Rural regional planning: Towards an operational theory

Rural Regional Planning: Towards an Operational Theory DIANA CONYERS Centre for Development

Studies, University College of Swansea, Singleton Park, Swansea SA2 8PP, Wales, U.K.

Progress in Planning. Vol. 23, pp. 001-066, 1985. Printed in Great Britain. All rights reserved.

Copyright

0305~9006/85 %0.00+.50 0 1985 Pergamon Press Ltd.

Contents 1.

5 5 7

The Role of Regional Planning in Rural Development 1.1. Introduction 1.2. The Case for a Regional Approach to Rural Development 1.2.1. Regionalplanning as a means of implementing national plans 1.2.2. Regional planning as a means offacilitatingparticipation 1.2.3. Regional planning as a means of coordinating sectoral activities 1.2.4. The role of regionalplanning in reducing inequalities I. 3. The Role of the State in Rural Development I. 4. Summarv

9 10 10 13

2.

Regional Planning: An Overview 2.1. Introduction 2.2. Historical Origins and Dimensions 2.2.1. Conventional approaches to regionalplanning 2.2.2. Unconventional approaches to regional planning 2.3. Regional Planning and Rural Development 2.3. I. Planning profession 2.3.2. Regional development or regionalplanning 2.3: 3. Types of development policies 2.3.4. Intra-regionalor inter-regionalplanning 2.3.5. Type of region 2.3.6. Regional coverage 2.3.7. Planning for regions or by regions 2.4. Summary and Conclusions

14 14 14 16 19 22 25 26 29 31 32 36 37 38

3.

Towards a Theory of Rural Regional Planning 3. I. Introduction 3.2. Basic Issues in Rural Regional Planning 3.2. I. Type of planning profession 3.2.2. Rural regional development or rural regional planning

41 41 42 42 43

3

7 8

4

Progress in Planning

3.3.

3.4. 3.5.

3.2.3. Intra-regional or inter-regionalplanning 3.2.4. Type of region 3.2.5. Regional coverage 3.2.6. Planning for regions or by regions 3.2.7. Summary Evidence from Theory 3.3.1. Conventional approaches 3.3.2. Unconventionalapproaches 3.3.3. Summary and conclusions Evidence from Practice Summary and Conclusions

Bibliography

44 44 45 46 46 47 47 51 56 56 59

61

CHAPTER

1

The Role of Regional Planning 1.1.

in Rural Development

INTRODUCTION

This monograph is concerned with the contribution of regional planning to rural development. It begins by arguing that regional planning should play an important role in rural development but that, for a variety of reasons, it has not done so in the past, and it then proceeds to consider how its contribution could be increased in the future. It suggests that, since most conventional approaches to regional planning have not been specifically concerned with rural development, this requires a new approach, which draws upon these conventional approaches but also upon other bodies of knowledge and experience which are more directly relevant to rural development. In other words, it examines the potential for, and the characteristics of, an approach to regional planning which is directed specifically towards the needs of rural development. For want of a better term, we shall refer to this approach as rural regionalplanning. The purpose of this chapter is to examine the reasons why there is a role for regional planning in rural development. First, however, a few words about the use of the terms ‘rural development’ and ‘regional planning’ are necessary, in order to avoid confusion and misunderstanding in what follows, since both are commonly used in a variety of different ways. In a review of a book on rural development edited by John Harriss (Harriss, 1982) Best (1983, p. 27) comments that: “It is a bold author who entitles his book Rural Development. What, after all, is ‘rural development’? Is it a field of study and research? Is it a form of state intervention to promote the well-being of rural people? Or is it something which is happening anyway no matter what the academics or the bureaucrats do?”

For the present purpose, it is only necessary to recognize that the term may be used to cover any or all of these activities. Furthermore, it is not necessary to delve too deeply into the related problems of exactly how one defines both ‘rural’ and ‘development’. Thus Uma Lele’s relatively broad and vague definition of rural development as ‘improving living standards of the mass of the low-income population residing in rural areas and making the process of their development self-sustaining’ (Lele, 1975, p. 20) is sufficient as a starting-point for our discussion. However, two issues related to this definition do require some elaboration before progressing any further. Firstly, it is important to note the problems associated with the definition of ‘rural 5

6

Progress in Planning

areas’. These include what might be described as technical problems, such as the criteria used to define ‘rural’, lack of the data needed to measure these criteria and the arbitrariness of the boundaries separating ‘rural’ and ‘urban’ areas. However, they also include conceptual or anaiytical problems, related to the interdependency of these socalled ‘rural’ and ‘urban’ areas and the coexistence of both ‘rural’ and ‘urban’ phenomena in areas which are primarily ‘rural’. The current concern with rural development arose in the 1960s in large part as a reaction to the over-emphasis on urbanization, industrialization and ‘westernization’ in the 1950s and, as with all such reactions, it tended to push trends in thinking to the other extreme, with the result that the similarities, linkages and overlaps between *rural’ and ‘urban’ areas have tended to be neglected (Apthorpe, 1983). This does not mean that the concept of rural development, in the sense of improving the livelihood of low-income people in areas which are predominantly rural, is invalid: merely that the complexities of rural areas and rural-urban relationships must not be overlooked. This book is thus concerned with the role of ~egiana~plan~ing in rural deve~apme~~, rather than with the pZa~ni~g of rural regions - a subtle but significant distinction. Secondly, Lele’s definition is useful because it emphasizes that rural development involves more than just agricultural development. The need for multi-disciplinary and ‘integrated’ approaches to rural development is now well established, encouraged by the activities of foreign aid donors, which have included many so-called ‘integrated rural development* projects (Ruttan, 1976; FAO, 1978; Livingstone, 1979; ODI, 1979; Misra and Sundaram, 1980; Montgomery, 1983). However, it warrants mention here because it has particular implications in terms of the role of regional planning. We shall consider these implications, and also the many problems associated with both defining and achieving ‘integrated’ rural development, at a later stage. Defining regional planning presents just as many problems as defining rural development; however most of these will be postponed until the next chapter. For the time being, regional planning may simply be defined as a dimension of, or approach to, development planning which focuses on regions or geographical areas, rather than either on the national economy or society as a whole or on specific functional sectors or individual projects (Conyers and Hills, 1984, pp. I I-13). This, of course, begs the question of what is development planning. In this context, the assumption made by Waterston (1965, p. 27) that: “countries were considered to be engaged in development planning if their governments were making conscious and continuing attempt to increase their rate of economic and social progress and to alter those institutional arrangements which were considered to be obstacles to the achievement of this aim”;

a

still provides a useful basis for defining the term. The fact that planning thus implies conscious intervention by governments, and the implications of this for rural development, are points to which we shall return later in the chapter. Two other points about regional planning require brief mention here, in order to avoid confusion in the discussion which follows. First, the term ‘region’ is used here in a relatively broad sense to refer to any form of sub-national geographical areas; it does not, however, in the present context include multi-nationa regions. Second, the term ‘regional planning’ is used, at least for the time being, to cover both planning within

Rural

Regional

Planning:

Towards

an Operational

Theory

regions (intra-regional planning) and planning between regions (inter-regional planning). Both these points are sources of confusion in discussions on the nature and role of regional planning and they will be discussed in some detail in the next chapter.

1.2.

THE

CASE

FOR

A REGIONAL

APPROACH

TO

RURAL

DEVELOPMENT

Although concern with rural development is no longer a new phenomenon in development studies and governments, international ggencies and academics have now had many years of experience in trying to bring about planned rural change, confusion and uncertainty still abound. Robert Chambers’ book, RuralDevelopment: Putting the Last First, which was published in 1983 and calls for a radically different approach to meeting the needs of the rural poor, testifies to this. However, since this monograph is concerned not with rural development as such but with the contribution which regional planning has to make, we shall not attempt to review the many different approaches to rural development which have been advocated and tested over the last two decades. They are, in any case, already well-covered elsewhere in the literature (Chambers, 1974, 1983; Lele, 1975; World Bank, 1975; Lipton, 1977; Long, 1977; Hunteret al., 1979; Heyer, 1981; Harrison, 1982). We shall merely focus on those aspects of rural development which relate to regional planning. Despite the continuing lack of any easy or obvious solutions to most rural development problems, some tentative lessons have emerged from past experience and from these it is possible to argue that some sort of regional approach to rural development planning is required. The main points in support of this argument are summarized here under four broad headings: the implementation of national plans; the facilitation of popular participation; the coordination of sectoral activities; and the reduction of inequalities.

1.2.1. Regional Planning as a means of Implementing

National Plans

In the early days of development planning, attention tended to be focused on macroeconomic planning. Gradually, however, during the late 1960s and early 197Os, it was realized that one of the reasons for the alarming ‘gap’ between what was planned and what actually happened, characteristic of so many countries, was the failure to undertake more detailed planning of individual sectors, projects and regions to support the macro-economic planning undertaken at national level (Faber and Seers, 1972; Rondinelli, 1978; Griffin, 1981; Conyers and Hills, 1984). Planning at these levels is necessary in order to ensure that national plans are based on reasonably accurate information attil;t existing activities and needs and likely future achievements and, in particular, to assist in the process of translating broad macro-economic policies and targets into detailed programmes and projects which can actually be implemented. The importance of sectoral planning and project planning tended to be recognized earlier than that of regional planning and this was reflected in the attention given in the 1970s to developing planning capacity within sectoral ministries and improving project

7

8

Progress

in Planning

planning and management techniques. Gradually, however, the role of regional planning has also been recognized. As Rondinelli and Cheema (1983, p. 14) point out, decentralization of planning to regional level: “can be a means of overcoming the severe limitations of centrally controlled national planning by delegating greater authority for development planning and management to officials who are working in the field, closer to the problems. Decentralization to regional or local levels allows officials to disaggregate and tailor development plans and programmes to the needs of heterogeneous regions and groups.”

The need to disaggregate national planning applies, of course, to the planning of any form of development, not only rural development. However, regional planning has a particularly important role to play in the case of rural development because programmes and projects are particularly sensitive to local needs and conditions.

1.2.2.

Regional Planning as a means of Facilitating Participation

Another dimension of development planning which has received much attention in the last decade or so is the role of popular participation. Although there is a great deal of debate about the degree and form of participation which is desirable in any particular situation, and about the extent to which the ‘benefits’ of such participation outweigh the ‘costs’, the need for some sort of participation has gained widespread acceptance. This is reflected in the attention given to participation - at least in the rhetoric of development - by individual governments, international agencies (particularly the International Labour Office (ILO) and the United Nations Research Institute for Social Development (UNRISD)) and academics (UN, 1975; O’Regan et al., 1979; Cohen and Uphoff, 1980; UNRISD, 1980; ILO, 1981-82). Participation is advocated for two main reasons. On the one hand, it is seen as a means of improving the quality and relevance of plans and as a means of facilitating their implementation (including the contribution of local resources of finance or labour) and their acceptance. On the other hand, it is seen as an end in itself - that is, as an essential component of a ‘democratic’ society and an essential requirement for the wellbeing of the individual and the community; it was thus one component of the ‘basic needs’ approach to development, initiated by the IL0 in the 1970s (Ghai, 1977). A particularly good case for participation can be made with respect to rural development planning because, as already indicated, rural development plans are particularly susceptible to variations in local conditions, needs and attitudes and popular participation is a way of achieving information about these variations and thus facilitating the preparation of plans which are relevant and acceptable. The role of participation in rural development has been usefully assessed by Cohen and Uphoff in an article summarising the findings of a research project undertaken at Cornell University. They conclude (1980, p. 228) that: “‘participation is possible and under many condirions desirable to achieve rhe development goals set by development agencies andLDC governments. It can be difficult to promote and the results are not always predictable. The knowledge base to work from is not yet consolidated. But there is enough experience and theory so that incorporating more elements of participation into development strategies is feasible and appropriate.”

Rural

Regional

Planning:

Towards

an Operational

Theory

What then is the role of regional planning in relation to participation? Regional planning - and in particular intra-regional planning - can facilitate participation because it is undertaken at a spatial level which is ‘closer to the people’ and so it is easier to involve them in the planning process. It is also seen as a link in a two-way channel of communication between the national level and the local, village or community level; although there is considerable debate about the relative importance of ‘top-down’ and ‘bottom-up’ communication along this channel, there is no doubt that some such communication must take place (Stohr and Taylor, 1981). The relationship between regional planning and popular participation will be examined in greater detail later, at which point it will be seen that the relationship is actually far more complex than we have so far suggested, since it depends on both the degree and form of participation required and the type of regional planning with which one is concerned. For the time being. however, it is sufficient to state that regional planning can, under certain conditions, facilitate participation in rural development planning.

1.2.3. Regional Planning as a means of Coordinating

Sectoral Activities

It was emphasized at the beginning of the chapter that rural development should be seen as a multi-disciplinary activity, involving many different sectoral activities (not only agriculture but also natural resource utilization and conservation, rural industry, health, education, transportation, and so on) and, therefore, many different functional agencies. This suggests the need for regional planning - or, as in the case of participation,,more specifically intru-regional planning - because regional planning involves planning a region or geographical area as a whole, including all sectoral activities. It thus provides a means of coordinating the planning activities of the many different functional agencies operating in the region. It is, incidentally, interesting to note that regional planning is thus seen as a means of achieving both ‘vertical’ coordination between national and local levels and ‘horizontal’ coordination between sectoral or functional activities within a region. This dual role has led one author to describe regional planning as a ‘cross function’ (Weitz, 1971, 1979). The role of regional planning as a means of horizontal, or inter-sectoral, coordination received encouragement during the 1970s by the emergence of integrated rural development (IRD), to which brief reference has already been made. The objectives of IRD are varied and complex, in large part because of the many different interpretations of the word ‘integrated’, a point which will be discussed in depth later. At this stage, it is sufficient merely to suggest that IRD arose, at least in part, in response to the realization that rural development involves many different functional activities which have to be planned (and implemented) in a coordinated or ‘integrated’ manner. Moreover, despite the fact that IRD is in many respects a development ‘fad’ which may well ‘go out of fashion’ before very long, the need for some sort of inter-sectoral coordination, and thus for some sort of regional planning, is likely to remain an important characteristic of rural development activity.

9

10

Progress

in Planning

1.2.4. The Role of Regional Planning in Reducing Inequalities “The questions to ask about a country’s development are therefore: What has been happening to poverty? What has been happening to unemployment? What has been happening to inequality? If one or two of these central problems have been growing worse, especially if all three have, it would be strange to call the result ‘development’, even if per capita income doubled.” (Seers, 1969, p. 3; emphasis added.)

This oft-quoted declaration by Dudley Seers marked the beginning of what have often been described as the ‘new’ approaches to development which emerged in the 1970s and, as the quotation suggests, one of the main components of these approaches was a concern with equality. This concern helps to explain the growing interest in rural development, which resulted, at least in part, from a realization that rural-urban differentials were increasing rapidly. Moreover, it also helps to explain both the emphasis on, and some of the confusion surrounding, IRD, since many IRD programmes are intended not so much to ‘integrate’ sectoral activities but to ‘integrate’ the poorer sectors of the population into the economy of the area. Inequalities can be divided into two main types: ‘social’ inequality between individuals, groups or classes and ‘spatial’ inequality between regions or geographical areas. In the thinking on development as a whole, social inequalities have tended to attract more attention than spatial inequalities, especially within neo-Marxist schools of thought. However, it is spatial inequalities which are of most obvious relevance to regional planning, since regional planning is concerned with the distribution of resources and activities between regions and, therefore, with patterns of spatial inequality and policies designed to reduce such inequality. We shall see in the next chapter that this aspect of regional planning has tended to dominate the theory and (although to a somewhat lesser extent) the practice of regional planning in developing countries for many years and, therefore, to mark its major contribution to development thinking so far. It should, however, be noted that in this case the main need is for inferregional (rather than inrra-regional) planning; the significance of this will also emerge in the next chapter. To summarize, therefore, this section of the chapter has suggested that regional planning has a role to play in rural development as a means of implementing national plans, facilitating popular participation, coordinating sectoral activities within regions and tackling the problems of spatial inequality. Before focusing our attention in the rest of the monograph on the precise role which regional planning can and does play and, in particular, the implications in terms of the scope, organization and methods of regional planning, it is necessary to return briefly to a point raised earlier in the chapter about the role of government intervention in rural development.

1.3.

