An Exercise in Rural Development Planning in Swaziland
| DOI | http://doi.org/10.1002/j.1099-162X.1968.tb00329.x |
| Published date | 01 April 1968 |
| Author | Eric Smith |
| Date | 01 April 1968 |
An Exercise in Rural Development
Planning in Swaziland
by
ERIC
SMITH
Mr.
Smith
is a lecturer in economics at the University of Botswana, Lesotho and
Swaziland. He was in charge of
the
project described in this article.
Preface: (Contributed by J. B. Wilson, Principal, Swaziland Staff
Training Institute).
The Swaziland
Staff
Training Institute opened on
tst
September, 1965, at
Sidwashini, near Mbabane, capital
of
Stoasiland.
It
undertakes training
of
the administrative, executive, accounting, clerical, secretarial and postal cadres
which account for less than 600 in a civil service comprising only 2,500
establishedemployees.
There are seven training rooms, of which four are specialized,
viz:
language
laboratory, mock post office, and two typing rooms, accommodating a total
of
up to 100 trainees, with residence for 36 men and 16 women.
Administrative training has been undertaken with the assistance of visiting
staff from the University
of
Botswana, Lesotho and Swazi/and. The first
administrative training course held in 1966, consisted
of
alternating periods
of
'block' release and day-release spread over one year covering the following main
Subjects: machinery
of
central and local government, civil services, manage-
ment, economics and material
resources,
finance, law and sociology. These made
a total of 300 hours,
of
which 70 were devoted to
economics.
The present article
describes
a 5-day field exercise during which trainees
were asked to draft 5-year development proposals for a rural development area.
Main Objects
THE
main purpose of this paper is to describe and criticise a field exercise
in rural development planning carried out by participants as part of an
administrative training course.
The
practical exercise provides another
example
of
a form of training which has received attention in this Journal
before.!
It has to be made clear that the exercise was simply a training project. It
was unlikely that the attempts to give effect to the resolutions of the
"district teams" would be of much direct use.
The
most important goal was to bring the participants into contact with
development problems in such a way that they would be obliged to think
deeply about them. Such thought would be fostered, it was felt, by carefully
avoiding any sense of acting under detailed instructions. It was necessary
that the participants should make their own decisions.
A second important object was to face participants with the difficulty
of
deciding what their instructions actually were.
The
terms of reference
-
----
1See, for example, Institutional Training in Africa
(II),
by R. E. Wraith, J.L.A.O.,
Vol. IV,
No.2,
April 1965, p. 79 and Training for the Administration of Development
in Kenya, by C. Fuller and R. Chambers, J.L.A.O., Vol. IV,
No.2,
April 1965, p. 109.
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