Tanzania's expert‐led planning: An assessment
| Author | A. Armstrong |
| Date | 01 July 1987 |
| DOI | http://doi.org/10.1002/pad.4230070303 |
| Published date | 01 July 1987 |
PUBLIC ADMINISTRATION AND DEVELOPMENT,
Vol.
7, 261-271
(1987)
Tanzania’s expert-led planning: an assessment
A. ARMSTRONG
Heart
of
England Tourist
Board
SUMMARY
In
common
with
most other African nations, a combination
of
expanding aid inflows and
critical manpower shortages
in
Tanzania has enabled foreign planning experts to exert a
growing strategic influence over the design
of
regional and rural development. Despite
certain undoubted benefits attributable to the work of these experts, this broader assessment
concludes that their contribution is often ineffective
in
the shorter term, and frequently
damaging and distorting
in
the longer term. Widespread procedural problems ranging from
time and logistic constraints and relative ignorance, together with the difficulties arising
from the role
of
outside experts
vis-u-vis
the local planning bureaucracy, including elitism,
poor communication and excessive demands, partly explain this. More fundamental distor-
tions are the result of their tendency to displace rather than supplement local capacity, the
perpetuation
of
dependence mentality, their removal from the implementation process and
unfortunate demonstration effects consequent upon their privileged working and personal
lifestyles. The negative outcome of Tanzania’s continuing expertise dependence is discussed,
and doubt is cast
on
the transferability
of
planning expertise from rich to poor nations.
IMPORTED PLANNING EXPERTISE
No
African country receives more foreign aid than Tanzania. Around
15
per cent
of its
$700
OOO
000
annual aid inflow comes in the form
of
technical assistance-the
transfer
of
experts and expertise from developed to developing countries (World
Bank,
1981).
In
turn,
no
other Third World region is as dependent as Africa on
foreign personnel to man its institutions, industries and overall development effort.
A sizeable proportion
of
Tanzania’s technical assistance. as well as its much
larger capital aid, has been channelled into its rapidly expanding regional and
urban planning effort, which gathered pace during the
1970s
following the historic
Arusha Declaration
of
1967
which took its stance on socialism and self-reliance
and refocused development efforts towards the previously neglected rural sector.
Planning, other than national macro-plans, is a comparatively recent phenomenon
in Tanzania, as elsewhere in the Third World, and regional planning effectively
dates back only to
1972
when an administrative decentralization exercise was
carried through. The severe shortage of trained Tanzanian planners and planning
technicians to operate this re-organized and expanded planning framework has
been one significant reason why foreign experts have been
so
widely called upon.
Dr Armstrong, formerly Senior Lecturer
in
the Department
of
Geography, University
of
Dar es
Salaam Tanzania. is Development Manager, Heart
of
England Tourist Board, Trinity Street, Worces-
ter, U.K.
@
1987
by John Wiley
&
Sons, Ltd.
027 1-2075/87/03026
1-1
1$05.50
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