THE

ROLE

OF

THE

STATE

IN RURAL

DEVELOPMENT

The definition of development planning introduced at the beginning of the chapter implied that planning - including regional planning - involves government intervention in the process of development. However, we also included a quotation

Rural

Regional

Planning:

Towards

an Operational

Theory

11

about rural development which raised (among other things) the question of whether rural development is ‘a form of state intervention’ or ‘something which is happening anyway’. Harriss, in his book on rural development which prompted the above comment, actually resolves the matter by deciding that it covers both and distinguishing between the two by the use of capital letters; thus he refers to state intervention as ‘Rural Development’ (RD) and the process of development which ‘happens anyway’ as ‘rural development’ (Harriss, 1982, p. 16). However, this does not avoid the need to question what impact state intervention (in the form of RD) can and does actually have on the process of rural development - a question which is, in fact, tackled in the last part of Harriss’ book. Consequently, we look briefly at this question here, before focusing our attention on one particular form of state intervention, namely regional planning. There is now a considerable volume of literature on the role of the state in developing countries(Amin, 1976; Bates, 1983; Frank, 1981; Goulbourne, 1979; Jameson and Wilber, 1981; Harriss, 1982; Markovitz, 1977; Schaffer and Lamb, 1981) and this in turn draws upon material on the role of the state in Europe which is of considerable relevance to development studies (Castells, 1978; Laclau, 1975; Miliband, 1969; Poulantzas, 1973; Scase, 1977). It is not possible to do more than touch upon the subject here; nor is more detailed coverage necessary, since the aim at this point in the discussion is merely to make a case for some sort of state intervention in rural development through planning, and hence to justify what follows. In subsequent chapters, however, specific aspects of the role of the state will be examined in detail, especially in Chapter 2, which is concerned with the political and administrative organization of regional planning. During the 1960s following the attainment of independence in many African and Asian countries, there was a tendency for many people, including local political leaders and academics and sympathetic ‘outsiders’, to assume that a high degree of state inte~ention was both necessary and desirable for development purposes. This view of the state, which Saul (1979) describes as ‘benign’, rested on the assumption that the new political leaders (who were often the same people who had led the struggle for independence) had only, the interests of the nation and the majority of its population at heart. State intervention was thus seen not only as a means of mobilizing resources and bringing about rapidly needed social and economic changes, but also as an antidote to the interrelated ‘evils’ of colonialism and capitalism and as an insurance against the growing forces of neo-colonialism (Alavi, 1972). This resulted in many countries, especially those which made special efforts to follow a ‘socialist path’, in state ownership of many resources, economic activities and service institutions, in the use of the Soviet Union, China and other socialist countries as models of development and providers of financial and technical assistance, and - particularly important in terms of the focus of this monograph - the widespread adoption of development planning as a means of bringing about the required socioeconomic changes. However, during the 1970s views about the degree and form of state intervention gradually changed, becoming both more complex and more varied. These changes occurred in large part as a response to the experience with state intervention in developing countries in the 1960s and early 197Os, and also to the experience in the Soviet Union, Eastern Europe and other socialist countries. These experiences revealed

12

Progress

in Planning

the many problems and pitfalls associated with state intervention, especially in those countries which retained many of the elements of a capitalist economic structure and were inextricably linked into the world economic system, as was the case with the majority of developing countries. The problems encountered included those of management, productivity and incentive in state enterprises (including productive enterprises and service institutions) (Ghai, 1976; Zimbalist, 1981), those of mobilizing (or, to use Hyden’s terminology, ‘capturing’) the peasantry and achieving effective popular participation in productive activities and in decision-making (Hyden, 1980; Schaffer and Lamb, 198 1, chapter 5), and the many shortcomings of national development planning - including the gap between planned and actual achievements (Faber and Seers, 1972). Perhaps most significant of all, however, at least in terms of the attention it has received in the literature, was the realization that the state is not necessarily benign; in other words, it does not always - or in many cases, often or ever - have the interests of the majority of the population at heart. This has prompted a debate on the political and economic structure of the post-colonial state (Goulbourne, 1979), in which one of the main points to emerge has been its complexity, in terms of the many different internal and external forces which influence state policy (Alavi, 1972). This in turn has necessitated the revision of classical theories - Marxist and nonMarxist - of the state. In the case of rural development, evidence of the deficiencies of state intervention are manifest. Perhaps the most obvious is the failure in most countries, despite the political rhetoric in support of rural development, to bring about a significant reallocation of government resources from the urban to the rural sector - the problem of ‘urban bias’ (Lipton, 1977). Where resources have been allocated to rural development, problems of planning and implementing development programmes include the many defects of the various parastatal bodies responsible for activities such as marketing, the supply of agricultural inputs and the promotion of rural industry, the difficulties of achieving effective participation among the rural population (already mentioned on several occasions) and the tendency for much (and in some cases all) of the benefit from rural development programmes to be gained by either an existing rural elite or members of a new state bourgeoisie (Harriss, 1982). If this is the reality of past experience, what are the future prospects for state intervention in general, and rural development planning in particular? Opinions differ. For some people this experience has been used to justify a return to policies based on capitalism and free enterprise. This approach has characterized the attitudes of international agencies such as the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund during the early 1980s (World Bank, 1981; 1983, chapters 5,8), influenced in large part by the related monetarist policies of the United States, the United Kingdom and other ‘western’ nations. Others, especially those concerned with rural development, have also rejected state intervention, but have instead advocated an approach which relies on the initiative of local people, assisted by local community organizations and, in some cases, by voluntary agencies (Williams, 1982). However, the rejection of any significant degree of state intervention through either of the above approaches has serious limitations. On the one hand, the adoption of a laissez faire, monetarist approach offers little hope for the majority of the rural population in

Rural

Regional

Planning:

most countries. Fields, in a study of the relationship equality in six countries, concludes that:

Towards

between

an Operational

economic

Theory

13

growth and

“in the absence of a firm commitment to developing for the poor and the courage to act on that commitment, it seems only natural that economic systems will perpetuate the flow of resources to the haves with at best some trickle-down to the have-nots. More may trickle down to the poor in some cases than in others. Commitment to developing to help the poor does not guarantee progress, but it helps a great deal.” (Fields, 1980, p. 242).

On the other hand, the alternative approach, in which the main initiative is left to the people themselves, with little or no state intervention, may be a desirable ideal but presents many practical problems, especially in societies which are highly stratified. Uphoff and Esman, in an earlier report of the study of participation in rural development conducted by Cornell University (to which reference has already been made), suggest that: “On the whole, rural people are more capable and responsive than the paternalistic model of social change suggests, but less able to change their lives autonomously than the populist model presumes What should be developed is an institutionalized system which is neitherjust top-down nor bottom-up nor exclusively governmental.” (Uphoff and Esman, 1974, p. xiii.)

This suggests that state intervention does still have a role to play in rural development. Moreover, irrespective of the views of academics, political idealists - and ‘the people’ themselves, it is more or less inevitable that it will continue to have a role, for better or for worse, in the foreseeable future, because governments will continue to exist and to wish to have some influence over the processes of social and economic change. Hence there is a need, which most students and practitioners of rural development have already recognized, to look more critically at the nature of state intervention, including the degree of intervention desirable in any particular situation, the form which it should take and the way in which it can be coordinated with the activities of community groups and non-government organizations. This monograph is intended to help to meet such a need by examining the particular contribution which regional planning can make to the process of rural development.

1.4.

SUMMARY

The purpose of this chapter has been to explain why a regional approach to rural development planning is required and it has considered the potential and limitations of state intervention in generai, and planning in particular, as a means of facilitating rural development. The next chapters review past approaches to regional planning and to consider what approach is most likely to meet the needs of rural development identified in this chapter.

CHAPTER

2

Regional Planning: An Overview 2.1. INTRODUCTION

The aim of this chapter is to provide an overview of past approaches to regional planning in developing countries and to see what contribution they have actually made to rural development. This will provide a basis from which to go on in the next chapter to suggest some ways in which regional planning might be able to make a more significant contribution in the future. The main problem which arises in undertaking such a review is the nebulous nature of ‘regional planning’ and the many different forms which it may. take, as a result of which it is very difficult, if not impossible, to make any broad generalizations about the characteristics of regional planning and, therefore, its contribution to rural development. This problem can be attributed to a large extent to the terminological confusion which surrounds both the terms ‘region’ and ‘planning’. Although the term ‘region’ is used here, as already stated in Chapter 1, to refer to any sub-national geographical area, this is a relatively broad definition which is not universally acceptable. In many countries where regional planning is practised, and in much of the theoretical literature, the word is used in a variety of different, and always more limited, senses. The term ‘planning’ is similarly vague and is thus also used in several different ways. Confusion arises in particular because there are different disciplinary approaches to planning, or different planning ‘professions’, and because it is not possible to make a clear distinction between ‘planning’ and ‘administration’. The only effective way of evaluating the role of regional planning, therefore, is to identify its various dimensions more clearly and examine the extent to which each of these contributes to rural development. Such an analysis will thus constitute the main part of this chapter. First of all, however, it is necessary to look briefly at the historical origins of regional planning as an activity and as a field of academic interest. This will help not only to convey some idea of the nature and scope of regional planning but also to explain the terminological confusion which surrounds it.

2.2.

HISTORICAL

ORIGINS

AND

DIMENSIONS

Much of the confusion related to the nature and scope of regional planning is related to the fact that it is not a cohesive discipline or profession, with a well defined body of 14

Rural

Regional

Planning:

Towards

an Operational

Theory

15

theoretical knowledge and a coherent history which can easily be traced. One reflection of this is that, although there is a vast literature on topics related in one way or another to regional planning, there are very few books which attempt to discuss - or even to define - the field as a whole. The few texts which do attempt such an ambitious task usually begin (as I have here) by acknowledging the lack of a cohesive theoretical framework (for example, Hilhorst, 1971; Glasson, 1978) and they then often focus their attention, quite justifiably, on selected aspects or dimensions of regional planning. Others claim to cover the whole field but, in fact, only tackle one part of it. Friedmann and Weaver (1979), for example, sub-title their book ‘The Evolution of Regional Planning’ and begin by claiming (p. 1) that ‘regional planning has come of age’, the recent plethora of regional planning activities ‘mark the arrival of a new professional field’ and ‘there is a growing consensus about theory and doctrine’. Closer examination of their book, however, reveals not only the existence of considerable diversity and incoherence within the body of knowledge which they describe under the heading of ‘regional planning’, but also that, as they go on (p. 2) to point out, their attention is focused on regional development rather than on regionalplanning - a subtle but important distinction to which we shall return later. These problems are also reflected in regional planning training. One piece of evidence which Friedmann and Weaver use to support their claim that ‘regional planning has come of age’ is the many ‘teaching and research institutes’ which have been established. However, if one compares the curricula of the various teaching institutions, there is much diversity. Some focus on regional development, others onplanning; some cater primarily for economists, others for geographers or architects; some are oriented towards urban areas, others towards rural areas; and very few actually ask the question ‘what is regional planning?’ The lack of a cohesive theory of regional planning can be attributed largely to the fact that regional planning has actually emerged from several different disciplines or professions, each of which has - for different reasons recqgnised the need for some sort of regional planning activity. The situation is further complicated because some of these ‘parent’ disciplines have emerged predominantly in developed countries and others in developing countries, so there is also the problem of reconciling differences in regional planning between developed and developing areas. As a result of this historical process, several different approaches to regional planning can be identified. Because they are all concerned with regional planning in some sense or other, they have some common characteristics and there is some overlap between them; thus they are all concerned with the regional or spatial dimensions of planning rather than, say, with national sectoral or project level planning. However, since they were introduced for different purposes and emerged from different disciplines, there are also marked differences between them. Moreover, because they have developed to a large extent independently of each other, there has been a tendency to exaggerate the differences and ignore the similarities, and also in some cases to use different ‘languages’ to describe similar or related phenomena. Consequently, any attempt to analyse or compare different types of regional planning becomes unnecessarily complex and confusing. In order to illustrate the impact of this historical process, some of the more easily identifiable approaches to regional planning will be described in this section. Since this

16

Progress

in Planning

will, in effect, amount to a brief description of the nature and scope of regional planning activity, it will also help the reader to relate the discussion which follows to his or her own particular interests or experiences. Seven different approaches have been identified and they have been grouped into two broad categories: firstly, four approaches which, although they differ greatly, would all be conventionally recognised as ‘regional planning’; and secondly, three less conventional approaches which have many features generally regarded as characteristic of ‘regional planning’ but which (for reasons which will become apparent) are often not actually known by this label. It should be emphasised that the seven approaches distinguished here are abstractions of reality rather than perfect representations of actual planning practice; in most countries the situation is likely to be more complex than the account which follows might suggest and there are also significant variations from one country to another.

2.2.1. ConventionalApproaches

to RegionalPlanning

‘Conventional’ approaches, as explained above, are those which are generally regarded, or labelled, as ‘regional planning’. Regional

Economic

Planning

In most countries and to most people, the term ‘regional planning’ implies, first and foremost, a concern with the spatial aspects or dimensions of national development plans. This generally involves examining the spatial patterns of development between regions and either predicting the impact of existing policies and programmes on these patterns or formulating ‘corrective’ policies or programmes designed to change them, normally with the aim of reducing inequalities between regions. The corrective policies and programmes may involve either changes in the distribution of resources (especially public and private investment) between regions or special efforts to develop previously underutilized resources within a particular region - or some combination of the two. For example, in both developed and developing countries concern about spatial inequalities in industrial and urban development has been tackled by nationwide policies to redistribute industry (for example, through incentives to private investment and the location of public investment in the form of state-owned industries and urban infrastructure) and special programmes to encourage development in particular regions, often through the designation of ‘growth poles’ or ‘growth centres’ (Boudeville, 1966; Friedmann and Weaver, 1979; Gilbert, 1976; Hansen, 1972; Lo and Salih, 1978; Morris, 1981). In less developed countries this approach to regional planning has emerged from national development planning, in response to the need to consider locational aspects or implications of development plans. National development planning is itself an offshoot of economics and, although the need for other disciplines to be involved is now widely acknowledged (Conyers and Hills, 1984, chapter 4), it still tends to be dominated by economists and by economic concepts, theories and techniques. This economic bias is reflected in the particular form of regional planning which has emerged from it, hence the use of the label ‘regional economic planning’ here. Much of its theoretical and

Rural

Regional

Planning:

Towards

an Operational

Theory

17

methodological base has been drawn from regional economics and its main proponents are regional economists and economic geographers. Moreover, most of this base was originally developed in the industrialized countries of Western Europe and North America, where regional economic planning has tended to be the most obvious, and sometimes the only, formal demonstration of national planning (Hall, 1974; Friedmann and Weaver, 1979). Arthur Morris, in a review of regional development planning in Latin America, maintains (198 1, p. 184) that: “Most regional planning theory has been evolved in Western industrialized developed as a by-product of economics, emerging at a late stage.”

countries.

It has been

This comment is significant in two respects. Firstly, Morris is obviously using the terms ‘regional planning’ and ‘regional economic planning’ synonymously, thus emphasizing the dominant role which the latter has played in conventional regional planning, not only in Latin America but in most parts of the developing world. Secondly, the quotation summarises some of the most important characteristics of conventional regional economic planning, which we have already noted. It should, however, be mentioned that some significant changes in thinking about regional economic planning have begun to occur in the last few years within the context of changes in the whole field of development studies. We shall examine these changes later and we shall consider the relevance of both conventional and recent approaches to regional economic planning for rural development. Regional Disaggregation

of National Plans

This approach to regional planning is closely related to regional economic planning since it has also emerged from national development planning and it has tended to be practised by economists. However, it has emerged as a response not so much to concerns about spatial patterns and inequalities but to the need to disaggregate national plans in order to facilitate their implementation (Rondinelli, 1978, 1983; Rondinelli and Mandell, 1981; Rondinelli and Cheema, 1983; Conyers and Hills, 1984). In most developing countries this has resulted in attempts to break down a national plan into more detailed regional plans or, in some cases, to go one step further and use regional plans as the basis for the formulation of the national plan. The former approach is usually described as ‘top-down’ planning and the latter as ‘bottom-up’ planning. In practice, most countries adopt a combination of top-down and bottom-up approaches, but the relative importance attached to each varies considerably from one country to another. This is an aspect of regional planning where practice has tended to move ahead of theory, in the sense that, although the need for such disaggregation is widely recognized in planning practice, it has received much less attention in the literature than regional economic planning. Moreover, and perhaps partly because of the lack of a theoretical base, actual achievements have often been disappointing. Two related factors help to explain its neglect. One is the fact that few lessons can be drawn from the experiences of western industrialized nations, since they do not normally practise systematic national development planning; the main models for this type of planning have been the

18

Progress

in Planning

centrally-planned nations of the Soviet bloc and China. The other factor is that the success of this approach to regional planning is dependent more on the process and machinery of planning than on the content of economic policies, while the economists who dominated the development planning field have tended to be more experienced and interested in the latter. We shall return to this last point later. Regional Land-Use

Planning

The term ‘land-use planning’ is used here to refer to that type of planning which is concerned primarily with the detailed design or layout of land use. It is often known by a variety of other names, including ‘physical planning’, ‘urban and regional planning’ and ‘town and country planning’. The origins of this form of planning can be traced to western industrialized countries and its iniroduction to the Third World can be attributed largely to colonial governments. It began as an adjunct of architecture but gradually incorporated elements of various social sciences, especially geography, and eventually emerged as a discipline -and a profession - in its own right (Hall, 1974). As its scope broadened, it became increasingly involved in activities which could be described as ‘regional planning’. Initially this arose through the realization that urban areas, where its attention was (and in many less developed countries still is) focused, cannot be planned in isolation from the surrounding region; hence the concepts of the ‘city-region’ (Dickinson, 1964) and ‘urban and regional planning’ emerged and gradually land-use planning also extended into rural regions. Because of its different origins, this approach to regional planning tends to have a rather different orientation to regional economic planning, focusing on the physical or spatial aspects of planning and employing spatial rather than economic techniques of analysis. There is, however, considerable overlap between the two and in many developed countries, such as the U.K. and the U.S.A., regional economic planning is often practised as an extension of land use planning, rather than as an extension of national development planning, because the latter does not exist as such. In developing countries the situation is more complex because national development planning is a much more important activity. In many countries, especially former British territories, land-use planning is regarded as a separate and (in terms of its influence and the resources allocated to it) less important activity, located in a separate ministry and staffed not by economists but by special land-use planners, often trained overseas in Europe or North America (Conyers and Hills, 1984). Because of limited resources, land-use planners frequently confine themselves to detailed physical design work, primarily in urban areas; but if they do extend into broader regional planning activities, there is often some overlap, and sometimes duplication, between their work and that of regional economic planners working for the national development planning agency. Natural Resource

Planning

The fourth type of planning which has made a significant contribution to conventional regional planning may be described as natural resource planning. A regional approach to natural resource planning is frequently adopted for two reasons. Firstly, the distribution of natural resources is such that one can generally identify ‘natural resource regions’, each of which can and (from a natural resource planner’s

Rural

Regional

Planning:

Towards

an Operational

Theory

19

perspective) should be planned as a whole. Secondly, there are usually a number of different, and often conflicting, ways in which natural resources can be utilized and this requires a multipurpose or ‘integrated’ approach to planning within natural resource regions. River basin planning was the earliest example of this approach to regional planning and, in fact, some of the earliest planning exercises to be formally designated as ‘regional planning’ were associated with river basin planning (Friedmann and Weaver, 1979). The best known example is the Tennessee Valley Authority (TVA) in the U.S.A., which was established in the 1930s to plan and manage the development of the Tennessee river valley (Pritchett, 1943; Moore, 1967). The practice of river basin planning spread from the TVA to other parts of the U.S.A. and to other countries, including many developing countries in Africa, Asia and Latin America (UN, 1970, 1975; Saha and Barrow, 1981; Biswas et al., 1983). Although river basin planning remains the most obvious form of natural resource regional planning, similar approaches are also used to plan other types of natural resource region. Examples include semi-arid regions, as in the Sahel zone of Africa (Berry, 1983; Heathcote, 1983), mountainous regions, as in Lesotho (Geer and Wallis, 1982) and regions characterized by major mineral exploitation, such as the Ok Tedi copper mining area in Papua, New Guinea (Jackson, 1982). In all cases, the overriding concern is with the use of natural resources and this is reflected in both the content of the plans and the methods of planning.

