Meeting basic needs in Asia, Part I: Government capacity and performance
| DOI | http://doi.org/10.1002/pad.4230010205 |
| Published date | 01 April 1981 |
| Date | 01 April 1981 |
PUBLIC ADMINISTRATION AND DEVELOPMENT,
VOI.
1, 133-150 (1981)
Meeting basic needs in Asia, Part
I:
government capacity and performance
DENNIS A. RONDINELLI
The Maxwell School
of
Citizenship and Public Affairs, Syracuse University
MARVIN
B.
MANDELL
The Maxwell School
of
Citizenship and Public Affairs, Syracuse University
SUMMARY
Questions concerning the distribution
of
income and wealth, and access to services have
attracted increased attention during the
1970s
to complement the earlier emphasis on the
promotion of macro-economic development. This article provides a comparative review
of
service needs in Asia. It presents an inventory
of
the types
of
services provided by,
or
through, government, and assesses their adequacy
for
rural development. It explores
problems with mobilizing resources and delivering services, and it identifies arrangements
that appear most effective. The article emphasizes the problem
of
extending the coverage,
and increasing the quality,
of
social and productive support services for vast
rural
populations and it stresses that more appropriate ways must be found
of
delivering
services that are needed. A second article, to appear in the next number
of
Public
Administration and Development,
reviews ways
of
improving the capacity
of
governments
and local communities to provide services needed by rural populations.
Experience with development over the past quarter of a century suggests that
the success of developing nations
in
stimulating and sustaining economic and
social progress and
in
transforming themselves from subsistence to productive
societies depends on two crucial factors. One is government’s ability to design
and carry out strategies for macro-economic growth. The other, and equally as
important, is its capacity to provide those services needed to increase the
productivity and
fulfil
the basic needs of a majority of its population
in
an
equitable fashion. The two factors are closely related. Attempts to distribute
income and wealth more equitably, increase participation
in
economic activities
and expand the coverage of social and productive support services are often
futile
in
stagnant economies. But macro-economic growth policies that ignore
distributive issues or that fail to build local capacity to provide services often
result
in
highly
concentrated and inequitable patterns of development.
A great deal of experience
with
alternative development policies for achieving
growth-with-equity has been gained
in
East and Southeast Asia over the past
Professor Rondinelli is Director, and Marvin Mandell a Member,
of
the Faculty
of
the Graduate
Program in Development Planning, The Maxwell School, Syracuse University, Syracuse,
N.Y.
13210,
U.S.A.
Research
for
this paper was partially funded by the Local Revenue Administration Project at
Syracuse University through a collaborative agreement with the Office
of
Rural Development, U.S.
Agency for International Development. The conclusions and interpretations, however, are those
of
the authors and do not necessarily reflect the policies
of
the project or
of
USAID.
0
1981
by John Wiley
&
Sons, Ltd.
0271-2075/81/020133-18$01.80
134
D.
A.
Rondinelli and M.
B.
Mandell
three decades. Socialist governments in Burma, Sri Lanka and the People’s
Republic of China emphasized distribution over growth and found that equity
was achieved primarily by reducing the entire population
to
a standard of living
just above the subsistence level. Moreover, policies primarily concerned with
distribution have led to relatively
low
levels of productivity in the agricultural
and industrial sectors and to severe problems of sustaining the economy over
long periods of time (USAID, 1979a; USAID, 1979b). Other countries such as
India, Pakistan, Indonesia, the Philippines and Thailand sought macro-economic
growth without considering distribution and found that large numbers of people
remain in dire poverty despite overall economic progress. Some Asian countries
such as Bangladesh and Nepal have neither been able to promote
macro-economic growth nor to mobilize resources for local service delivery
(USAID, 1979c, USAID, 1980a). Only a few nations such as South Korea,
Taiwan and Malaysia have been relatively successful at both (Rao, 1978; Ranis,
1978; Lee, 1977).
Although most countries have given highest priority to promoting
macro-economic development, international assistance agencies and some
governments
in
developing nations are now paying greater attention to issues of
distribution. They are seeking ways of generating resources within local
communities to provide services that fulfill basic needs, increase employment
and output and distribute the benefits of development more equitably. The
approaches to development that emerged during the 1970s attempted to refocus
attention on factors largely ignored during the 1950s and 1960s. ‘While these
strategies have in common a rejection of economic growth alone as a sufficient
means of achieving broad-based development and alleviating poverty in the
developing countries, they recognize that rapid growth is an essential element of
any development strategy
for
poor countries’, one analyst correctly observes.
Concisely stated the issue is not ‘between advocates of growth and advocates of
no growth or slow growth; it is between advocates of maximum growth in GNP
regardless of how it is achieved and advocates of a growth path which puts to
productive use the
now
underutilized labor
of
the poor’ (Paolillo, 1976). In Asia,
poverty is most severe in rural areas, and given its magnitude and extent and the
paucity of national resources, the only realistic approach to alleviating massive
rural poverty is through building the capacity of local governments, and of
non-governmental organizations, to mobilize community resources for social and
productive-support services (Rondinelli and Ruddle, 1977b). In its initial stages
however, a local resource mobilization policy requires substantial support and
commitment from the national government and a willingness on the part of
policymakers to invest national resources in local capacity-building programmes.
Relatively little effort has been made, thus far, to survey service needs in
Asia, compare experiences with trying to fulfil them and assess government
capacity to mobilize resources for service delivery. Nor have the reasons for
successes and failures been examined, the implications for increasing the
capacity of local governments to mobilize resources for community services been
explored or successful programmes and projects that could be replicated
elsewhere been identified. Thus, this paper will inventory the types of services
provided by or through national and local governments in Asia, assess their
adequacy for rural development, explore problems with resource mobilization
and service delivery and identify the arrangements that seem to be most effective.
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