bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025_split huggingface dataset:
From Nicaragua: Experiences with a model for assessing small scale rural development projects
Authors: Taylor Alan J. 
Published: July 2007

AbstractFollowing the Managua earthquake, voluntary aid agencies sought a basis on which to allocate money collected for earthquake relief. They needed a method of rapid rural appraisal and this account complements therefore two previous articles on rapid rural appraisal, those by Belshaw (1981) and Chambers (1981). It describes a practical approach to rapid rural appraisal which in Chambers' terminology was intended to be sufficiently quick and clean. A model was developed for assessing projects on three bases—congruence of objectives, surety of achievement and cost vs. benefits. These were analysed into component parts, so producing a matrix according to which projects could be categorized. The aim was to minimize superficiality and error without being encumbered with cumbersome and costly enquiry.
Managing rural development in Botswana
Authors: Leach James 
Published: July 2007

AbstractRural development in Botswana has proceeded using a non‐directive approach. During the period 1973–1979 sectoral programmes for promoting development in rural areas have been administered by executive ministries, but, in addition, there has been non‐executive machinery devoted to achieving a co‐ordinated approach to development in rural areas. The emphasis in the work of the non‐executive rural development unit was to promote communication and co‐operation, and the success of the programme so far is partly attributed to this approach. The article points to additional lessons to be learnt from the experience of using this approach.
Local Government and political development in Papua New Guinea
Authors: Bonney Norman 
Published: July 2007

AbstractThe paper examines the history of local government in Papua New Guinea and prospects for it, and offers some comparisons with Commonwealth Africa, particularly East Africa.The P.N.G. system of local government was influenced by that of Tanganyika but grew to greater proportional significance. Although challenged by the rise of nationalism, as in East Africa, local government has played a much greater role in political development. A significant anti‐council movement challenged the new system, but mirrored its forms. The regional nature of these protests accompanied by a weak nationalist movement, led to strong pressures for decentralization after independence. The 1976 constitutional settlement has established provincial governments with complete control over local government and has posed fundamental questions about the future shape of local government in P.N.G.
Swedish development aid policy: A discussion with reference to Ethiopia
Authors: Sisaye Seleshi 
Published: July 2007

AbstractFormal Ethio‐Swedish development co‐operation began in 1945 with the signing of a technical assistance treaty in vocational and technical education. Since then Swedish aid has been extended to health, nutrition and agriculture, with agricultural aid constituting the largest share since 1967. Swedish agricultural aid could be classified broadly into the comprehensive and the minimum package programmes. This paper discusses the changes in Swedish rural development assistance from the project to the country programming approach as reflected in the comprehensive and minimum package programme.This paper shows that the country programming approach to international development assistance is an important contribution to the strategies of delivering foreign assistance. Since the approach utilizes existing government programmes as the starting point for development assistance, and attempts to integrate aid into the national resource base, it can build confidence and mutual working relationships among donors and aid recipients. Moreover, the approach as utilized by Sweden has a three‐year time‐frame, allowing the transfer of funds within Swedish sponsored programmes. The overall strategy objective supports and broadens existing programmes directed to improving the welfare of the rural poor.
Local government innovation in Nigeria and Brazil: A comparative discussion of innovational transfers and intergovernmental relations
Authors: Olowu Dele 
Published: July 2007

AbstractIn planning the reform of local government in Nigeria in 1976, and deciding to give a status to local government in the Nigerian Constitution those involved drew on the experience of Brazil. This article explains how Brazilian arrangements influenced decisions in Nigeria and then compares the experience with the arrangements under the 1946 municipalist constitution in Brazil with what is happening in Nigeria following the 1976 reforms. The author points to similarities in the two countries.
The role of public administrators in public policy making: Practice and prospects in Nigeria
Authors: Koehn Peter 
Published: July 2007