2.2.2. Unconventional Approaches

to Regional Planning

This section describes three approaches which, because of terminological confusion rather than inherent characteristics, are less likely to be labelled ‘regional planning’ and so are referred to here as ‘unconventional’ approaches. The characteristics which justify their consideration as approaches to ‘regional planning’ will become apparent in the descriptions which follow. Integrated

Rural

Development

Planning

Several references to integrated rural development (IRD) have already been made in Chapter‘l. IRD emerged in response to the need for a multidisciplinary (or ‘integrated’) approach to rural development problems and to concern with the poorest sectors of the rural population (FAO, 1978; ODI, 1979; Livingstone, 1979). In many countries these concerns resulted in the identification of selected regions with particular rural development problems or potential, within which technical and financial resources (almost always provided, at least in part, by overseas aid) could be concentrated. This in turn led to the need for development plans for these regions - especially since many aid agencies, such as the World Bank, refused to fund an IRD project without such a plan - and, therefore, eventually to a concern with the methodology of such planning (Belshaw and Douglass, 1981). This approach to regional planning demonstrates very clearly the confusion which exists about what is, and what is not, called ‘regional planning’. IRD planning has

20

Progress

in Planning

emerged from rural development theory (vvhich is itself an uneasy amalgam of many different disciplinary interests) and is more often regarded as a form of rural development administration, rather than a form of regional planning. In practice, however, not only does it obviously have a ‘regional’ focus and involve some sort of ‘planning’ (rather than just routine administration), but also it is closely related to other, more conventional approaches to regional planning. Thus, the selection of regions for IRD projects is often associated with the type of regional economic planning exercise described earlier, in which an analysis of regional inequalities results in the selection of a few regions for particular planning attention. Furthermore, IRD planning often uses techniques borrowed from the more conventional types of regional planning, especially land use planning and natural resource planning, and IRD project areas sometimes coincide with natural resource regions. In fact, the mountainous region of Tsaba-Tseka in Lesotho, which was earlier used as an example of natural resource planning, was actually also the site of an IRD project, while in Sri Lanka an integrated planning project in the Mahaweli River valley encouraged the development of IRD planning on a district basis. The relationship between natural resource planning and IRD planning can be explained, at least in part, by the fact that both are concerned with the coordination of interrelated activities and the reconciliation of alternative, and often conflicting, uses of resources - including not only natural resources but also other resources, such as finance and technical expertise. Regional

Administrative

Planning

IRD planning illustrates one way in which the need for regional planning can emerge from a more general concern with the administration of development at regional level, in this case in selected regions which are the focus of special development efforts. A similar process can also be seen in relation to the administration of development programmes in ‘ordinary’ regions, which have not been selected for any special effort. The need for regional planning has emerged here as a result of general dissatisfaction with the administration of development at regional level, including the lack of coordination between the activities of different sectoral agencies, the lack of effective popular participation and the need for some sort of systematic forward planning, rather than simply routine day-to-day administration (Bowden, 1979; Esman, 1981). The main differences between this approach to regional planning and IRD planning are, firstly, the fact that it is not confined to selected regions and, secondly, the much more limited financial and technical resources available for preparing and implementing plans. This approach to regional planning tends to be regarded as ‘administration’ rather than ‘planning’, and it has in fact emerged as an extension of public administration or development administration, rather than as a branch of planning. This raises the question, already touched upon on several occasions, of what is the difference between ‘administration’ and ‘planning’. Although it is not possible to draw a clear distinction between the two, it is possible (without at this stage embarking upon a theoretical discussion about the nature of planning) to identify some characteristics of planning which help to distinguish it from routine administration. In essence, planning involves some systematic attempt to look into the future and assess alternative ways of achieving particular objectives, rather than merely following past practices and responding to

Rural

Regional

Planning:

Towards

an Operational

Theory

21

changing needs or conditions on an ad hoc basis. Regional administrative planning thus warrants the name ‘planning’ because it is an attempt to develop some sort of systematic planning at regional level. The methods of planning used are often very rudimentary and the efforts are by no means always successful, but this does not mean that it should not be regarded as an attempt at ‘planning’. Moreover, such efforts are sometimes undertaken in conjunction with conventional planning exercises, notably the disaggregation of national development plans, since it is now widely recognized that regional plans will never become an integral part of national plans unless the regions have the capacity to prepare and implement plans (Rondinelli and Cheema, 1983). Kenya provides a good example of a country which has put considerable effort into developing the capacity to plan at ‘regional’ (in this case, district) level as part of the disaggregation of national planning (Leonard, 1973; Oyugi, 198 1; Rondinelli, 1983). Concern with regional administrative planning has emerged in the developing world itself, as part of the process of adapting colonial administrative systems to meet the needs of ‘development’. However, it is interesting to note that in some industrialized countries, particularly the U.K., a somewhat similar approach to planning (usually known as ‘corporate planning’) has been practised at local government level (Eddison, 1975; Greenwood and Stewart, 1974; Greenwood et al., 1980; Hinings et al., 1980). In the U.K. this sort of planning is seen as distinct from (although closely related to) economic planning and land-use planning. The implications of this for regional planning in developing countries will be considered later. Community Planning Community planning is perhaps the most unconventional approach to regional planning discussed here. The term is used to refer to planning at a very local level, usually in association with some sort of community development activity. ‘Community development’ is itself a nebulous concept which has many cultural and value-laden overtones (Manghezi, 1976; Dore, 1981). For the present purpose, however, it is sufficient to describe it as an attempt to mobilize development at the local level, within an area where there is some sense of common identity or purpose (hence the word ‘community’) and where the local people are the main mobilizing forces behind the development activity. The need for planning in association with community development activities arises for several reasons: in order to evaluate aitemative ways of achieving community objectives and using local resources; in order to plan the details of specific development projects or programmes within the community; and in order to relate (as far as it is necessary) community level activities with regional and national level plans. There are two reasons why community planning is a particularly unconventional sort of regional planning. One is the fact that the area occupied by a community is normally much smaller than most conventional regions and only the very broad definition of a region adopted here permits its inclusion. The other reason is that the type of planning introduced at this level is likely to be even more rudimentary than regional administrative planning and thus once again we are faced with the question of what is and what is not - ‘planning’. However, we shall see later that it has a potentially important role to play in rural regional planning, particularly as a means of increasing

22

Progress

in Planning

popular participation in planning. Furthermore, this is not the first time that community level planning has been seen as a dimension, or extension, of regional planning. In 197 1 Kuklinski, in a review of the educational needs for different types of regional planners, included community development as one of the inputs into the type of regional planning which he called ‘interlocal’ planning (Kuklinski, 1971, p. 34). And once again it is also instructive to look at experience in developed countries, such as the U.K., where community level planning(often known as ‘area planning’ or ‘local planning’) has recently attracted considerable attention within the urban and regional (or land use) planning profession (Hambleton, 1978; Kraushaar, 1982; Donnison, 1983; TCPA, 1983).

2.3.

REGIONAL

PLANNING

AND

RURAL

DEVELOPMENT

The brief overview of different approaches to regional planning in the previous section demonstrated, on the one hand, the wide range of activities included under the umbrella of ‘regional planning’ and their varied origins and objectives and, on the other hand, the existence of considerable overlap between at least some of the approaches. This confirms the need to analyse the various approaches more systematically in order to evaluate their contribution to rural development. In order to undertake such an analysis, some sort of criteria for classifying different approaches to regional planning are required. The following criteria have been selected for this purpose: 1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6. 7.

from which planning profession the approach has emerged; whether the main focus of attention is on regional devrlopmrnt or regional planning; the sort of development policies adopted in the plans: whether the concern is with inrra-regional or inrer-regional planning; the type of region; whether planning covers all regions in a country or only a selected few; and whether planning is undertakenjou regions orh,v regions.

This section examines each of these criteria in turn. In each case, a brief explanation of the criterion is followed by, firstly, an assessment of its significance in terms of rural development planning and, secondly, a classification of the various approaches to regional planning described in the previous section on the basis of this particular criterion. In assessing the significance for rural development planning, reference is made to the four ways in which regional planning may contribute to rural development, identified in Chapter 1. We may regard these as the objectives of rural regional planning. They are: 1. to improve the implementation of national 2. to encourage popular participation; 3. to facilitate horizontal coordination; and 4. to tackle problems of spatial inequality.

plans;

Tables 1 and 2 should be studied in conjunction with the discussion which follows. Table 1 indicates the relationship between the four objectives of rural regional planning and the criteria used to classify different types of regional planning. In other words, it

Rural; integrated Rural; egalitarian

Both

Both Both

Socioeconomic and management

All

Socioeconomic and land use

2. Popular participation

3. Horizontal coordination

4. Spatial equality

Rural; participatory

Rural

Both

All

Type of development policies

1. Implementation of national plans

Regional development or regional planning?

Type of planning profession

Objectives of rural regional planning

Inter

Intra

Intra

Both

Intra or inter?

Planning

Admin. (but see text)

Admin.

Admin.

Admin. or planning?

Varies but often small

Fairly small

Hierarchy but espec. small

Hierarchy

Size

process

Selective

All

All

Ali

Regional coverage

of the planning

Type of region

Organization

TABLE 1. Analysis of the requirements of rural regional planning

For regions

By regions

By regions

Both

For regions or by regions?

Mainly development

Socioeconomic and land-use

4. Natural resource planning

Intra

Rural Relevant

Both

All

7. Community planning

Intra

Rural No specific policies

Planmng

Management

6. Regional admin. planning

Intra

lntra

Mainly rural Not ‘human’ oriented

Mainlv planning

Both

Planning

Mainly planning

Intra

Mainly urban Spatial only

Rural Relevant

Mainly development

Mainly socioeconomic

B. Unconventional 5. IRD planning

Both

Mainly land-use

3. Land-use planning

Admin.

Mainly planning

Admin. or planning‘?

Ver) small

Fairly small

Fairly small

Mainly large

Mainly small

Hierarchy (but esp. large)

Mainly large

Sire

process

Mainly selective

All

Selective

Selective

Selective

All

Selective

Region coverage

of the planning

Type of region

Both

Mainly inter

Intra or inter?

Organization

of regional planning

on

Depends national policies

Both

Mainly urban Relevance limited

Type of development policies

Development

Socioeconomic and management

Socioeconomic and some land-use

A. Conventional 1. Regional economic planning

Regional development or regional planning?

2. Disaggregation of national plans

Type of planning profession

Approach to rural regional planning

TABLE 2. Analysis of the characteristics

By region\

By regions

Both but mainly for regions

Both but mainly for regions

Both

Both but mainly for regions

For reglow

For regions or by regions’!

Rural

Regional

Planning:

Towards

an Operational

Theory

25

suggests which characteristics of regional planning are most likely to contribute to each of the objectives of rural regional planning Table 2 summarises the main characteristics of each of the approaches to regional planning described in the previous section, using the same criteria for classification as in Table 1. The reader will find that there is very little attempt in this section to document the actual impact of particular characteristics or forms of regional planning on rural development. There are two reasons for this. One is the problem of space; it is not possible in one chapter to review the performance of the many different approaches to regional planning which have been identified. More important, however, is the fact that the arguments in this section are based on logical deduction rather than on empirical evidence. In other words, conclusions about the relevance (or irrelevance) of particular approaches to regional planning are based on an analysis of their characteristics, rather than on evidence of their actual performance. Documentary evidence in support of the main conclusions, based on actual performance, will be presented in the next chapter.

2.3.1.

Planning Profession

The description of different approaches to regional planning in the previous section has already suggested that there are several different disciplinary or professiona approaches to planning, each of which has its own regional dimension. These various planning *professions’ differ in terms of their objectives and methodologies and thus the types of planners they employ, and these differences are reflected in the different approaches to regional planning which have emerged from them. In the context of regional planning, it is useful to distinguish three main professional types, which may be referred to as socioeconomic planning, land-use planning and management planning. Sociueconomicplannin~ is seen as a means of achieving socioeconomic development and it therefore involves the formulation of socioeconomic policies and their translation into specific programtries and projects. The terms ‘economic planning’ and ‘development planning’ are also used to describe this sort of planning. Most of the work undertaken by national planning agencies in developing countries falls within this category. In la~d-~sep~a~~i~g the main objective is the rational use of land and planning thus involves making decisions about the way in which land should be used, often at a very detailed level, and ensuring that it is used in this way. The role of land-use planning in developing countries and its application at regional level were discussed briefly in the previous section. As pointed out then, it may also be known as ‘physical planning’, ‘urban and regional planning’ or ‘town and country planning’. ~a~a~e~e~rp~an~j~g is concerned with the management of resources within an organization, with the aim of making the most effective or efficient use of the resources available. Its origins lie in private enterprise but it is also practised in government organizations, sometimes under the name of ‘organization and methods’ or ‘corporate planning’. It should be emphasized that these three types of planning are interretated and many development problems can - and should - be tackled from all three perspectives. The

26

Progress

in Planning

distinctions between them are, therefore, to some extent artificial and they have been exaggerated by the barriers which inevitably exist between different professions. The relationship between socioeconomic (or development) planning and land-use planning in most Third World countries, to which brief reference has already been made, is the most obvious example of this situation. The implications of both the similarities and the differences between the three professional types in the context of regional planning, and especially rural regional planning, will become clear as the discussion progresses. It is fairly obvious that all three types of planning have a role to play in rural development, although some are more important than others in achieving particular objectives (Table 1). Most rural development problems can only be tackled by a combination of socioeconomic policies and programmes, appropriate use of land and planned management of the organizations involved. This suggests the need for a comprehensive approach to rural regional planning, embracing all three professional types. How does this compare with reality? Table 2 suggests that, because of the way in which the various approaches to regional planning have emerged, most of them focus on only one, or at best two, types of planning. Thus regional economic planning and the regional disaggregation of national plans have both developed as extensions of national development planning and so are primarily concerned with socioeconomic planning, although the former incorporates some elements of land-use planning and the latter some elements of management planning. The main focus of land-use planning is obvious by its name, while regional administrative planning tends, because of its origins in public administration, to focus on management planning. Natural resource planning and IRD planning often have a broader scope because they are not rooted in any one planning ‘profession’; however, both tend to neglect the management side of planning and IRD planning usually focuses on the formulation of socioeconomic policies and programmes. The only approach to regional planning which gives equal attention to all three types of planning is community planning; at this level an integrated approach is virtually inevitable, partly because problems have to be tackled as a whole but also because ‘professional’ planners are seldom represented at this level and so the artificial divisions created by professionalism do not arise. In conclusion, therefore, the fact that the various approaches to regional planning have emerged from different disciplines and professions results in an uncoordinated approach to rural regional planning, except at the very local or community level. Responsibility for the socioeconomic, land-use and management aspects of planning tends to be divided between different professional groups or agencies and coordination between them is inadequate. Furthermore, there is also a tendency for socioeconomic planning to receive the most attention, in line with its dominant role at the national level, while land-use planning and, in particular, management planning tend to be neglected.

2.3.2. Regional Development

or Regional Planning

When discussing any type of planning, it is useful to recognize the difference between discussions about the content of plans and discussions about the process of planning.

