John M. Cohen

Participation's place in rural development: seeking clarity through specificity

Abstract Over the past few years, development specialists have expressed increasing concern over the lack of progress in altering the plight of the rural poor. Towards this end they are shifting from the capital-investment growth models of the 1960s to the more people-centred basic- needs approaches that are increasingly dominating development thinking in the 1970s. In the process, they are turning to a number of related development strategies, one of the most important and least understood of which is ‘popular participation’. Increasing numbers of studies and activities are being undertaken to bolster government and donor capacity to promote participation in development programmes. Yet, with all these activities the disturbing fact is that there is little agreement on what participation is or on its basic dimensions. This article seeks to provide some order to the emergence of participatory concerns in the development literature, and to offer a carefully elaborated framework that clarifies the notion of ‘rural-development participation’ and make it applicable to total-development projects.

Foreign aid and conditions precedent: Political and bureaucratic dimensions

Abstract International donor agencies increasingly use their influence to press for major reforms in development policies and administrative practices in Third World countries. Reform recommendations are often conceptualized with little regard for the political and bureaucratic contexts in which they are to be adopted and pursued. Without greater concern for issues of political and bureaucratic feasibility, however, reform recommendations are likely to have only minimal impact. Policy space research and administrative systems research are promising approaches for acquiring and analyzing information about the political and bureaucratic aspects of government decision-making. Such analyses can improve the potential for reform recommendations to be adopted and pursued.

Importance of Public Service Reform: the Case of Kenya

International donors supporting Kenyas development strategies have increasingly tied aid to the implementation of policy and sectoral reforms. After being confronted by more than 150 required structural adjustment conditions, the Governments good rhetoric but slow response led frustrated donors in November 1991 to suspend all foreign-exchange relief, and large blocks of bilateral aid, pending substantial progress in meeting these requirements.

Building sustainable professional capacity in African public sectors: retention constraints in Kenya

Significant investments are being made by aid agencies to increase Masters-level training of African professionals serving in the public sector. Yet no case studies present detailed data or analysis of past efforts to build sustainable human capacity in governmental institutions. The article reviews career and retention data on 169 economists, planners, and statisticians trained under funding provided by 6 long-term aid projects for targeted posts in Kenyan ministries. After reviewing retention constraints revealed by this data and other evidence, it offers recommendations that might assist governments and aid agencies to design and implement capacity building initiatives with a higher probability of ensuring that returned graduates serve for adequate periods of time in the positions for which they were trained.

Food Production Strategy Debates in Revolutionary Ethiopia

Abstract For more than a decade two strategies of rural development have competed for the attention of Ethiopian policymakers: (1) the smallholder approach based on individual freehold, a strong private sector, and public expenditures in support of essential agricultural sector institutions and infrastructure; and (2) the agrarian socialism approach based on collective ownership of the means of production, group farming, state farms, and government control of marketing. The article reviews the history and direction of this debate, outlining in the process current government policies aimed at promoting agrarian socialism and their effects on food production and the quality of rural life. It concludes that Ethiopia will suffer ever increasing food deficits until it abandons its current agrarian strategy in favor of smallholder productivity and it offers a range of options for donors involved in programs and projects promoting Ethiopias agricultural development.

Microcomputers and financial management in development ministries: Experience from Kenya

Kenyas Ministries of Agriculture and Livestock Development have recently begun to use microcomputers as a tool for improved financial management. The conventional wisdom has been that the use of such high technology is inappropriate in a developing country, where capital is scarce and labour abundant. Such an assessment may well be mistaken with regard to microcomputers, for their capital costs are modest and they can extend the effectiveness of scarce, skilled managers. In this paper case studies are provided of three applications of microcomputers to financial management in which the authors have directly participated. The likely preconditions are then evaluated for the successful use of microcomputers in similar situations.

Budgeting and financial management in Kenya's agricultural ministries

Abstract During the 1970s the financial management of Kenyas agricultural ministries became relatively poor. With the abundant fiscal resources that accompanied the coffee boom, financial discipline seemed merely a nuisance to government officers. In this paper, exactly how budgeting and resource management were performed during these years, before major correctives were begun in 1982, is described. This account is of interest beyond the boundaries of Kenya because, despite the fiscal laxity described, it has been one of the better administered states in Africa. Its financial management systems closely parallel those of other former British colonies, and Kenyas problems in this area are present in even greater force elsewhere on the African continent. Since donors, technical assistance personnel and even many Kenyan officials are innocent of the magnitude of those shortcomings, this paper may help them to acquire greater realism in the design and management of projects with which they are involved. In a sequel paper, the way in which the introduction of a microcomputer assisted in lessening some of these problems in Kenya will be described.

Development from below: Local Development Associations in the Yemen Arab Republic

Abstract The Local Development Associations (LDAs) of the Yemen Arab Republic illustrate how indigenous organizations led by local elites can promote participatory, widely beneficial rural development. LDAs reflect a tradition of community based self-help efforts. Today Yemens six million people, from urban dwellers to those living in remote mountain areas, are served by nearly 200 LDAs. These associations are active in undertaking tasks the central government is not organized to perform. Supported primarily by their immediate constituencies and led by local notables, they build roads, schools, village water systems, and clinics. Over the past decade they have achieved dramatic development results and become important, nationally recognized institutions. This article documents the LDA movement. This example of succesfull local organization is particularly important because development experts often dismiss the potential of such movements on the ground that they are likely to be elite-dominated, probably to the detriment of the poorer members of the community. In describing the LDA movement, this article also consolidates for the first time the few published, frequently unavailable papers on Yemens complex little-studied rural sector.

Capital-Surplus, Labor-Short Economies: Yemen as a Challenge to Rural Development Strategies

If the test of a development model is its capacity to yield strategies that deal effectively with new and different situations, then the Yemen Arab Republic will be a good proving ground for contemporary theoretical approaches to agricultural and rural development. Until the early 1970s Yemens annual gross national income was less than US

Analysing the Ethiopian Revolution: a cautionary tale.

100 per capita; the country had a shortage of capital and a surplus of labor--characteristics shared by many developing countries. Within the last five years, however, employment opportunities in Saudi Arabia have attracted some 40% of Yemens male labor force, and the remittance of earnings by these workers has increased Yemens gross national income per capita by a factor of six. Policy makers now face the problem of planning for national development under conditions of capital surplus and labor shortage. There is a growing concern that the dominant models of agricultural and rural development cannot generate strategies responsive to their needs.