AbstractIn Nigeria, as elsewhere, the role of the career bureaucracy in public policy making has constituted a subject of conflicting interpretation, practice, and prescription. Although higher public servants have always played a major part in shaping public policy, the extent of their involvement has ebbed and flowed in response to legal, structural, and political changes at the federal, state, and local government levels. In recent years, the exercise of policy making and implementing roles by public administrators has evoked mounting public criticism and top‐level career servants in Nigeria have faced unusually serious challenges to their authority. Moreover, confusion over the proper scope of administrative involvement in policy formulation and execution reached new heights both within and outside the public services following the adoption of elected executive forms of government in 1979.The article traces the shifts in bureaucratic policy‐making roles and relationships which occurred in the First Republic period, under different military regimes, and immediately following the return to civilian rule. The prospect that more fundamental changes will be forthcoming in the nature and extent of administrative involvement in public policy formation and execution is then explored in the context of past and current practice and conventions, key provisions of the 1979 Constitution, and recent social, political, and economic developments. The author concludes that public administrators will continue to be centrally involved in the policy‐making process under present structural arrangements and that a reorientation of the public services away from their prevailing preoccupation with promoting vested interests requires the development of more broadly based political organizations.
The Egyptian public sector: The control structure and efficiency considerations
Authors: Wahba Mourad Magdi 
Published: July 2007

AbstractThe Egyptian public sector is labouring under a mass of legal controls which are proving an obstacle to its efficient running. A variety of government agencies, as well as the Board of Directors and the General Assembly, are burdening each company with regulations and demands for information. The little latitude thus allowed company managers in deciding upon such essential problems as finance, the size of the labour force and the price of output has had severe effects in decreasing the efficiency of each company and of the sector as a whole. Some dynamic company managers are trying to find a way around the system, but this is having negative efficiency and welfare effects. Examples of the negative effects of the mass of controls on problems such as finance and pricing are given in the article. Attempts at forming joint ventures, in order to escape the oppression of belonging to the state, have been made by some companies, but these have met with union opposition in some cases although the state seems to encourage the reduction in investment outlay which this policy might have. The article develops the analysis of the politico administrative framework of economic activity presented by Ayubi (1982).
Planning and budgeting in Pakistan
Authors: Gable Richard W. , Laporte Robert 
Published: July 2007

AbstractTwenty years ago a pioneering study of planning and budgeting in Pakistan pointed to significant weaknesses. This article reviews the changes made subsequently to the formal processes and assesses how these are currently working. The planning agency is now a permanent organization. Planning and budgeting have been combined and these processes have moved closer to the centre of political power. On the other hand there are difficulties over linking planning and budgeting to the management of economic and fiscal policy; planning is geared to securing foreign aid funds; the planning processes favour large expensive projects which emerge from the more developed areas of the country and discriminate against the smaller projects with a shorter time horizon needed in less developed provinces–thus accentuating economic imbalances. Finally, although the importance of evaluation is recognized, in practice reporting and evaluation are not adequately practised.
Developing St. Helena
Authors: Gillett Simon 
Published: July 2007

AbstractIsolated in the south Atlantic, St Helena is now one of Britain's more intractable colonial responsibilities. In this paper a senior official with recent experience of the island describes three aspects of its situation which need to be handled in parallel; political advancement, the revival of economic enterprise and formulating an assured British aid policy together with clarification of links with Ascension Island and Britain. The analysis extends understanding of the difficulties of a remote microstate.
Putting ‘projectized’ development in perspective
Authors: Honadle George H. , Rosengard Jay K. 
Published: July 2007

AbstractThe project approach to development assistance has been attacked for its inability to make results self‐sustaining. This has been attributed to a short time horizon, an inability to pick up recurrent costs, and a tendency to either by‐pass or fragment local institutions and therefore to neglect the need for local capacity building. At the same time, claims have been made that projects are politically advantageous due to quick high visibility results and they are useful instruments for experimentation, social learning and capacity building. This article examines both arguments and concludes that there is a need for radical changes in project development processes, but that there should not be a rush to abandon the project as an instrument for development.
Administrative responsibility in a developing country: Theoretical considerations and the case of Zambia
Authors: Lungu Gatian F. 
Published: July 2007

AbstractAdministrative weaknesses in post colonial Africa have not commonly been assessed against notions of responsibility. Regarded as involving both institutionalized controls and moral obligations, responsibility provides a useful means of assessing the limitations and weaknesses of administration. Having elucidated the ideal of responsibility, the article takes Zambia as illustrating a situation present in different third world countries where administration is unsatisfactory judged against the ideal. Weaknesses are elaborated and the reasons for failures discussed. Emphasis is placed on the overcentralization of control in the person of the President and the failure in staff development and training to recognize the importance of encouraging a sense of moral obligation and the undue emphasis on management techniques.
Strengthening administrative capabilities in India
Authors: Maheshwari S. R. 
Published: July 2007

