Administrative Development in Smaller Countries — The Capacity of Technical Assistance to meet their special problems
| Published date | 01 July 1968 |
| Date | 01 July 1968 |
| DOI | http://doi.org/10.1002/j.1099-162X.1968.tb00336.x |
| Author | Geoffrey Burgess |
Administrative Development in
Smaller Countries-
The
Capacity
of Technical Assistance to meet
their special problems
By
GEOFFREY
BURGESS
Mr. Burgess was lately a Public Administration Consultant to the United Nations.
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THE
title of this article requires brief initial explanation.
The
eventual
purpose of an article such as this is usually to suggest solutions, or to arrive
at conclusions which may facilitate finding solutions, to problems.
The
title
of the present article may appear more likely to provoke questions than to
answer them. Accepting that technical assistance is provided to help solve
administrative problems, the title assumes firstly that the nature of the
problems commonly met in discussing national systems of administration
may be so influenced by a single factor, the size of the national unit
considered, as to require special solutions appropriate to that size; secondly
that the present capacity of technical assistance to contribute to the solution
of problems may vary with the nature of the problems and hence with the
size of the unit.
The
succeeding observations are intended to stimulate
discussion on this position.
The
first proposition that must be made is that there has in fact already
occurred, in the twenty-odd years during which technical assistance has
been available, a profound change in the size of national units, and particu-
larly of those national units which now and in the future may be expected to
utilise technical assistance. This may best be illustrated with reference to
membership of the United Nations:
(a) Taking the beginning of
1957
as marking a half-way stage in the
growth of the United Nations, there were at that time eighty members.
Their average population was over twenty-seven million. They included
the majority of the developed countries. But they also included a substantial
proportion of developing countries, including such population giants as
India, Indonesia, Brazil, Pakistan, and it is unlikely that the average
population of the developing countries differed materially from the group
norm.
(h)
Between rst January, 1957 and 31st December, 1965, thirty-eight new
members were admitted. All, with two exceptions, had formed component
parts of colonial empires and had been administered as components of major
entities having access, particularly for the vital management and professional
staff, to the wide resources of the administering power. At independence
they ceased to be parts of such major entities and became administrative
entities in their own rights, relying on their own resources. Only one,
Nigeria, had a population exceeding the average for the pre-1957 group.
The
average population of the group, including Nigeria was 5.2 million, a
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