Rural Regional Planning: Towards an Operational

Theory

27

This distinction can best be understood m the context of the types of knowledge which a planner needs to acquire. On the one hand, he (or she) needs to know something about the processes of development or change relevant to his particular type of planning, since they will influence the content of the plans which are prepared. And on the other hand, he (or she) also requires knowledge about methods of preparing (and implementing) plans, the role and limitations of planning as a means of bringing about change, and his own role as a professional planner. Faludi (1973b) refers to these two bodies of knowledge as theories in planning and theories ofplanning, or alternatively s~~s~~~~jve theories and~r~~e~u~a~ theories. Both types of knowledge - substantive and procedural theories - are obviously important because the extent to which planning achieves its overall objectives depends on both the content of the plans (substantive theory) and the way in which they are prepared and implemented (procedural theory). However, the extent to which individual objectives of planning are achieved may depend more on one than on the other. Moreover, some approaches to planning tend to place much more emphasis on one than the other. Consequently, the distinction between the two is useful because it helps not only to differentiate between different approaches to planning but also to evaluate the impact of planning and, in particular, to understand why planning is or is not achieving its objectives. Hence it is important in our attempt to evaluate the impact of different approaches to regional planning. In the context of regional planning, the distinction between substantive and procedural theory is a distinction between knowledge about the processes of regional devefopment and knowledge about the processes and procedures of regionalpianning. It is fairly obvious that, in order to achieve the objectives of rural regional planning, both types of knowledge are important (Table 1). In other words, it is necessary to understand, on the one hand, the processes of development in rural regions and, on the other hand, the role which planning can play in bringing about such development and its organization and methodology. However, a more detailed examination of each objective reveals that the role of each type of knowledge, and the interrelationships between them, are far more complex than this might suggest. Because of this complexity, it is not possible to embark upon a full examination of each objective here. However, we shall look briefly at each one, in order to demonstrate the need to consider both the substantive and the procedural dimensions of rural regional planning theory, and also their interrelationships. The role of regional planning in relation to the first objective, the implementation of national plans, is to disaggregate planning to the regional level. Such disaggregation is only possible if national plans reflect regional needs and concerns and if the processes of planning and implementation facilitate communication between national and regional levels. Furthermore, the two are related; for example, communication between regional and national levels in the preparation of plans will hopefully make national plans more relevant to regional needs and thus facilitate their disaggregation for implementation purposes. In the case of participation, analysis is complicated by the many different degrees and forms ofpa~icipation. If the main concern is with pa~i~ipation in the process of decision-making (as is often the assumption when regional planning is advocated as a

28

Progress

in Planning

means of achieving popular participation), the process of planning is likely to be more important than the content of plans. However, the content of plans affects participation in other ways; for example, it may determine the number of people who benefit from a particular development programme or the extent to which development objectives are achieved through participatory means (such as cooperatives or self-help projects). The objective of horizontal coordination has obvious implications for both the content of plans and the process of planning. On the one hand, plans must adopt a coordinated or ‘integrated’ approach to development and, on the other hand, there is a need to improve coordination between the various agencies involved in the processes of preparing and implementing plans. Moreover, the degree of coordination in the planning process is likely to affect the degree of coordination in the plan itself, and this in turn is likely to affect coordination in its implementation. Finally, in the case of the fourth objective, the reduction of spatial inequalities, the content of plans is obviously important because it determines the extent to which attempts are made to reduce such inequalities by, for example, the allocation of resources between regions. However, the process of planning is also important because it determines the extent to which the planners are able - and willing - to make a serious attempt to reduce inequalities. In many countries, for example, the structure of political and economic power is such that any attempt to redirect resources towards poorer groups or regions is sabotaged by those in whose hands the existing political and economic power lies. The need to consider both the process of regional development which is reflected in the content of plans and the actual process of regional planning is significant because, when one examines the relative importance attached to each in the various approaches to regional planning, one finds that in most approaches - and especially the more conventional ones - the former has tended to receive considerably more attention than the latter (Table 2). This bias is reflected in the literature on regional planning and in the content of many regional planning courses, as well as in actual planning practice. There are, however, some approaches where this is not the case. These are land-use planning and community planning, both of which divide their attention fairly equally between regional development and regional planning (in the former case by conscious choice and in the latter by necessity), and regional administrative planning, which focuses almost exclusively on the planning process - or more accurately, the administrative dimensions of the planning process. Once again these characteristics can be explained largely by the disciplinary or professional origins of the various approaches to regional planning. Those approaches which focus on regional development rather than regional planning have emerged from fields of interest which are concerned primarily with development processes economics, natural resource development and rural development. Thus, for example, an economist involved in development planning is primarily interested in processes of economic growth or change and, therefore, in the content of development plans rather than the process of preparing (or implementing) them. His (or her) interest in the process of planning is often confined to the choice of appropriate economic techniques for the analysis of data (for example, input-output analysis or cost-benefit analysis) or appropriate models for conceptualizing the development process.

Rural

Regional

Planning:

Towards

an Operational

Theory

29

Land-use planning, on the other hand, sees ‘planning’ as a discipline in its own right, not merely as an ‘applied’ extension of another discipline such as economics or architecture, and so is concerned with the process of planning as such. It is significant that the distinction between substantive theory and procedural theory (theories in and theories ofplanning) is only recognized in land-use planning, which has an extensive literature on both the distinctions and the interrelationships between the two (Faludi, 1973a, 1973b; Paris, 1982; Healey et al., 1982). In the case of regional administrative planning, the focus of attention can be explained in terms of its origins in public administration (or development administration), which is primarily concerned with the administrative organization and management of government. Planning is thus seen primarily as a problem of organization and management, rather than one of development policy. National development planning appears to have moved further and faster than regional planning in terms of bridging the gap between substantive and procedural theories of planning. The ‘crisis in planning’ in the late 1960s (Faber and Seers, 1972) resulted in, among other things, increasing concern with the process of planning and, in particular, the relationship between planning and implementation. This in turn has resulted in some attempt to merge the economist’s contribution to planning, which focuses on the process of development, with that of the development administrator, who is concerned with the process of administration and planning, although there is still a tendency for economists to play the dominant role. In the case of regional planning, however, progress has been much slower and (except in land-use planning and community planning) it is only relatively recently that the need to bridge the gap has been recognized. We shall see later that, partly because of its relative neglect in the past, regionalplanning - rather than regional development -is the main focus of attention here. In this section we have used the relative importance attached to regional development and regional planning as a criterion for classifying different approaches to regional planning. The sections which follow look in more detail at different approaches to both regional development and regional planning. Thus the next section compares the various approaches in terms of the types of regional development policies adopted (that is, the content of plans), while the last four sections examine various criteria which can be used to classify different approaches on the basis of the way in which the regional planning process is organized.

2.3.3. Types of Development

Policies

Regional development covers an enormous range of development issues; in fact, virtually any aspect of development policy can be seen from a regional perspective. Moreover, any one issue can be approached in several different ways, depending on the particular theory or paradigm of development which is adopted. Thus, for example, Friedmann and Weaver (1979, chapter 7) describe a ‘paradigm shift’ in regional

30

Progress

in Planning

development policy, which occurred in the 1970s largely due to increasing concern with rural poverty in development theory in general. It would be very difficult to classify these many different types of regional development policy in any meaningful way and, fortunately, it is not necessary -for two reasons - to attempt such a formidable task here. One reason is that, as already suggested, the main concern is with the process of planning, rather than with regional development policy; consequently a detailed discussion of development policies is unnecessary here. The other reason is that we have already limited our sphere of interest to rural development and, because of the objectives of rural regional planning, we are particularly concerned with certain aspects of rural development -notably participation, integration and equality (Table 1). Consequently, we shall simply consider each of the approaches to regional planning in terms of, firstly, their concern with rural (as opposed to urban) development and, secondly, their concern with participation, integration and equality (Table 2). In the case of regional economic planning, most attention has been focused, at least until recently, on urban and industrial development, rather than rural development. This bias can be explained partly by the fact that the most obvious spatial inequalities in developing countries are in the distribution of urban and industriai activity and partly by the preoccupation in regional economic theory with the role of ‘growth poles’ and ‘growth centres’ in the redistribution of industrial and urban growth. It was not until the 1970s that regional economic planners began, as part of the ‘paradigm shift’ noted above, to recognize, firstly, the inadequacies of polarization theories in terms of their impact on the location of industrial and urban development and, secondly, the fact that they had neglected the whole question of inequalities within and between rural regions (Friedmann and Douglass, 1976; Friedmann and Weaver, 1979, Part 3). This has prompted a number of recent attempts to search for more appropriate forms of regional development policy and these will be examined in some depth in the next chapter; so far, however, this response has been sporadic and piecemeal and has had relatively little impact on regional economic development theory as a whole. The disaggregation of national plans involves the formulation of policies for both rural and urban development. However, it is very difficult to make any generalizations about the nature of these policies because they depend on both the types of policies in vogue at the national level and the degree and form of regional involvement in policy formulation. Two comments are, however, relevant. Firstly, the increasing concern of national planners in most countries with rural development, and with participation, integration and equality, which has stimulated the demand for regional planning, has been reflected, at least partially, in the policies formulated for regional development. Secondly, despite the concern with integrated planning, this approach to planning tends to have a sectoral bias, in the sense that a regional plan tends to be little more than the compilation of sectoral plans for the area, because regional planning is seen as an adjunct of national planning, which is itself sectorally organized. Land-use planning is, in most developing countries, practised primarily in urban areas. This urban bias can be attributed partly to the nature of land-use planning, which has a particularly important role to play in urban areas, where there is intense competition for the use of land, and partly to limitations of manpower and finance, which prohibit its

Rural Regional Planning:

Towards an Operational

Theory

31

extension on a nationwide basis. However, it is sometimes practised in rural areas, particularly in the context of planned rural settlement programmes, such as Tanzania’s villagization programme and the various ‘colonization’ or ‘transmigration’ programmes in countries like Brazil, Indonesia and Malaysia. In such situations, its main contribution to rural development policy is to emphasize the spatial dimension of integrated development policies, such as the need to plan the location of infrastructure and services in relation to settlements. Regional administrative planning in some form or other is practised in both rural and urban areas and the former has tended to receive more attention, partly because the majority of developing countries are predominantly rural and partly because rural development administration tends to present more urgent and obvious problems. However, its contribution to the formulation of regional development policy has been minimal because, as noted in the previous section, its main concern is with the process of planning rather than with development policies. This leaves three approaches to regional planning which appear to have made the main contribution to rural regional development policy: natural resource planning (the only ‘conventional’ approach), IRD planning and community planning. All three have a distinctly rural orientation (although community planning is also practised in urban areas) and they all emphasize the importance of an integrated approach to development. Natural resource planning differs from the other two in that it is primarily concerned with physical resources rather than with human wellbeing and consequently it gives rather less attention to equality and participation. Participatory policies, almost inevitably, tend to be most important in community planning; they usually also feature in IRD planning but often have to be reconciled with other objectives, such as increasing agricultural production, which is often more easily achieved by non-participatory means. Concern to reduce inequality (including both social and spatial inequalities) features prominently in both IRD and community plans. Actual achievements are, however, often disappointing, usually because the implementation of plans is hampered bi the existing structure of political and economic power; the most obvious example of this is India, where both IRD planning and community development have been adopted as major strategies for rural development but have had little or no impact on rural inequalities (Misra and Sundaram, 1980).

2.3.4, r~tra-re~~~na~ or fnter-reghal

Planning

The most important criterion which can be used to classify different approaches to the process of regionalplanning (as opposed to different approaches to regional development) is the distinction between intra-regional and inter-regional planning. Intraregional planning, as already explained in Chapter I, means planning ~jt~i~ a region, while inter-regional planning means planning the distribution of resources and activities between regions. The distinction is important because, although the two approaches are interrelated and often can (and should) be undertaken in conjunction, their demands in terms of the organization and methods of planning are very different.

32

Progress

in Planning

Both intra-regional and inter-regional planning are required for rural development purposes but their roles are different (Table 1). In order to achieve popular participation and, in particular, horizontal coordination, the need is for intro-regional planning; interregional planning is unlikely to facilitate either. However, in order to tackle the problems of spatial inequality, the need is for inter-regional planning, since it is this sort of regional planning which is concerned with the distribution of development between regions. Both are necessary for the implementation of national plans, since this involves both the preparation of plans within each region and their integration and reconciliation at the national level. On balance, therefore, intra-regional planning probably has the more significant role to play in rural development planning, but the inter-regional dimension cannot be completely neglected. How does this compare with the relative importance of intra-regional and interregional planning in each of the seven approaches to regional planning? The first two approaches, regional economic planning and the disaggregation of national plans, involve a combination of inter-regional and intra-regional planning (Table 2). In the case of regional economic planning, however, the main focus has heen on the former, an emphasis which might be expected in view of its concern with inter-regional patterns of development. Intra-regional planning has, at least until recently, been regarded very much as an adjunct to inter-regional planning, in the sense that, as noted earlier, concern with the inequalities between regions may lead to the identification of selected regions where intra-regional planning exercises are introduced to combat particular problems or utilize undeveloped resources. The other approaches to regional planning are confined entirely to intra-regional planning (Table 2). At first sight this suggests that, in regional planning as a whole, the intra-regional dimension has received much more attention than the inter-regional. However, this ignores the fact that regional economic planning has tended to dominate both the theory and practice of conventional regional planning in the past. Consequently, inter-regional planning has played a much more important role than might at first appear. It has, in particular, tended to dominate the conventional literature on regional planning, at least until recently, and the activities of research and training institutions.

2.3.5. Type of Region One of the main causes of the terminological confusion which surrounds the definition and classification of regional planning is the many different interpretations of the term ‘region’. The ‘regional concept’ and its implications for the identification of regions for planning purposes have occupied the minds and pens of regional scientists (especially geographers) for many decades. Little purpose would be achieved here by attempting to review the large volume of literature on this topic, especially since adequate reviews already exist (Hilhorst, 1971; Glasson, 1978, chapter 2). It is necessary to consider only two aspects of the debate: firstly, the distinction between ‘administrative’ regions and ‘planning’ regions, and secondly, the size of regions used for planning purposes.

Rural Regional Planning: Administrative

Towards an Operational

Theory

33

Regions OYPlanning Regions

The distinction between ‘administrative’ regions and ‘planning’ regions relates to the criteria used to delimit the boundaries of the regions used for planning purposes. Although many different criteria can be used, the first-and often the most important - question for the practising regional planner is whether or not these boundaries should coincide with those of the existing political-administrative units into which the country is already divided. In other words, he (or she) has to decide whether to use the existing administrative regions as a basis for planning or to delimit a special set of regions purely for planning purposes. The term ‘planning’ region is used here
34

Progress

in Planning

establish a separate administrative structure, organized in a coordinated manner, within each region. However, this leads to a different type of coordination problem, that of coordinating the activities of the special regional administrations with those of the existing nationwide administrative system. Moreover, this approach is only practicable when planning is confined to a few select regions. We shall return to both these issues later. Table 2 shows which type of region has been used more frequently in each of the approaches to regional planning. It suggests that special planning regions have tended to play a more important role than administrative regions, especially in the conventional approaches. The disaggregation of national plans is the only one of the four conventional approaches in which administrative regions are used more frequently than planning regions. Among the unconventional approaches, the balance is more even. IRD planning is practised in both administrative and planning regions, while regional administrative planning is, by virtue of its nature, confined almost entirely to administrative regions. In community planning, ‘regions’ are defined as far as possible on the basis of recognizable community boundaries and they should thus perhaps be classified as planning regions; however, they often correspond to areas of traditional political and administrative jurisdiction and in some countries (such as India) they are officially recognized as local administrative units. The bias towards the use of planning regions, especially in the conventional approaches, is such that, in some countries, planning for administrative regions is not really regarded as ‘regional planning’. In Kenya, for example, district planning, which is most appropriately classified as regional administrative planning, has received a great deal of attention by the national planning ministry since the early 1970s. However, when a separate regional planning ministry was established in 1982, it seemed to be assumed that it would be concerned not with district planning but with planning in some sort of special planning regions, yet to be defined (Sa-Kataka, 1983). It should, however, be noted that in some countries, such as Tanzania and the Sudan, where official administrative units are actually known as ‘regions’, the opposite situation occurs, since the term ‘regional planning’ is obviously used to refer to planning within these administrative regions, and not to any other sort of ‘regional’ planning. This helps to explain the term~nological confusion surrounding the term ‘regional planning’. The widespread use of planning regions in the conventional approaches can largely be explained in terms of the interests of regional planners, particularly their concern with regional development policy rather than with the process of regional planning and the amount of attention that has been given to the ‘regional concept’ and methods of delimiting regional boundaries. It is those approaches which have emerged from public administration, rather than from regiona! economics or planning, which think in terms of administrative regions. Size

ofRegiom

Whether administrative regions or planning regions of the regions also has to be considered. There are, in here. One is the actual size of the region, measured in some combination of the two. The other is its position

are used, the question of the size fact, two interrelated questions terms of area or population, or in the hierarchy of regions into

Rural

Regional

Planning:

Towards

an Operational

Theory

35

which most countries (especially larger ones) are divided, at least for administrative purposes. For some planning purposes it may be appropriate not to focus all attention on one size of region (that is, one level in the hierarchy) but to use several different levels, allocating different types of planning function to each level and establishing appropriate channels of communication between them. However, even in this situation, decisions about size have to be made in order to determine which functions should be undertaken at each level. The particular objectives of rural regional planning suggest the need for planning to be undertaken at several different levels, in order to integrate national and local levels of planning, but with particular emphasis on the relatively small regions at the lower levels of the administrative hierarchy (Table 1). The use of relatively small regions facilitates (although it does not guarantee) popular participation, since local representation is likely to be more meaningful in such areas. Furthermore, the lower levels in the hierarchy are also those where horizontal coordination is most important because it is at these levels that most rural development programmes are executed. Finally, spatial inequalities are often more easily identified if small regions are used, since larger regions tend to include both developed and less developed areas and so the degree of inequality is disguised. How does this need compare with actual practice in regional planning? Among the conventional approaches to regional planning, the tendency has been to focus on relatively large regions, except in the case of land-use planning, where the concern with detailed layout or design has often necessitated the use of small regions (Table 2). This is another source of terminological confusion because, although the term ‘region’ has been defined here to include any sub-national geographical area, it is often used to refer only to relatively large areas. In countries as diverse as the U.S.A., U.K., Brazil, Sudan and the Philippines, the term ‘region’ (and hence also regional planning) refers to areas with several million inhabitants, each incorporating a number of smaller administrative areas. In Tanzania, the official administrative regions are considerably smaller but they are still the largest administrative units into which the country is divided. The focus on relatively large regions can probably be explained partly by the fact that these approaches to regional planning have been initiated at the national rather than the regional or local level (a point discussed in more detail later) and partly by the type of regions on which attention has been focused - particularly urban-industrial regions and natural resource regions (such as river basins). The less conventional approaches to regional planning, however, have given much more attention to relatively small - or in the case of community planning, very small regions (Table 2). This reflects the concern in all three approaches with both participation and horizontal coordination, for which relatively small regions are required. It should, however, be emphasized that, although it is convenient to group the three approaches together when comparing them with the conventional approaches, there is an enormous difference in size between the type of regions generally used for IRD planning and regional administrative planning (which usually have populations of between 50,000 and perhaps 250,000) and the much smaller areas which provide the basis for community levels. We shall see later that both levels are important, although their functions are different.

