the political‐administrative system. Since decentralization is now motivated by different factors than in the past. the requirements of the anti‐poverty programmes will move the decision‐making process closer to the cutting edge of the village level, with even greater responsiveness to demands from below.