Professional developments
| Date | 01 August 1992 |
| Published date | 01 August 1992 |
| DOI | http://doi.org/10.1002/pad.4230120308 |
PUBLIC ADMINISTRATION
AND
DEVELOPMENT, VOL. 12,313-317 (1992)
Professional Developments
This section
exists
to
promote
an exchange of ideas and experience between readers. Summaries
of
recent developments in management, research and training are intended to provide the
opportunity
for
interested readers to follow
up
by
writing to the contact person for fuller
information. In addition to reports
on
activities,
we
would
also like
to
receive short
‘think
pieces’ floating fresh ideas
on
some particular issue
or
field of work. Contributions should
be
sent
to Richard Batley (Assistant Editor).
This issue includes three contributions
from
the
University
of
Birmingham, by Ian Blore
on
new
approaches to rapid economic analysis in the urban context, Mark Ddeld
on
regional
cooperation in North East Asia and
by
Malcolm Wallis on
the
implications for smaller southern
African states
of
the end of apartheid in South Africa.
APPROACHES
TO
URBAN RAPID ECONOMIC ANALYSIS
Developing towns and cities are worlds of rapid, particularly of rapid economic,
change. Decisions about public services such as water supply and sewerage, solid
waste management, transport and locational planning, need to be responsive to econ-
omic change. Urban managers require tools to analyse urban economies insofar
as they are attempting to support economic change. Moreover they need
to
do
so
rapidly and cheaply.
Methods of rapid information collection and analysis have become well-established
in rural development (Chambers,
1980).
To
a great extent these methods institutiona-
lize existing good practice, in their reliance on direct observation, seeking several
views of any one ‘fact’ (or ‘triangulation’), and in their use ofchecklists and interviews
that are both flexible and systematic (semi-structured interviews). Certain agencies
are beginning to institutionalize some of these practices in an urban context. USAID
for instance has developed a method of selection and project identification for small
market towns (Garnett
et
al.,
1989).
The Development Administration Group has been consciously using an approach
to urban rapid economic analysis since
1989.
It is a feature of its collaborative Indian
training programme funded by ODA and assisted by the British Council. Its use
has been developed in conjunction with the Town and Country Planning Organization
of Delhi and has been put into practice with groups of urban officials. These, as
participants on the training programmes, have conducted urban rapid economic
analyses of small town development in Gujarat
(1989),
Karnataka
(1990)
and Jaipur
(1991)
(Batley,
1990;
Amis,
1991;
Blore,
1992)
whilst smaller studies in Britain have
complemented the field-based action-learning process.
The evolving methods deliberately borrow ideas from the rural development litera-
ture. Greater reliance is placed, however, on observation of ‘proxies’ in order to
understand economic variables and trends. Furthermore the group is experimenting
with ways of team analysis of information. At present these are using the Kolb
approach to learning
(Kolb,
1984)
to conduct structured analysis and brainstorming
practices.
0271-2075/92/03031345$05.00
0
1992
by
John Wiley
&
Sons,
Ltd.
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