36 23.6.

Progress ~eg~offal

in Planning Coverage

Another important way of classifying different approaches to regional planning is to consider whether planning covers all regions in the country or only a few selected areas. This distinction applies only to intro-regional planning, since inter-regional planning normally covers the whole country because it is concerned with the distribution of development between regions. The selected regions may be sefected according to any criteria but usually it is because they have particular characteristics, problems or potential which warrant special attention. The relationship between rural development and regional coverage depends very much on the approach to rural development which is adopted. One approach, which is often known as the ‘transformation’ approach (Long, 1977), attempts to increase ag~cultural and other forms of rural production by concentrating investment in a few selected areas, in the belief that this will not only make a significant contribution to national production directly but will also have a diffusion effect by encouraging the adoption of similar practices in neighbouring areas. This approach was particularly popular in the 1950s and early 1960s and it is still practised to some extent in most countries, especially for the production of certain cash crops. However, in line with general thinking about development policy, there has been a movement away from this approach towards an alternative ‘improvement’ approach, in which the aim is to bring about gradual improvements in all rural areas, in the hope of not only increasing agricultural production but also increasing rural living standards. In this latter approach, selected areas may still be singled out for special attention, but usually only because they face particular problems of underdevelopment. For present purposes we shall assume that the ‘improvement’ approach is generally accepted and, therefore, that rural regional planning is intended to facilitate popular participation and horizontal coordination in all rural areas, not merely a selected few. Complete coverage is, in any case, necessary in order to implement national development plans, since most plans have implications for - and must consider the needs of - all regions. The concern with spatial equality, however, may require a selective approach, since, as already suggested, regions with particular problems are likely to need special planning attention (Table 1). Turning now to the various approaches to regional planning, the majority conventional and unconventional - have focused their attention on selected regions (Table 2). The only exceptions are the disaggregation of national plans, which is generally undertaken on a nationwide basis because (as already pointed out) national plans have implications for all regions, and regional administrative planning, which is usually attempted in all regions because the administrative system (and therefore the need for administrative planning) is common to all regions. In the case of community planning, many countries have as a vague aim the establishment of such planning throughout the country but, with a few exceptions (including perhaps China, India, Tanzania, Cuba and one or two others), effective community development programmes exist in only a few areas. The bias towards selective regional coverage may be explained in terms of three main factors. One is the tendency of regional planning to focus on development policy rather than the process of planning and, therefore, on regions with particular characteristics,

Rural

Regional

Planning:

Towards

an Operational

Theory

37

problems or potential - regions in which new industrial and urban development is to be encouraged (such as the Guayana Region in Venezuela or North-East Brazil), river basins or regions with other particular natural resource characteristics, and the less developed rural regions which are selected for special IRD projects. Another factor is that intra-regional planning is often an extension of inter-regional planning, in the sense that concern with patterns of inequality between regions leads to the selection of a few regions (such as the urban-industrial growth regions and the less developed rural regions) which require special planning attention. The third factor is the limited financial and technical resources available for planning. In the case of land-use planning, the limited resources allocated to this form of planning generally prohibit its practice on a nationwide basis, especially in rural areas. In other approaches, such as IRD planning which is usually supported by overseas technical and financial assistance, it is usually publicly justified on the grounds that it enables more intensive development effort (arguments similar to those used in the ‘transformation’ approach) but in practice its main advantages are that it is administratively simpler and politically more effective (Chambers, 1983; Rondinelli, 1983).

2.3.7. Planning for Regions or by Regions The final criterion which will be used to classify different approaches to regional planning is the question of whether regional planning is undertaken by people at the regional level (whether they be local political representatives, central or local government administrative or planning personnel based in the region -or some combination of these) or by people from outside the region (such as staff of a national planning agency or short-term consultants). In other words, the question is whether regional planning is basically centralized or decentralized. This criterion, like that of regional coverage, applies primarily to intra-regional planning, since inter-regional planning must normally be undertaken at the national level, by planners who have an overview of the situation in all regions. The various objectives of rural regional planning differ in terms of their implications for the centralization or decentralization of planning (Table 1). On the one hand, there are some fairly convincing arguments’in favour of decentralization. The most obvious one is the importance attached to participation, since if regional plans are prepared by people outside the region, ‘participation’ cannot involve much more than superficial consultation. However, decentralization is also important in terms of achieving horizontal coordination, because representatives of the various agencies at the regional level can actually be involved in the planning process and the interrelationships between activities or programmes are more obvious at this level, and it helps to reduce the gap between planners and implementers, thus facilitating the implementation of regional plans and, therefore, the national plans of which they are components. However, there are also some arguments against decentralized planning. Thus some form of national control over regional development policies and programmes is necessary in order to ensure that important national policies are taken into account at regional level, otherwise regional planning will not serve as a means of implementing

38

Progress

in Planning

national plans. Moreover, it can also be argued that many regions do not have the technical expertise to plan effectively and that decentralized planning is an expensive and time-consuming way of implementing national plans and policies. And, perhaps most important, decentralized planning can actually hamper the achievement of spatial equality, since those regions which are already better off, particularly in terms of access to finance and trained manpower, are likely to use the decentralized planning powers more effectively. We shall see later that there are ways of avoiding, or at least reducing, these problems within a system of regional planning which still incorporates a considerable degree of decentralization. For the time being, however, the important point to note is that there are arguments both for and against the decentralization of rural regional planning. The various approaches to regional planning differ in terms of the emphasis attached to centralized or decentralized planning (Table 2). Regional economic planning has tended to be predominantly centralized, although we shall see in Chapter 3 that there is some evidence of moves towards a more decentralized approach. In contrast, regional administrative planning and community planning are undertaken almost entirely by people at the regional (or community) level. The other approaches usually involve a combination of centralized and decentralized planning. However, with the possible exception of land-use planning, the central influence tends to predominate, in the sense that the planning exercise is initiated at the national level and, if part of it is decentralized, it is still under national control and direction. For example, in the case of the disaggregation of national development plans, regions are generally asked to prepare plans which conform to particular specifications and schedules. Similarly, river basin planning and IRD planning are frequently undertaken by planners who are based at the regional level but under the control of national agencies; either they are attached to special-purpose bodies in the regions (such as river basin authorities or special project administrations) or they are consultants hired by the central government. This set-up often defeats the main objectives of decentralization, since the scope for popular participation is often (although not necessarily) limited and there are problems of coordination between the planners and the normal administrative structure in the region, particularly if the latter is responsible for the subsequent implementation of the plans. On balance, therefore, there has been a bias towards centralized rather than decentralized approaches to regional planning. The only approaches where planning is undertaken primarily by people in the regions are the two unconventional approaches of regional administrative planning and community planning.

2.4.

SUMMARY

AND

CONCLUSIONS

This chapter has distinguished between various approaches to regional planning and considered the contribution which each has made to achieving the objectives of rural regional planning identified in Chapter 1. Because of the many different dimensions of regional planning and the varied requirements of rural development, this analysis has inevitably been both long and complex. Consequently, some sort of summary is needed

to regional

planning

High

Very low

High

Medium

Low Medium

Medium

Low

High

Low

High Very low Medium

Low

Very low

Medium/low$

Medium/low$

Very low

Low

Medium

High

Spatial equality

*Only a general indication of contribution is made, using the scale: high, medium, low, very low. For more details, see Tables 1 and 2 and text. $Combination of concern with rural areas and contribution to rural development policies. SContribution to coordination is complex; see text.

planning

admin.

7. Community

6. Regional

B. Unconventional 5. IRD planning

Very low

Very low

Horizontal coordination

to

Very low

Contribution

Very low

Very low

Popular participation

High

Very low

resource

planning

Medium

4. Natural

High

planning

Very low

Low

Low

Low Medium

planning

Implement. of national plans

3. Land-use

of

Concern with rural developmentt

3. Contributions to rural regional planning*

2. Disaggregation national plans

A. Conventional I. Regional economic

planning

Approach

TABLE

40

Progress

in Planning

at this point. Table 3, which is in effect a combination of Tables 1 and 2, attempts to summarize the most important points which have been made. It indicates, firstly, the degree of concern for rural development in each of the seven approaches to regional planning and, secondly, the extent to which each has contributed to the various objectives of rural regional planning. The most obvious finding from the information summarized in the table is that the ‘unconventional’ approaches have, on balance, been more concerned with rural development and have made a more significant contribution to the development of a relevant approach to rural regional planning. The four ‘conventional’ approaches have all made some contribution, although in different ways, and we shall see in the next chapter that recent changes in thinking, especially in regional economic planning, may increase their contribution in the future. However, their main concerns have been, at least until very recently, at best peripheral and at worst in opposition to the interests of rural development. The other major conclusion is that, even among the unconventional approaches, there is no ‘ready-made’ theory of rural regional planning, in the sense of a cohesive body of procedural theory about planning in rural regions. They all have significant contributions to make but they also have serious limitations. This can be attributed, at least in part, to the fact that, although they are all concerned with rural development in one form or another, they have all emerged as extensions of other activities, rather than as approaches to rural regional planning as such. This leads us on to the problems of regional planning theory in general, and rural regional planning theory in particular. Early in the chapter the point was made that there is no coherent body of theoretical knowledge about regional planning because the various approaches have emerged from different disciplinary and professional origins and to serve very different purposes. This point has been reinforced by the discussion which followed, to the extent that one wonders whether it is actually possible to devise a theoretical framework which can encompass such diverse approaches. Perhaps, like Gore (1984), we may conclude that the only meaningful theoretical framework lies in basic theories about the nature and role of the state -and its intervention in development processes through ‘planning’. Equally apparent from the analysis in this chapter, and more significant in terms of the focus of the monograph, is the absence of a coherent theory of rural regional planning. In this case, however, the possibility of developing a meaningful theoretical framework is perhaps a little less remote, since we have been able to identify some objectives for rural regional planning and we have seen that the existing approaches to regional planning, especially the less conventional ones, have made some contribution towards the achievement of these objectives. Chapter 3 examines these various contributions in order to see whether it is, in fact, possible to formulate some sort of skeletal theory of rural regional planning.

CHAPTER

3

To wards a Theory of Rural Regional Planning 3.1. INTRODUCTION

The last chapter looked backwards, in the sense that it focused on past approaches to regional planning and on the gaps in rural regional planning theory. This chapter, in contrast, looks forwards. It seeks to extract the positive contributions which these various approaches have made to rural development planning and to see whether they can be put together to form the basic elements of acoherent theory of rural regional planning. The chapter is divided into three main sections. In the first section, the same sort of deductive analysis adopted in Chapter 2 is used to suggest a number of basic elements of rural regional planning. These may be regarded as hypotheses, which are then tested in the remainder of the chapter. Thus the second section examines recent literature on regional planning to see if there is any evidence in support of these hypotheses, while the third section looks at actual planning practice in individual countries with the same purpose in mind. It should be explained that our concern here is with procedural theory rather than substantive theory. In other words, we are concerned with the process of rural regional planning - its role, organization and methodology - rather than the process of rural regional development. Although the reasons for this will be discussed later, it is necessary at this point to clarify some of its implications. The distinction between procedural and substantive theory, originally made by Faludi (197313) is generally accepted as a useful analytical tool but, if taken too far, can lead to misconceptions about the nature of the planning process. This has been the subject of a major debate among planning theorists (Paris, 1982; Cooke, 1983) and Faludi’s approach has been heavily criticized. While it is not necessary to delve deeply into this debate here, its implications in terms of the scope and objectives of this chapter, and those that follow, warrant brief consideration. In the first place, our focus on procedural theory is not intended to suggest either that substantive theory is unimportant in rural regional planning or that there is no interrelationship between the two. On the contrary, in Chapter 2 we stressed that both types of theory are essential and demonstrated how, in relation to qualities such as participation and coordination, the nature of the planning process affects the type of development policies - and vice versa. This interrelationship can be explained by the fact that the nature and scope of both regional development policies and the process of regional planning are limited by the environment in which they operate and, in particular, the nature of the state and the degree and form of state intervention in the JPP 23:L - c*

41

42

Progress

in Planning

process of regional development. Therefore, although the emphasis in the rest of the Chapter will be on procedural theory, its interrelationship with substantive theory and the reasons for this interrelationship - will be kept in mind and discussed where appropriate. Secondly, the use of the term ‘procedural theory’ does not mean that the aim here is to design a model set of planning procedures which can be applied anywhere - or even to suggest that such a model can ever exist. The relationship between processes of planning and the environment in which they operate suggests that there can be no one model. The word ‘theory’ is here used only to mean a set of basic principles or elements which are common to a relatively large number of rural situations and thus constitute a theoretical framework for the discussion of rural regional planning and the analysis of alternative approaches. Finally, the word ‘theory’ should not discourage those readers whose main concern is with the practice of regional planning or rural development in a specific context and who might thus fear that what follows will be too theoretical, in the sense that it will not bear any relation to practice. On the contrary, in this case the purpose of theory is simply to provide an analytical framework which will help to describe, explain and hopefully - enhance individual practice.

3.2.

BASIC

ISSUES

IN

RURAL

REGIONAL

PLANNING

This section draws upon the analysis of different types of regional planning in Chapter 2, particularly that part of the analysis summarized in Table 1, which suggests which types of planning are most likely to achieve each of the four objectives of rural regional planning. Using the same criteria for classifying different types of planning, it seeks to identify the main characteristics which seem to be needed in order to achieve the four objectives and which might thus form the basis of a theory of rural regional planning.

3.2.1. Type of Planning Profession It was suggested in Chapter 2 that all three professional types of planning socioeconomic, land-use and management - have a role to play in rural regional planning. This is, of course, not unique to rural regional planning, since most kinds of development activity have to be planned from socioeconomic, spatial and management dimensions. However, it is particularly important in the case of regional planning because the three dimensions of planning have to be very closely coordinated at the regional level, since this is the level at which plans are actually implemented. And it is particularly important in the case of rural planning because the three dimensions are often particularly closely interrelated. Thus, to take a very simple example, when planning a major rural settlement project, it is necessary to consider the socioeconomic implications (including overall settlement policy and more specific policies concerning, say, agricultural production and marketing and the provision of health, education and

Rural

Regional

Planning:

Towards

an Operational

Theory

43

other services), to plan its spatial or physical layout (including the location of infrastructure and services), and to consider its organization and management. If any dimension is neglected, problems are likely to arise. Two characteristics of past approaches to regional planning emerged particularly clearly from the analysis in Chapter 2. One was the relatively little attention given to the management dimension of planning, compared with the other two, and the other was the lack of coordination (except in the case of community planning) between the three types. This suggests that, in the future, particular attention needs to be given to strengthening the management dimension and integrating it with both socioeconomic and land-use planning.

3.2.2. Rural Regional Development

or

Rural Regional Planning

We have already warned that in this section and those that follow the main emphasis will be on procedural theory rather than substantive theory; in other words, on the process of rural regional planning rather than policies for rural regional development. The analysis in Chapter 2 suggests that this emphasis can be justified on two grounds. Firstly, the emphasis in the past has tended to be on substantive theory, and so procedura! theory has been relatively neglected. Chapter 2 suggested that this has been the case in regional planning as a whole and more specifically in rural regional planning. With regard to the latter, the position is somewhat complex because the main contributions to substantive theory - that is, to theories of rural regional development - have not come from regional development theory, since it has devoted relatively little attention to rural development issues. They have instead come from rural development and community development theory, through what we have called integrated rural development (IRD) planning and community planning. The body of substantive theory which has accumulated from experience with IRD and community development does, of course, have many gaps and weaknesses. However, thinking has progressed much further in this field than in that of planning procedures. Consequently, the most urgent need at present is to improve procedural theory, so that rural development policies can be formulated and implemented more effectively. Secondly, the interrelationship between substantive theory and procedural theory is such that, although one cannot say that either one or other is the more important, one can expect changes in planning procedures to have some impact on development policies. Thus, for example, in Chapter 2 it was suggested that regional development plans are more likely to include participatory development strategies and to be ‘integrated’ if popular participation and horizontal coordination are built into the planning process. Therefore, our emphasis on procedural theory can also be justified on the grounds that it will have an indirect impact on rural regional development policies, as well as a direct impact on the process of planning.

44

Progress in Planning

3.2.3. Intra-regional

or Inter-regionalPlanning

We saw in Chapter 2 that both intra-regional and inter-regional planning have a role to play in rural development but that the former tends to be more important, except with regard to the aim of achieving spatial equality. Intra-regional planning is essential in order to achieve the objectives of popular participation and horizontal coordination and it plays an important role in the implementation of national plans. Moreover, although many of the past approaches to regional planning have focused on intraregional rather than inter-regional planning, there has been little coordination between them and they have received less attention than one might expect in the regional planning literature because of the dominant role of regional economic planning. This suggests that rural regional planning should continue to focus on intra-regional planning, with the aim of combining appropriate elements of the several very different approaches practised in the past - land-use planning, natural resource planning, IRD planning, regional administrative planning and community planning. However, it also suggests that the inter-regional dimension cannot be neglected, since individual regional plans must presumably be prepared within the context of national policies and programmes, especially those concerned with the reduction of inequalities between regions.

