Professional developments new study group in development management
| Date | 02 November 2006 |
| DOI | http://doi.org/10.1002/pad.4230140406 |
| Published date | 02 November 2006 |
PUBLIC
ADMINISTRATION AND DEVELOPMENT, VOL.
14,405407
(1994)
Professional Developments
New Study
Group
in Development Management
A new study group in Development Management has been set up under the auspices
of
the Development Studies Association, and the inaugural meeting was held at
RIPA International in London on February 18th.
The purpose of the new group is to provide a forum, particularly for people within
the
UK,
to review current activities in the field, to increase understanding about
a range and variety of management activities, and to contribute to the building
up of a theoretical base for development management.
A
major objective will be
to provide an outlet for publication and dissemination of accounts of good practice
and successful innovation in the management of development.
The first session of the inaugural meeting was concerned with setting the scene
for the work of the study group, and opened with a paper by the group convenor,
Ron Clarke, on the topic: ‘What is Development Management? in search of some
parameters’.
The paper first traced the evolution of the term ‘development administration’
from the
1960s
and the rise of ‘development management’ during the
1980s,
caused
partly by disillusionment with the perceived failure of development administration
to deliver on early promises, and partly by the predominant neo-liberal managerialist
doctrines
of
the decade. Although some regard the two terms as virtually synonymous,
it can be argued that they represent different sets
of
concepts and activities, even
if they overlap. Development management represents a wider range and therefore
runs the risk of becoming too amorphous to be useful as an overarching concept,
and also of trying to hitch together irreconcilable elements and interests. These include
contrasts between public service and private profit; between top-down, prescriptive,
blueprint, ‘West-is-best’ or universalist approaches, and grassroots, participative,
empowering and particularist approaches; and between big and powerful govern-
ment, big policy, big business and big aid agency on the one hand, and small, relatively
powerless local community groups on the other.
Part of the dynamic of the new group could be to help in the process
of
promoting
areas of common concern-such as institution building-and reconciliation between
opposing interests where necessary and possible.
A
special issue of PAD, edited
by Paul Collins and Peter Blunt (Vol
14
Issue
No.
2,
May
1994)
recently addressed
the issue of ‘Institution Building in Developing Countries’.
It may not be very useful to attempt a definition of development management,
but one yardstick could be that it should be concerned with the reduction of poverty
and with raising standards of living and quality of life, whether it involves a local
community or a whole nation.
An additional paper on the same theme-‘What is development management?’-
was presented by Alan Thomas
of
the Open University. He considered two different
approaches to both ‘development’ and ‘management’, and how these could affect
concepts of ‘development management’. Development can be seen either as an histori-
CCC
027 1-2075194/040405-03
0
1994 by
John
Wiley
&
Sons, Ltd.
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