AbstractReform in public administration has been pursued in India since 1947 and received particular attention since the 1960s. The approach in the 1940s and 1950s was to hold inquiries into different facets of administration, then in the 1960s the strategy was adopted of having an administrative reforms commission with terms of reference which gave it uniquely wide powers and an opportunity to recommend an overhaul in the country's administration. Its recommendations were, indeed, far reaching, but the failure of its report to result in significant reforms being implemented has contributed to a change in emphasis in the 1970s. Attention has come to be directed once more to administrative improvements at the microlevel, and there are a number of significant criticisms to be made of these currently continuing approaches to improvement and reform.
Public financial administration of microstates: South Pacific Forum
Authors: Hardman D. J. 
Published: July 2007

AbstractThe broad pattern of public financial administration in the eleven microstates of the South Pacific Forum consists of three contrasted but related strands: the government accounting and budgeting system, public sector audit function and parliamentary financial surveillance. The three have their origins in an imported model which has evolved and crystallized in the context of big business, industrial society and metropolitan government. Effective public financial administration of the microstates is impeded by over‐reliance on this expatriate model which implicitly assumes that administrative prescriptions can be effectively applied in states irrespective of their size. The attainment of the developmental and related objectives of the South Pacific microstates would be facilitated by revision of the present model of financial administration to broaden the scope for improvization, experimentation and innovation in deference to the particular problems of very small scale.
The political economy of an African public enterprise: A longitudinal case study of the administrative and economic operations of the Sierra Leone Port Organization
Authors: Luke David Fashole 
Published: July 2007

AbstractIn most of the post‐colonial states of sub‐Saharan Africa, both the size of the state bureaucracy has grown and its functions proliferated. Whatever the economic rationale of public sector organizations, they do not exist and operate in a social and political vacuum. This paper argues that they are typically an integral part of a patron clientelist political and economic system on which the foundations of government sometimes depend. The consequences for the economic performance of public sector organizations arising out of this socio‐political context is now widely recognized in the growing literature on African public enterprise. Contributions to this discussion, however, have tended to be dominated by economists and public administration specialists who have generally adopted a technocratic problem solution approach. In isolating their analyses of the performance of African parastatals from an appraisal of the role of the state, this approach fails to situate adequately the problem of performance in its proper context. This paper provides a case study which examines the administrative and economic operations of the Sierra Leone Port Organization in the colonial and post‐colonial states. In arguing that problems of performance of African public sector organizations also require political solutions this discussion extends the discussion beyond a technocratic focus.
Vanuatu: The evolution of the administrative and political context of decentralization
Authors: Premdas Ralph R. , Steeves Jeffrey S. 
Published: July 2007

AbstractLocal government came late to Vanuatu (formerly the New Hebrides) and even then was more a response to external events than a reflection of community interests. The first local council experiment, from 1957 to 1958, failed because of rivalry between the colonial powers, Britain and France. Subsequently national political developments set up additional obstacles to the successful functioning of local government. Political conflicts at the national level, reflecting the divisions created by the Anglo‐French condominium, delayed implementation and undermined the administrative viability and democratic quality of local councils. Popular support for and trust in local government has not developed. A system created in haste and altered to serve the interests of competing national elites has not been able to adapt to the needs of local communities. A viable system of decentralization requires a degree of national consensus to be combined with local involvement in planning and implementation.
Green revolution as a planned intervention strategy for agricultural development: A systems perspective
Authors: Sisaye Seleshi , Stommes Eileen 
Published: July 2007

AbstractThe green revolution was a planned intervention expected to raise cereal‐grain production in Third World countries. Use of high yield varieties (HYVs) was to reduce dependence on food imports and bring about food self‐sufficiency. Early results were increased overall cereal‐grain production, but unforseen and undesirable social and economic consequences. The use of organizational development (OD) analysis of early green revolution results indicates that the initial strategy relied on a “hard” systems analysis to bring about adoption of the high yield varieties. Early green revolution work attempted to induce attitude and behaviour change within existing local and regional institutions.Recognizing the need to ensure distribution of green revolution inputs among subsistence farmers, later strategies used a “soft” systems analysis in developing structural intervention. Largely unable to reform existing government institutions and land‐holding patterns which restricted small farmer HYV programme participation, programme managers designed alternative structures to allow the small/subsistence farmer access to HYV inputs.
Training for development management: Reflections on social know‐how as a scientific and technological system
Authors: Nef J. , Dwivedi O. P. 
Published: July 2007