3.2.4. Type of Region Two criteria for classifying different types of region were used in Chapter 2: the distinction between administrative regions and special planning regions and the size of the region. Administrative Regions or Planning Regions The choice between administrative regions and planning regions is not easy because it depends on the particular objective concerned. However, the analysis in Chapter 2 suggested that, on balance, administrative regions should perhaps receive higher priority in the immediate future, partly because they have an important role to play in achieving three out of the four objectives (the implementation of national plans, popular participation and horizontal coordination) and partly because planning (as opposed to routine administration) in such regions has received relatively less attention in the past. However, it should be recognized that for certain purposes special planning regions have a very important role to play. Two obvious examples are planning the development of a natural resource which cuts across administrative boundaries (such as a river basin) and tackling the problems of underdeveloped areas which would not receive sufficient attention if planning was confined within the boundaries of administrative regions. In such cases, it is sometimes possible to reach a compromise by giving administrative powers to regions originally designated solely for planning purposes. Two such examples are the Thaba-Tseka District of Lesotho (mentioned earlier), which was originally established as a special planning region but later given district status (Geer and Wallis, 1982) and, on a larger scale, the Philippines’ economic planning regions, to

Rural

Regional

Planning:

Towards

an Operational

Theory

45

which administrative powers have gradually been bestowed in order to facilitate plan implementation (Fabella, 1981). However, the creation of new administrative regions is often not a realistic option because it requires time, money and manpower and is often a politically sensitive issue. Moreover, it can never be more than a partial solution because the characteristics of planning regions are such that different regions are required for different planning purposes and so there is no one ideal set of planning regions. Consequently, a more practical alternative may be to sub-divide or amalgamate (depending on the size required) existing administrative regions to create regions for particular planning purposes.

Size of Region

The analysis in Chapter 2 suggested a fairly obvious need for planning to be undertaken at a number of different levels, with channels of communication between them, particularly as a means of implementing national plans. However, it also suggested that in terms of the other objectives the lower levels in this hierarchy are the most important. Although the exact number and size of these lower levels and the relationships between them (and with higher levels) will vary from one situation to another, there are two kinds of region which seem to be of particular importance: we may refer to them as ‘districts’ and ‘community areas’. The term ‘district’ is used here to refer to a relatively small administrative unit, varying considerably in area and population but characterized as the lowest level at which most central government agencies are represented and, therefore, the level at which horizontal coordination is important. Local government organs, or other forms of local representation, are often also established at this level, thus also facilitating participation. It is at this level that much IRD planning and regional administrative planning activity has been concentrated. The term ‘community area’ is used to suggest local planning units, corresponding as far as possible to recognized local sociopolitical or cultural groupings but also, if possible, having some administrative status. This level is particularly important in terms of achieving popular participation and it is the focus of attention for community-based planning activities, usually related to some sort of community development programme. It is, perhaps, symptomatic of the terminological confusion which surrounds regional planning that neither of the above levels is often actually referred to as a ‘region’. This, of course, raises once again the question of whether planning at these levels should be called ‘regional planning’. However, we have argued earlier that a broad definition of both ‘region’ and ‘regional planning’ is necessary in order to develop a meaningful theory of rural regional planning; in fact, we have suggested that the much narrower definitions often adopted may have actually hindered the development of such a theory.

3.2.5. Regional Coverage It was suggested in Chapter 2 thatcurrent approaches to rural development require that all rural areas receive attention, not just a few selected regions with particular

46

Progress

in Planning

problems or potential, as has tended to be the case with many approaches to intraregional planning in the past. This does not mean that it may not be necessary, from time to time, to devote additional attention to certain regions, especially those which are least developed. Nor does it mean that the same development policies, or even the same planning procedures, can be adopted in each region. It simply means that there is a need to improve planning in all rural areas and, therefore, to develop an approach to planning which can be applied in all regions, albeit with adaptations to meet the needs of individual regions, rather than just a selected few. We shall see later that this has particular implications in terms of the ‘technology’ of planning, since it means that the limited financial and manpower resources available for regional planning must be spread over the whole country.

3.2.6. Planning for Regions ov by Regions The arguments for and against the decentralization of planning were discussed at some length in Chapter 2. The main conclusion appears to be that there is a need for considerably more decentralization than has usually been the case in the past, in order to facilitate popular participation and horizontal coordination and improve plan implementation - but that too much decentralization may make the implementation of national policies and, in particular, the reduction of spatial inequality, difficult, as well as presenting financial and technical problems. This suggests that intra-regional planning should, as far as possible, be undertaken by people in the regions, but with some central control, coordination and assistance. Unfortunately. this division of responsibility is easier advocated than achieved, since the forces for and against decentralization tend to pull in opposite directions, and to vary from one country to another and from one region to another.

3.2.7. Summary This section has outlined the main issues which appear to be important in achieving the objectives of rural regional planning and, therefore, to constitute the basic elements of a procedural theory. We may summarize these basic elements as follows: planning than inrer-regional; 1. more emphasis on inrra-regional 2. the integration of socio-economic, land-use and management dimensions of planning, with particular emphasis on the last because of its neglect in the past; as far as possible to 3. the use of a number of different levels of planning region, corresponding administrative regions and with particular emphasis on the lower levels (including ‘districts’ and ‘community areas’); of planning in all regions, not just a selected few; 4. the establishment approach to planning, in which the main responsibility for making and 5. a decentralized implementing decisions rests with people in the regions and planning becomes an extension of the exercise of decentralized political and administrative power.

Rural

Regional

Planning:

Towards

an Operational

Theory

47

This does not mean that other forms of regional planning - including ‘conventional’ inter-regional economic planning, urban land-use planning and special planning projects in selected regions (such as river basins, areas of mineral resource development or the least developed rural regions) - have no role to play. It merely means that there appears to be a need for the sort of approach outlined above and that in the past this need has not been adequately met by conventional forms of regional planning.

3.3.

EVIDENCE

FROM

THEORY

The hypotheses put forward in the previous section were reached by what might be described as a process of logical deduction, in which the objectives of rural regional planning (identified in Chapter 1) have been matched against the various criteria used to distinguish different types of regional planning. However, it is now time to support that process of analysis with some documentary evidence This section, therefore, examines recent thinking in the field of rural regional planning, as reflected in the literature, in order to see what evidence it provides in support of the hypotheses. This will then be followed by a review of actual planning practice in individual countries in the final part of the chapter. It should already be evident from the discussion in Chapter 2 that, because of the lack of any coherent theory of regional development planning, or even of rural regional planning, it will be necessary to examine several different bodies of literature and select from each those points relevant to rural regional planning. In this section, therefore, we shall look in turn at each of the approaches identified in Chapter 2, grouped once again into the two broad categories of ‘conventional’ and ‘unconventional’ approaches.

3.3.1. Conventional Approaches One of the conclusions which emerged from the analysis in Chapter 2 was that the conventional approaches seem to have made much less contribution to the development of rural regional planning theory than the unconventional ones. This does not, however, mean that they are totally irrelevant and our purpose here is to identify those elements which are relevant, in order to see whether they support our presumptions about the basic components of a procedural theory for rural regional planning. We shall attach particular signiiicance to recent trends in thinking, and we shall devote particular attention to regional economic planning, partly because of its dominant role and partly because it has undergone significant changes in recent years. Regional

Economic

Planning

It has already been noted that in the last decade there has been increasing dissatisfaction with conventional approaches to regional economic planning and, in response, a search for more appropriate alternatives. This ‘paradigm shift’ is clearly reflected in most recent reviews of the state-of-the-art of regional development planning (Friedmann and Weaver, 1979; Stohr and Taylor, 1981; Mathur, 1981, Part I; Morris,

48

Progress

in Planning

1981; Gore, 1984) and it is this literature which provides the most significant pointers in terms of future directions in rural regional planning. Stiihr (1981) has identified the main shortcoming of conventional regional economic planning as the fact that it came ‘from above’; in other words, regional planning was seen as a tool for the development of the nation, rather than for the development of the regions. Friedmann and Weaver provide a rather more detailed summary of the problems, which also suggests the areas where changes are needed. They maintain (1979, p. 129) that: “Regional planning almost succeeded in making a fetish ofgrowth centres to the neglect of other dimensions of regional policy. Area or territorially specific pohcies receded into the background ot academic discussions. As a result, insufficient attention was paid to questions of natural resources. political implementation, administrative organization, and above all, to rural development.”

The specific question of rural development has been taken up in more detail by Belshaw and Douglass, who maintain (1981, p. 1) that: “the prevailing body of theory and techniques for regional planning is poorly adapted both to the objective conditions in rural regions and to the subjective needs of their rural populations.”

They attributz this, in large part, to the fact, noted earlier, that most regional economic planning concepts and techniques were originally developed for application in urban regions in developed countries, not for rural regions in Third World countries. They go on to identify a number of alternative approaches to rural regional planning which have begun to emerge. As one might expect from the above quotations, the alternative approaches have sought ways of approaching regional planning from the region’s point of view - or in the words of Stiihr, ‘from below’. Analyzing the main characteristics of these alternatives is not easy because they take a variety of forms. In fact, as Stahr (198 1, p. 40) suggests, ‘there may not be only one strategy of developmen “from below”‘. Furthermore, in terms of our interests, two other problems arise. Firstly, the various alternatives are not concerned exclusively with rural development, although rural development does feature much more prominently than in the past. Secondly, they are concerned primarily with substantive rather than procedural theories; that is, with regional development rather than with regionalplanning. It is perhaps significant that neither the critics of the conventional approaches (such as Belshaw and Taylor) nor the proponents of the alternatives actually recognize the distinction between the two types of theory, so their failure to tackle the problem of imbalance between the two is hardly surprising. The alternative which has received most attention, probably because it is the only attempt to put together the various characteristics of an alternative approach into some coherent form, is that of ‘agropolitan development’, initially proposed by Friedmann and Douglass (1978) and later elaborated by Friedmann and Weaver (1979) and Douglass (1979). It is also the alternative which is most relevant to rural development. In 1979 Friedmann and Weaver envisaged that agropolitan development, which they described (p. 193) as ‘a basic-needs strategy for territorial development’, could form the basis for a new model, or ‘paradigm’, which would, they claimed (p. 194) ‘break the

Rural

Regional

Planning:

Towards

an Operational

Theory

49

impasse in regional studies’. As a result of tnis ambitious claim, the concept received considerable attention among regional scientists in the early 1980s. However, it soon became obvious that agropolitan development was an idealistic conception of society, rather than a practical approach to regional development planning, and so interest in it diminished rapidly. Despite the shortcomings of the agropolitan approach, it does, because of its coherence, provide a useful basis for identifying the main characteristics of the various alternative approaches. Consequently, it is of value here, in our attempt to assess the relevance of recent thinking in regional economic planning to the hypotheses about rural regional planning proposed in the previous section. Perhaps the most significant characteristic of these approaches is that regions are seen as entities in their own right, rather than merely as components of the national (or international) system. This has implications for regional development policies, reflected in an emphasis on regional self-reliance through what Stohr and Todtling (1978) describe as ‘regional closure’. However, more important here, it also has implications for the process of regional planning, since it leads to a focus on inrra-regional rather than inter-regional planning. Friedmann and Weaver (1979) describe the new focus as a concern with ‘territory’ rather than ‘function’, and they describe the agropolitan approach as the ‘rediscovery of territorial life’. The use of the word ‘rediscovery’ (rather than simply ‘discovery’) reflects the fact that this focus is similar to the concern with ‘the region’ which preoccupied early approaches to regional planning, before the advent of what might be described as the ‘growth centre era’. In fact, Morris (1981) suggests that there is a risk of going too far back into the past and neglecting the inter-regional dimension of regional planning entirely. His conclusion (p. 186) that ‘primary emphasis should be laid on intra-regional development’ but that ‘this does not obviate the need for national spatial policies’ reflects very closely our own conclusions. Another important characteristic of the various alternative approaches is the importance attached to relatively small regions. Friedmann and Weaver (1979, p. 197) suggest agropolitan development should take place within areas varying in population from 20,000 to 100,000 and they use the term ‘district’ (rather than region) to refer to such areas. Similar evidence is presented by Stohr and Taylor (1981, p. 454). However, as Stdhr and Taylor go on to point out, size itself is not necessarily important. More significant perhaps is Friedmann and Weaver’s definition of agropolitan districts as ‘the smallest . . territorial units that are still capable of providing for the basic needs of their inhabitants with only marginally important resource transfers from outside’ (1979, p. 197). The third characteristic which is of importance to the present discussion is a concern with decentralized planning, which has itself emerged as a result of the concept of a region as an entity in its own right. The agropolitan approach, in particular, emphasizes that ‘each agropolitan district is a self-governing unit’ (Friedmann and Weaver, 1979, p. 203). Unfortunately, however, none of the accounts of the agropolitan approach have elaborated upon what is actually meant by a ‘self-governing unit’, or how such units may be created. This omission illustrates the weaknesses of the agropolitan model. Moreover, it also reflects one of the main weaknesses of conventional regional economic planning: the neglect of the organizational dimensions of planning. It is only very

50

Progress in Planning

recently that the importance of the political and administrative framework for regional planning has begun to be recognized and to receive attention in the literature. The main contribution to this literature is a collection of papers, edited by Cheema (198 1), which were originally presented at a seminar organized by the United Nations Centre for Regional Development (UNCRD). It should be noted that the neglect of the organizational dimension is again a reflection of the continuing emphasis on substantive theory rather than on procedural theory. The final characteristic of the alternative approaches which warrants mention relates to the question of regional coverage. Although this does not receive a great deal of attention in the literature, there is some evidence in support of our concern for total regional coverage. Thus Rodwin (1981, p. 15) suggests that one of the shortcomings of conventional approaches to regional planning is that they were based on experience in the developed world, where ‘the toughest regional problems affected only a small segment of the nation and of the economy’, while in developing countries the situation ‘was often the reverse’. The agropolitan approach seems to assume that all rural areas would be divided into agropolitan districts but it does not stress this point. Morris (1981, pp. 202-3) is more explicit; he sees a comprehensive system of regional planning covering all regions as one of the most important needs in Latin America, where in the past intra-regional planning has been confined almost entirely to selected regions. Regional Disaggre.yation of Nutional Plans It was suggested in Chapter 2 that this approach to regional planning is widely practised in some form or other but that its relative importance in the literature is much less. This is reflected in the literature on national development planning as well as that on regional planning. The main exception is perhaps Waterston’s (1965) monumental work on development planning, which includes a chapter on the role and organization of regional planning. Recently, however, there is some evidence to suggest that it is beginning to receive more attention (Gant, 1979, chapter 7; Casas, 1981; Kriesel, 1981; Prasad, 1981; Kent, 1981). Moreover, there also seems to be increasing concern that the disaggregation of national plans be seen from a ‘bottom-up’ as well as a ‘top-down’ perspective and, therefore, that more attention be given to planning at the lower levels in the administrative hierarchy, including ‘district’ and ‘community’ levels. This has obvious implications for rural regional planning and it also has the effect that there is now considerable overlap between this body of literature and those on regional administrative planning and community planning, which will be reviewed later in the chapter. In conclusion, however, it should be stressed that the linkages between national, regional and local levels of planning is still a relatively neglected field of study. Land-use Planning and Natural Resource PfanninR These two approaches have been grouped together because, in terms of their relevance to rural regional planning, there is some overlap between them. It was suggested in Chapter 2 that the contribution of land-use planning, as practised in most Third World countries, to rural regional planning is limited because it tends to have an urban bias and to be confined to the detailed physical, or design, aspects of planning; it

Rural

Regional

Planning:

Towards

an Operational

Theory

51

thus constitutes ‘site planning’ rather than ‘regional planning’. It was, however, mentioned that its activities are sometimes extended into rural areas, where it tends to adopt a broader approach to planning, incorporating some socioeconomic dimensions and focusing on ‘regions’ rather than ‘sites’. This sort of planning is most often practised in regions requiring special planning attention, including those identified as a result of interregional economic planning exercises and those defined for natural resource planning purposes. It might thus be regarded, in some respects, as an integration of regional economic planning, land-use planning and natural resource planning; however, since it is somewhat peripheral to the interests of ‘mainstream’ regional economic planners, it is more appropriate to discuss it under the headings of land-use planning and natural resource planning. Two characteristics of this approach to planning are particularly relevant here, given our hypotheses about rural regional planning. One is the obvious point that it involves intra-regional rather than inter-regional planning. The other is the way in which the socioeconomic and land-use dimensions of planning are integrated in this approach, a characteristic ctearly demonstrated in the literature (Johnson, 1970; Gilbert, 1976; Rondinelli and Ruddle, 1978; Rondinelli, 1980, 1983; ESCAP, 1979). There is also some evidence in the r,ecent material, especially that by Rondinelli, that a concern with the organization and management dimensions of planning, previously neglected in land-use planning and natural resource planning - as in regional economic planning, is beginning to emerge. Nevertheless, it is impo~ant to note that, despite this fact, the main emphasis in all the literature in this field is on policies for regional development, rather than the process of regional planning. Moreover, the emphasis is also on selected regions rather than total regional coverage, and on planning regions rather than administrative regions. So far attention has been focused on planning in the Third World. However, there are also some aspects of land-use planning in the developed countries, mentioned briefly in Chapter 2, which may bear some relevance to rural regional planning in the Third World. Experience in the U.K. will be used to illustrate this. Firstly, land-use planning in the U.K. has for many years included a socioeconomic dimension, primarily because of the lack of systematic national development planning (Conyers and Hills, 1984). Secondly, it is practised on a nationwide basis, using a hierarchy of administrative areas, but with particular emphasis on the ‘district’ level. And thirdly, there is increasing interest in the extension of planning to the ‘community’ or ‘area’ level (Hague, 1982; Comm_unity Development Project, 1982; Donnison, 1983; TCPA, forthcoming), along lines which bear a remarkable significance to community development activities in the Third World. This suggests that there is scope for cross-fertilization of ideas between developed and less developed countries.

3.3.2. Unconventional Approaches We have already suggested that our approach to rural regional planning draws more from the unconventional than the conventional approaches to regional planning and we have indicated some of the relevant trends. This section aims merely to provide

52

Progress in Planning

documentary evidence of these trends. In so doing, we shall maintain the distinction between the three different unconventional approaches identified in Chapter 2 because, although there is a significant (and increasing) area of overlap between them, their main contributions to rural regional planning are different. IRD Planning Most of the literature on IRD planning has been generated by consultants involved in IRD projects, often published under the auspices of the aid agencies sponsoring the projects, such as the World Bank and the United States Agency for Inte~ational Development (USAID). Considering the amount of attention which IRD has received from both national and international agencies. the literature is still relatively scant and, in particular, lacking in cohesion (Belshaw and Douglass, 1981; Belshaw, 1982b). Moreover, like so much of the literature reviewed in this chapter, it focuses on development policies rather than on the process of planning; in other words, it gives more attention to substantive theory than to procedural theory. Nevertheless, there is some important material which is of direct relevance to our purpose. The earliest significant literature is that by Chambers (1974), which is based on experience gained with Kenya’s Special Rural Development Programme (SRDP), and by Bendavid_Val(1975), based on work in Thailand. An important feature of both is that they focus on the actual process and techniques of planning, and Chambers’is especially significant in that it includes a major component on the organization and management dimensions of planning. an area which has been neglected in most of the literature reviewed so far. Another important contribution is that of the Settlement Study Centre in Rehovot, Israel (Weitz, 1979). Although based on experience in Israel, the Rehovot approach was intended for use in any rural environment and applied in a number of projects supported by Israeli technical assistance. Belshaw (1983), who was involved in a mission to evaluate its application in Venezuela, identifies several serious deficiencies in the approach, including its dependence on a relatively well-developed socioeconomic and administrative infrastructure (like that in Israel) and the failure to ‘institutionalize’ the planning process. He attributes the latter particularly to the lack of local participation. Nevertheless, he suggests (1983, p. 27) that ‘perhaps the Rehovot approach represents, in its systematic comprehensiveness, the highest achievement of the first generation of methodologies for rural regional planning? Belshaw himself has made a significant contribution to the debate on TRD planning, based on experience in a number of countries, especially Tanzania (Belshaw, 1978, 1979, 1982a, 1982b). Although his main interest is in rural development policy rather than the actual planning process, he has given considerable thought to the details of the steps involved in the preparation of an ‘integrated’ plan and to the ‘institutionalization’ of the planning process. Moreover, as already noted, he and Douglass have undertaken a critical review of conventional approaches to regional planning in terms of their relevance to rural development (Belshaw and Douglass, 1981), thus helping to bridge the gap between the different approaches to rural regional planning. We shall return to this point later. The need to institutionalize the pIanning process has become a major focus of

Rural Regional

Planning:

Towards an Operational

Theory

53

attention in the last few years, owing to the increasing evidence of lack of follow-up after the consultants who are hired to prepare IRD plans depart. This has led to considerable concern regarding the organization of IRD projects, including the lack of popular participation and, in particular, the problems of integrating the project administration into the existing administrative structure. This concern is reflected in the work of various American consultants involved in USAID-funded IRD projects, especially Development Alternatives Inc. (forthcoming), and in a report by the World Bank on the organization of IRD projects (World Bank, 1980), based on its experience in a number of countries. Finally, brief mention should be made of the literature which has emerged from IRD planning work on the subject of methods of conducting rural surveys (Chambers, 1981, 1983; Longhurst, 198 1; A~riculturalAdministration, 1981; Honadle, 1982). The main focus of this literature is the search for survey methods which are quicker than conventional social survey procedures but nevertheless yield reasonably accurate data; these methods have come to be known as ‘rapid rural appraisal’. However, there is also a concern, reflected especiaily in Chambers’ later work (1983), with the need to change the whole focus of rural development research (and, in fact, any form of intervention in rural development) so that it is more relevant to the needs and problems of the majority of the rural poor. It thus appears that the literature on IRD planning, despite its gaps, demonstrates increasing concern with many of the elements of rural regional planning embodied in the hypotheses put forward in the first section of this chapter. In conclusion, however, it should be emphasized that the focus of attention in all the literature (with the exception of Chambers’ most recent work) is on selected regions, which receive special planning assistance, not on all rural regions. Even the concern with the institutionalization of pianning is only concerned with institutionalizing externally-supported planning projects into the administrative structure of a few selected regions, not with the organization of planning throughout a country. This focus is perhaps inevitable, given the fact that most of the literature is produced by consultants and donor agencies, who have vested interests in the continuation of such special planning projects. It may thus be appropriate to conclude with the following comment on the impact of the SRDP in Kenya, which comes from W.O. Oyugi, who is one of the few commentators on IRD planning from the Third World itself: “The point being made is that the SRDP has bad very marginal efttct on the administration of development in Kenya, if any. No machinery exists which could be used in rcplicat~ng the lessons learnt. In the absence of such a machinery the few indivtduals who mtght have some good ideas to replicate can only do so as individuals. In a system that )\ still oriented to bureaucratic norms that is a rather difficult endeavour.” (Oyugi, 1981, pp. 212-R.)

KegionalAdministrative

Planning

The literature on regional administrative planning is more cohesive and so can be summarized more easily. It focuses on the deficiencies of conventional regional administrative structures for planning purposes, notably the high degree of centralization and the lack of horizontal coordination, and on ways of overcoming these deficiencies, primarily through organizational reform. The reforms inevitably involve a

54

Progress in Planning

significant degree of decentralization, including decentralization of the political and administrative structure of government as well as the planning machinery, since this is seen as a way of facilitating both participation and coordination. Much of the literature thus focuses on decentralization and perhaps the main difficulty in analyzing this literature is that it extends into the fields of local government and general public administration, both of which contain a vast amount of material which is marginally, but not centrally, relevant to rural regional planning (Conyers, 1984). Some of the most useful material has been published as a result of work sponsored by two major agencies: USAID, particularly through a project on the management of decentralization based at the University of California at Berkeley (Christensen and Webber, 1981; Cohen, 1981; Landau and Eagle, 1981; Leonard and Marshall, 1982) and the UNCRD at Nagoya, in Japan (Faltas, 1977; Cheema, 1981; Cheema and Rondinelli, 1983). However, a number of individuals have also contributed to the debate (Bowden, 1979; Conyers, 1981a; Faltas, 1982; Hebbert, 1982; Hyden, 1983). The work of the UNCRD is particularly significant because it has arisen out of a more conventional approach to regional economic planning, rather than from independent thinking in the field of public administration; it thus provides an important bridge between the conventional and unconventional approaches. The main value of this literature on regional administration in the Third World for our purposes is thus in terms of the organizational structure within which rural regional planning must take place and it is particularly useful since it’is concerned with all regions, not just (as in IRD planning) with a select few. Its deficiency, however, is - as we have already indicated - that it gives very little attention to the actual methodology and techniques of planning. For this reason, therefore, it is important to note the existence of a different type of regional planning, known as corporate planning, which is practised in some developed countries, including the U.K. A brief reference to this type of planning has already been made in Chapter 2. Its significance arises from the fact that its objectives are to improve horizontal coordination and introduce some sort of forward planning in regions where a decentralized system of government already exists, such as the local authorities in the U.K. (Eddison, 1975; Greenwood and Stewart, 1974; Greenwood et al., 1980; Hinings et al., 1980.

Community Planning There is a vast literature on what might broadly be described as participatory approaches to development, much of which has important implications for rural regional planning, especially the achievement of popular participation and the organization of planning at ‘community’ level. It is neither possible nor necessary to review all this material here. Oakley and Marsden (1984) provide a useful overview of the whole field and we have already referred to some of it. At this point, we shall only identify selected material which is of particular relevance because it looks not just at popular participation and community involvement but at their role in the context of rural or regional planning. This material can be divided into three categories. Firstly, there are a series of documents produced by the Food and Agriculture Organization

Rural

Regional

Planning:

Towards

an Operational

Theory

55

(FAO), following the World Conference on Agrarian Reform and Rural Development (WCARRD), held in Rome in 1979. Their main focus is the provision of inputs and services to small farmers but this has led into the much wider fields of community organization and rural planning. Particularly useful is a report published in 1981, which considers the organization of rural administration and planning from national to village level (FAO, 1981). It emphasizes the importance of both vertical and horizontal coordination and the need for planning to be undertaken at a number of different levels. It suggests that three sub-national levels are particularly important: the ‘district’, which should have a population of no more than 100,000 and should ‘be the lowest possible administrative unit consistent with a wide range of technical, administrative and commercial services, planning efficiency, and government financial and technical resources’ (p. 27); a level below the district which is ‘the level of agricultural service provision and input delivery to the local farming community’ (p. 8); and the village level. It then describes in some detail the organization of activities and services at each level, focusing in particular on agricultural organization. The second body of literature is produced by the International Labour Office (ILO), under the auspices of its World Employment Programme Research. It includes a series of working papers on various aspects of popular participation, including the overview by Oakley and Marsden (1984) mentioned above and, more directly relevant here, a series of case studies on ‘decentralized planning’. Unfortunately, there has as yet been no attempt to draw any general conclusions on decentralized planning from these case studies. However, a brie’f but useful framework for a decentralized approach to rural planning is provided in a chapter of an earlier IL0 publication (Harvey et al., 1979, Part D). An important point made in this chapter is that ‘planning’ should not be seen as the exclusive responsibility of professional planners; local field staff and representatives of the local community should not merely be involved in planning but should see themselves as ‘planners’. This view, which is implicit - but seldom actually stated in these terms - in most of the literature on community development, is in stark contrast to the view expressed by many of the consultants on IRD planning, who emphasize the importance of technical planning expertise. The third body of literature on community planning is the result of a variety of activities undertaken in the U.S., often through research supported by USAID. It includes the findings of several major research projects on popular participation and rural development administration undertaken by the Maxwell School at Syracuse University (Uphoff and Esman, 1974; Cohen and Uphoff, 1977, 1980; Uphoff et al., 1979) some of the material published in connection with the decentralization research project at Berkeley, mentioned above (Leonard and Marshall, 1982), and some work by a group of consultants known as The Development GAP (O’Regan et al., 1979). There is considerable overlap between this material and the other work on IRD planning and regional administration supported by USAID and this is perhaps reflected in the tendency, characteristic of much of this literature, to adopt what might be described as a ‘top-down’ rather than a ‘bottom-up’ view of participation. However, because of this overlap, it also plays a useful role in that it helps to link together the three unconventional approaches to regional planning and thus to indicate both the potential and the actuality of such a linkage.

56 3.3.3.

Progress

Summary

in Planning

and Conclusions

Three main conclusions emerge from the necessarily rather superficial literature review in this section. Firstly, there is now widespread recognition of the deficiencies of conventional regional planning, particularly in terms of the needs of rural development. Moreover, a review of both conventional and unconventional approaches does provide evidence in support of most of the hypotheses about rural regional planning presented in the first part of the chapter. Secondly, although this supporting evidence is drawn from a variety of very different approaches to regional planning and has not yet been integrated in any systematic form, there are significant areas of overlap, even between the conventional and unconventional approaches, which help to suggest the way in which it could be integrated. This overlap is reflected particularly in the work of people such as Cheema, Rondinelli, Belshaw and Douglass, whose interests and experiences cut across the conventional boundaries, and in some of the institutions (such as the UNCRD) and donor agencies(such as USAID) which have supported their work. However, it should also be noted this overlap also suggests some of the problems of such an integration, such as the conflicts between the ‘top-down’ and ‘bottom-up’ views of rural regional planning mentioned above. Finally, the literature, perhaps inevitably, reflects the fact that most of its authors and sponsors are ‘outsiders’, rather than people engaged on a full-time basis in rural regional planning within a particular country. This results in three major deficiencies. First, some of the literature is too ‘theoretical’, in the sense that it is not sufficiently related to practical experience, like the agropolitan model. Second, too much attention, as already noted, has been focused on planning in selected regions with large injections of outside finance and technical assistance, particularly in the case of IRD planning. And third, there is still the tendency in much of the literature, despite the stated concern with development ‘from below’, to adopt a ‘top-down’ view of rural regional planning, even in some of the literature on participation and community involvement. In order to try to balance this ‘outside’ view, the next section of the chapter looks at experience in individual countries, in an attempt to obtain an ‘inside’ view.

3.4.

EVIDENCE

FROM

PRACTICE

This section exarnines rural regional planning practice in individual less developed countries. Inevitably the coverage is highly selective - in two ways. It is selective because it is obviously beyond the scope of this monograph to provide a comprehensive review of regional planning practice throughout the less developed world, and so reference is made only to those experiences which appear to support the hypotheses about the basic elements of rural regional planning proposed at the beginning of the chapter. And it is also selective because documentary information on this sort of planning practice is limited and often available only within a country, and so coverage is limited to those examples for which I have been able to obtain information, often

Rural

Regional

Planning:

Towards

an Operational

Theory

57

through personal involvement or contacts. The aim, therefore, is merely to provide sufficient evidence in support of the assumptions made earlier to warrant more detailed examination of their implications in subsequent chapters. The only individual country for which documentary information of this nature is readily available is India (Roy and Patil, 1977; Misra and Sundaram, 1980). India has for many years been struggling to establish an approach to rural development planning which includes most of the elements identified earlier in the chapter, particularly the integration of socioeconomic, land-use and management dimensions, the use of a number of different planning levels (appropriately known in India as ‘multi-level planning’) but with special emphasis on the lower levels (districts, blocks and villages), and the concomitant decentralization of political, administrative and planning powers. Moreover, coverage extends through the country, although some areas have from time to time received special attention, often with foreign assistance (see, for example, Shelat, 1982). It would be misleading to suggest that the Indian experience be used as a model, partly because many serious problems remain unsolved and partly because we have already implied that there can be no one model which is universally applicable. However, it does provide some very valuable lessons. Experience in two other countries of South Asia, Sri Lanka and Bangladesh, is more recent and piecemeal, but nevertheless relevant. In Sri Lanka there is evidence that a systematic approach to planning at district level is beginning to emerge (ILO, 1978; Amarasinghe, 1982; York-Smith, 1983). The way in which this approach is emerging is particularly interesting because it resembles that of rural regional planning theory in general. It seems to represent a convergence of experiences in several different and previously uncoordinated approaches to regional planning, particularly the three unconventional approaches (IRD planning, regional administrative planning and community planning) but also to some extent the disaggregation of national plans and (through river basin planning) natural resource planning. Its aims thus include strengthening the district administration, incorporating a modified form of IRD planning into the normal district administrative system and (to a lesser extent) improving participation by strengthening links between district and village levels. In Bangladesh a similar sort of approach seems to be emerging, but in a rather different way. Much of the experience with rural development planning in Bangladesh can be traced back to the wellknown Comilla project, a pilot project in which the main aim was to achieve ‘integrated’ rural development at the ‘community’ level, primarily through cooperative enterprise. Attempts to extend the Comilla model throughout the country during the 1970s encountered a variety of problems (Blair, 1974; Khan, 1979), which in turn have resulted, among other things, in recognition of the need to strengthen local administration (especially at the thana level) and to develop appropriate planning procedures at this level (Ahmed, 1980; Bangladesh, 1982; Jones, 1983). Two other Asian countries offer diverse, but interesting, experience of a more limited nature. In South Korea rural development effort in the 1970s focused on the Suemaul Undoong, or New Village Programme, where village level development planning was supported by effective linkages to county, provincial and national levels (Douglass, 1981; Kriesel, 1981). And in Malaysia, rural development in the late 1950s and early 1960s revolved around the ‘Red Book’ or ‘operations room’ system, a management