AbstractThis paper explores the linkages between development, “appropriate” administrative technology and the training of development managers. In so doing, it traces the intimate relationships between development administration, conceptual paradigms and administrative know‐how as a scientific and technological system. Orthodoxy, neo‐orthodoxy and critical paradigms are discussed and a number of elements to reformulate a development administration paradigm are considered. Based upon this discussion the paper concludes with a tentative outline identifying training needs for development managers and a number of observations about such training: its “appropriatness”, professionalisation and the issue of international cooperation.
Extending urban services in developing countries: Policy options and organizational choices
Authors: Rondinelli Dennis A. 
Published: July 2007

AbstractGovernments in developing countries will face serious problems in extending basic social services, public facilities and infrastructure for their rapidly growing urban populations during the next decade. The steadily increasing concentration of the poor in cities will exacerbate already severe strains on urban services. Innovative solutions will be needed to meet the growing demands for urban services. In addition to expanding national and municipal efforts, governments in developing countries must also explore alternative policies and organizational arrangements for meeting the basic needs of their urban population. Among the potential alternatives are: using market surrogates to improve service delivery; lowering the costs of service provision through changes in regulations and controls on urban development; actively supporting self‐help and service upgrading schemes by the poor; promoting public‐private co‐operation and private sector participation in service delivery; increasing effective demand for services by promoting employment and higher incomes; and enacting and implementing policies that attempt to redistribute migration to small and intermediate‐sized cities. Each alternative has advantages and limitations that planners and policy‐makers must take into consideration in forging effective urban development strategies.
The training and development of top executives in developing countries: A tanzanian approach
Authors: Mutahaba Gelase 
Published: July 2007

AbstractThe training and development of public service employees is now accepted to be a major contributor to organizational performance. In the Third World, however, much of the training effort has been directed at junior, supervisory and middle‐level personnel. Top personnel were, for a long time, presumed to be ‘above training’. There is now, however, an awakening to the need for training all categories of personnel. The major constraint in most countries remains the lack of facilities and trainers able to handle senior personnel. Tanzania has recently embarked on a concerted effort to train its top public service personnel through the mobilization of all management/administrative training capabilities in a joint, concerted endeavour, under the aegis of the Ministry of Manpower Development and a body known as the National Standing Training Team on Top Executive Development (NSTT). More than 20 6‐week courses have been run and a recent evaluation of the programme suggests that they are popular and have reactivated an interest in training among top executives. There is, however, no evidence to suggest that the training has resulted in improved performance in public organizations although some executives have introduced some innovations in their organizations which they derived from the training programme.
The co‐ordination of developmental activities at the local level
Authors: Osuji Emman. E. 
Published: July 2007

AbstractLocal developmental activities involve the participation of a multiplicity of functionaries, bodies and agencies. This demands both intra‐authority and inter‐authority co‐ordination if programme formulation and implementation are to be effective. This paper reviews the performance of the Divisional Administration system operationalized in the former East Central State of Nigeria up to 1976, from the viewpoint of interjurisdictional co‐ordination. The paper identifies factors like lack of specific local development programmes, poor information flow and a de‐emphasis of the human factor in the organizational setting as being responsible for the ineffectiveness of the Divisional Administration system to co‐ordinate the activities of the different participating actors in local development. It is suggested that, in addition to the setting up of structures for decision‐making networks like committees, attention should equally be paid to the process that would energize and sustain the structures if problems of co‐ordination are to be obviated.
Life at the apex: The functions of permanent secretaries in nine Southern African countries
Authors: Montgomery John D. 
Published: July 2007

AbstractThe political role of senior civil servants in Africa cannot be differentiated from their administrative roles. An analysis of specially commissioned ‘diaries’ kept by 40 permanent secretaries or their deputies reveals that their roles include all the organizational functions described by Mintzberg. Their functions in order of priority as measured by time spent are ‘resource handling’, liaison, analysis/planning, monitoring, acting as spokesmen, entrepreneurship and dissemination. The political neutrality of permanent secretaries appears to survive in the sense of escaping party discipline. However, politicians and bureaucrats in. the countries surveyed both act as conservators and innovators. Environmental circumstances other than politics have the greatest influences on the activities of top civil servants. The similarities in functions performed are striking, given the different ideologies, colonial heritages and traditions of the countries studied.