58

Progress

in Planning

system designed to coordinate the planning and implementation of rural works programmes (Esman, 1972). The system worked effectively for a number of years and can provide some useful lessons for use elsewhere, despite the fact that it encountered problems later and subsequent attempts to introduce similar systems, modelled on the Malaysian approach, in some other countries have also had limited success. Finally in Asia, brief mention of the Chinese approach must be made. The relevance of the Chinese ‘model’ is, of course, limited - partly because the Chinese situation is so different from that in any other country and partly because of the substantial changes which have taken place within China in recent years. However, it is possible to obtain some ideas from the Chinese approach, particularly with regard to the disaggregation of national plans through a combination of ‘top-down’ and ‘bottom-up’ processes, the decentralization of political, administrative and planning powers to a hierarchy of administrative levels, and organization and mobilization at the community level (Aziz, 1978; Conyers, 1977; Wu and Ip, 1981; Cheema, 1983). In Africa, experience in four countries is of particular interest: Kenya, Tanzania, Botswana and Lesotho. Brief reference has already been made to the district planning methods used in Kenya in association with the SRDP in the late 1960s and early 1970s since they were used by Chambers (1974) to formulate more general prescriptions for rural development planning. Since the SRDP was terminated in 1976, the Kenyan government has put considerable effort into developing an approach to district planning which builds upon some of the lessons learned from the SRDP experience but can be applied in all districts without special overseas financial or technical assistance. Significant components of this approach include the gradual decentralization of administrative and planning power; to district level, the appointment and training of district planning personnel, and attempts to integrate district plans into national plans (Kenya, 1979). Kenya’s approach should not be regarded as a model any more than that of India - and for the same reasons; but, like the Indian experience, it does provide some very useful lessons. Tanzania’s contribution is more piecemeal. In addition to the wealth of experience gained from IRD planning (the result of dividing the country up among donor agencies in the 1970s) much of which has been documented by Belshaw (1978, 1979, 1982a), Tanzania’s 1972 administrative decentralization reform was designed, at least in part, to facilitate the planning and implementation of rural development programmes at regional and district levels (Conyers, 1974; Fortmann, 1980; Hill, 1980; Mawhood, 1983). Moreover, in association with the decentralization programme, the government introduced a system for disaggregating the preparation and implementation of capital works programmes, designed by management consultants and involving a rather complex process of ‘top-down’ and ‘bottom-up’ communication (Tanzania, 1974). And finally, a great deal of effort has been put into the planning and management of development at village level, as part of the ujamaa village programme. Major problems have been encountered in all these activities and there has been insufficient attempt to put them together to form a comprehensive approach to rural regional planning, although most of the components are there. Nevertheless, many important lessons can be learned from these numerous and varied experiences. Botswana’s main contribution is in terms of the methodology of planning at district

Rural

Regional

Planning:

Towards

an Operational

Theory

59

level. A detailed set of planning procedures has been designed, deliberately incorporating both a socioeconomic and a land-use dimension and documented in the form of a comprehensive manual (Botswana, 1980; Reilly, 198 1). Two potential weaknesses of the system do, however, seem likely to cause problems: firstly, the lack of sufficient political and administrative decentralization to district level; and secondly, the fact that expatriate personnel have played a large part in the design and initial operation of the system and it remains to be seen whether it can be successfully ‘institutionalized’. Lesotho’s experience of planning in mountainous areas has already been mentioned briefly. The planning system as a whole in Lesotho remains relatively centralized (Hirschmann, 1981) but the Thaba-Tseka Project, which began as an IRD project but then became a pilot project in district level planning provides an interesting case study of an effort to integrate IRD planning and regional administrative planning, not unlike that in Sri Lanka (Geer and Wallis, 1982; Qobo, 1983). There are no doubt a number of other countries with relevant experiences. However, the only other one which we shall consider here is Papua New Guinea, which has two very different - types of contribution to make. One is its experience with the design and implementation of a major political and administrative decentralization programme (the introduction of provincial level governments) at the end of the 1970s which has wider implications in terms of the organizational aspects of regional planning (Conyers, 1981a, 1981b; Tordoff, 1981; Hinchliffe, 1982). The other is its system of national planning (Allan and Hinchliffe, 198 l), which is not directly relevant to regional planning but provides a useful example of a ‘management’ approach to planning, which could (with modifications) be applied at regional level. One of the main problems facing Papua New Guinea in the early 1980s is the development of an appropriate system of planning at provincial level and the coordination of this with national planning activities (Allan and Hinchliffe, 1980; Bray, 1984).

3.5.

SUMMARY

AND

CONCLUSIONS

This chapter began by making some proposals regarding the basic elements of a theory of rural regional planning, based on the analysis in Chapter 2. It then went on to consider the evidence in support of these hypotheses, looking firstly at the theoretical literature on regional planning and then at planning practice in individual countries. Both types of evidence tend to confirm our earlier assumption that it is not possible to formulate any one ‘model’ of rural regional planning which can be applied universally. Moreover, they also suggest that it is not easy to design, let alone implement, any effective approach to rural regional planning because its objectives are complex and, in some respects, conflicting. However, there does seem to be sufficient evidence to support the hypotheses put forward and, therefore, to agree upon the basic elements of some sort of procedural theory. In summarising these basic elements, or requirements, of rural regional planning it is useful to divide them into two types: those related to the organizational structure within which planning takes place and those concerned with the methods or procedures of planning.

60

Progress

in Planning

In terms of organizational structure we have identified the need for a hierarchy of planning levels, corresponding as far as possible to administrative areas and with particular emphasis on the lower levels in the hierarchy, especially those referred to here as ‘districts’ and ‘community areas’. The importance of political and administrative decentralization has also been demonstrated. Decentralization is necessary in order to facilitate popular participation and horizontal coordination within regions and to ensure that regions have sufficient control over their own resources to be able to implement policies and plans. With regard to planning procedures, one of the most significant findings is the need to interrelate socioeconomic, land-use and management planning approaches within a region, and in particular to strengthen the management component, which has tended to be neglected in the past. Planning should not be seen as a ‘one-off exercise, resulting in the preparation of blueprint plans which are unrelated to normal administrative processes, but as part of an ongoing process of managing change, which involves building upon and strengthening the existing administrative system. This in turn means that planning procedures must be relatively simple, so that they can as far as possible be adopted by existing regional personnel, without large inputs of additional financial or technical resources. This is especially important in view of the fact that this sort of planning is required in all regions, not merely those with special problems or potential. Finally, there is also a need to improve linkages between the various levels in the administrative and planning hierarchy, in order to achieve an appropriate balance between ‘top-down* and ‘bottom-up’ planning approaches. In conclusion, it is important to note that the two types of requirement, organizational structures and planning procedures, are interdependent and therefore are both equally important. One of the main weaknesses of conventional approaches to regional planning has been the tendency to separate ‘regional planning’ from ‘regional administration’. We therefore conclude with a plea for the integration of regional administration and regional planning.

Bibliography Agricultural Administration (1981) Symposium on rapid rural appraisal, special issue, November. Ahmed, F. (1980) Administrative reforms for decentralized development in Bangladesh. In: Adminisfrative Reformsfor DecentralizedDevelopment. (A. P. Saxena, ed.), Asian and Pacific Development Administration Centre Kuala Lumpur, pp. 43-48. Alavi, H. (1972) The State in post-colonial societies: Pakistan and Bangladesh, New Leff Review, no. 74; reprinted In: (H. Goulbourne, ed.), Polirics and State in the Third World. Macmillan, London, 1979, pp. 38-69. Allan, B. and Hinchliffe, K. (1980) National planning + decentralization = regional planning? Papua New Guinea’s experience, Conference on Methods of Rural Regional Development Planning, University of East Anglia, School of Development Studies, Discussion Paper 76. Allan, B. and Hinchliffe, K. (1981) Planning. Policy Ana1ysi.y andPublic Expenditure: Theory and rhe Papua New Guinea Experience, Cower, Farnborough. Amarasinghe, P. (1982) A Districr Planning Approachfor SriLanka. Institute of Social Studies, MA Research Paper, The Hague. Amin, S. (1976) Unequal Development: An Essay on the Social Formations of Peripheral Capitalism. Brighton, Harvester Press. Apthorpe, R. J. (1983)The context of policy: cities and development, Cities. 1. 185-93. Aziz, S. (1978) Rural Development: Learningfrom China, Macmillan, London. Bangladesh (1982) Resolution on Reorganization of Thana Administration, Dacca. Bates, R.H. (1983) Essays on the Political Economy ofRural Africa, chapter 5 The nature and origins of agricultural policy in Africa, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge. Belshaw, D.G.R. (1978) Planning methodologies for integrated rural development at the”grass-roots” level. In: Principles and L.imitationJ of IntegratedRural Development. A Report on an International Workshop ar Giessen. Sepfember 1978 (M. von Boguslawski, ed.). reprinted by University of East Anglia, School of Development Studies, Reprint X3. Belshaw. D.G.R. (1979) Decentralized planning and poverty-focused rural development: intra-regional planning in Tanzania. In: Papers on the Political Economy of Tanzania (K.S. Kim, et al. eds), Heinemann. London, reprinted by University of East Anglia. School of Development Studies, Reprint 81. Belshaw, D.G.R. (1982a) An evaluation of foreign planning assistance to Tanzania’s decentralized regional planning programme, 1972-81 ,Applred Geography. 2,291-302. Belshaw, D.G.R. (1982b) Decentralization and integrated development planning: unintegrated theory and disintegrated practice, Developmen! Studies Associa/ion. Regional Development and Planning Study Group Meeting, University of Nottingham, March 1982 (outline paper only). Belshaw, D.G.R. (1983) An Application of’fhe ‘Rehovot Approach’ to Rural Development in Venezuela: a MethodologicalApproach, University of East Anglia,School of Development Studies, Discussion Paper 111. Belshaw D.G.R. and Douglass, M. (1981) Rural Regional Planning in LP.Y.YDeveloped Counrries: Irrelevant Theory ver.\us UnmnformedPractice University of East Anglia, School of Development Studies, Discussion Paper 90. Bendavid-Val, A. (1975) The themes-strategy-projects approach to planning for regional development. In: Ac,rion-Oric,rz/rd Approaches to Re,qionul Development Planning (A. Bendavid-Val and P.P. Wailer. eds) Pracger. New York, pp. 3-17. Berry. L. ( 1983) Rcvicw of’ft-ogre.c.c in C’omhntr.ng De\errifica/ion in rhr Sll[lano-Sohrlian Area. UN Sudano-Sahelian Office, Nairobi.

62

Progress

in Planning

Best. .I. (19X3) What is “rural dc~clopment”?. RRDCRu//etin. Reading Univcwty. .lune 19X3. p. 27 (IC\ICLC article). Biawaa. A.K. (‘I rr/. (eds) (19X3) K,wr Nrnc//7/)cvclo~nwnr. Tycoly Int.. Dublin. Bla,r, H. W. ( 1974) 7%~ /l/u\, ,‘c,,<‘\ \ of Cqut!,~: fn\t/tuttouat ,Approac~hr\ ,o Rurcrl f)c~~~c~lr,f”“~‘tft ,,I Hotr,~~lnrlc\lr, Ithaca. Cornell IJn~\er\ity. C‘cntcr Ior International Studies. Special Series on Rural Local Government. I Botswana ( 19X0) f)fctr-,c’t f’lrtnnuy fftrmlboo~, Mlnlstl-y of Local Govcrnmcnt and Lands. Gabcrone. Boudeville, .I.R. (1966) /‘rob/cm\ o,/ Rq:,om~l ~~cowm~c~ P/annin,q Edinburgh Umverslty Pr-e\s. Edlnhurph. Bowden P. (1979) The adminIstr,ltion of regional de~elopment,.lou,-nrrl o/,4r/r,fini\r~.tr//olr Owww\, 18, 193-201. Bray, M. (1984) /)ec,c,ntr-alrzation cmdEduca~rona/ Planning rn Papua NFM. Guinea. Casa\. P.I.. de 135 (I 9X I) Central planning. national policies and local rural development programme\: the planning process tn Latin Ametxa and the Caribbean. In: RuraI Chan,ye; The Challcngc /in!- .4,s,-ic u/tu,-rrl t‘c~onomt~t\ (G. Johnson;IIK~A. Maunder, cds). Gowcr. Farnborough. pp. 167-85. Castells. M. (197X) C‘IIJ,. (‘/(I>\ c//~t//‘owor. MacMillan, London (originally published in f:rench in 1972). Chambers R. ( 1974) .Mrrmt,~in,~ Rwal f)c~~~~/opnrc~nt.- Il~fwr~enc e trnd Prewriprron$ li_om Lo\ t ,3fi.~ut. Scandlnawan Institute for African Studs. Uppsala. Chambers. R. (19X1 ) Rapid rural appl-a~wl: I-atlon‘llc and rrpcrtoirc, /‘&tic ,ltb,~~n~\rl.~ti~t~cr~~~/f)c~~‘clof~~~~c~nt. 1.9s106.

Chambers. R. (19X3)R~r,.ctl/)~,~~~,/of~t,tc~rt; I’utttyg the /.ott I‘rrtt Longman. London Cheema, G.S. (cd.) (I981 ) fn\tttrtt~outrl f)tnrcn\too\ o/ Rqional Dnc/opment. Marwen A\la. Singapore. for UNCRD. C hccma. G .S, ( 19X3) f)c,c,c,nt,.crl,-nrlorl rtnd Kwol Oewlopment: The (‘au Snrc!,~ of Qi- I’: Pcoplc’t C‘omnrunc~ in C‘hinct. N;~goy;~. .lapan: (Jnited Nation\ Centre for Regional Development. Working Paper no. X3-4. Cheemn. G .S.and Rondinelll, D.4. (eds) (I 983) /~ecrntrrr/~=atron and fIe~~e/opment: f’olfcl, /nfp/L’t?I1,~~tNti~~tt tn Do’elopin,~ (‘ountrwt Saee, Beverly H 111s. Christensen, K.S. and Webber, M.M. (1981) On .St.y/es of‘Non-CentralizrdPlannin,~. Project on Managing Decentralization. University of California at Berkeley. Cohen. .I. M. and Uphoff, N.T. ( 1977) Rwol Dnelopmcnt Particrpctrron: C‘onccpt$ am/ .MPO wt-c\ /w Pwjcc I Lkw,yn, fnlplc,nll,ntcttio,I (t~~(/~~~a/u(tt~o~~. Ithaca, Cornell IJniverslty. Center for International Studlcs, Monograph 2. Cohen. .l.M. and Uphoff. N.T. (1980) Participatlon’a place in rural development: wcklng clarlry through hpeclficity. U’orlrlf~c~~clof~rnr~~t, 8. 213-35. Cohen, S. et d. (I 9X1) Decc~nr,.a/r;ation; A I-kamellvr-X fat-fo/ic~~Antr!,‘si\. University of California at Berkeley. Project on Managing Decentralization. Community Development Project (1982) In: Critical Readings tn Planning Theor! (C. Paris. ed.). Pergamon. Oxford, pp. 245-75. Conyers, D. (1974) Organwation for development: the Tanranian exper~ence..lo/r~r?rrlof’,4~bn/~r,tri.~1rton O\w\ctrs 8 , 43X-48. Conyers, D. (1977) AdministratIon In China: some preliminary observations. .fourna/ ofAtf~nrnt\trrrtion Over.\eas. 16, 98- 113. Conyers, D. (198la) Decentralization for reglonal development: a comparative study ofTanrania. Zambia and Papua New Guinea, Public Administration andDevelopment. 1, pp. 107-20. Conyers, D. (198lb) Papua New Guinea: decentralization and development from the middle, In: f)ewfopment .from Above or Rrfow.~(W.B. Stohr and D.R.F. Taylor, eds), Wiley, Chichestcr, Chapter X. Conyers, D. and Hills, P. (1984) An Introduction to Development Planning in the Third World Wiley. Chxhe$ter. Cooke, P. (1983) Theories off’lannrng am/Spatial Development. Hutchinson, London. Dickinson, R.E. (1964) Ci!,~andRqion Routledge and Kegan Paul, London. Development Alternatives Inc. (forthcoming) Implementatton andSu.ctainahifit~,: Lex.wn~ from fntc,~mtcr/ Rural Development. Kumarian Press. Donnison, D. (1983) Urban Policy: A Ne\t, Approach, Fabian Tract 487, London. Dare, R. (1981) Community development in the 1970s. In: Community, Devefopmenr (R. Dare and Z. Mars. eds), UNESCO, Paris. Part 1. Douglass, M. (1979) A,yopolitan Development: An Alternativefor Regional Drwlopment tn Arm, Cniveralty of East Anglia, School of Development Studies, Discussion Paper 59. Douglass, M. (1981) The Korean Saemaul Undon~q accelerated rural development in an open economy. In: Stratexier ofRura/Deve/opment (D. Lea, ed.) Methuen, London, Chapter 7. Eddison, T. (1975) Local Government Management and CorporatePlanning Leonard Hill Books, Leighton Buzzard. Second edition.

Rural

Regional

Planning:

Towards

an Operational

Theory

63

ESCAP (1979) Gu~defines.~~rRur~f Centre Pfann~n~, UN Economic and Sociai CornmIssion tor Asia and the Pacific, Bangkok. Esman, M.J. (1972) Administration and Developmenr in Malaysia Cornell University Press, Ithaca. Esman, M.J. (198 I) Field level organization for regional development. In: Institutional Dimensions qfRegiona1 Development (G.S. Cheema, ed.) Maruzen Asia for UNCRD, Singapore, Chapter 2. Fabella, A.V. (198 1) Regionalizing for administration and development: the Philippine experience. In: fn.stiruiionaf Dimensions of Regional Development (G.S. Cheema, ed.), Maruzen Asia, Singapore for UNCRD, Chapter IO. Faber, M. and Seers, 11. (eds) (1972) The Crrsrs in Plotming, Chatto and Windus, London. Faltas, M. (1977) Role of Governments in the RegionalDevelopment Process, Nagoya, Japan, UNCRD. Falias. M. (t982) Decenrralization and the design of planning systems, ~e~eiop~nen? Srudies ~~sue~a/ion, Regional Development and Planning Study Group Meeting, University of Nottingham, March 1982. Faludi, A. (ed.) (1973a) A Reader in Planning Theory, Pergamon, Oxford. Faludi, A. (1973b) Planning Theory, Pergamon, Oxford. Fields, G.S. (1980) Poverty. Inequality and Development, Cambridge University Press. Cambridge. F.>od and Agriculture Organization (FAO) (1978) Reporr on rite FAO/SIDA/DSE fnler-Regio~af S.~,~zposfurn on Inte~raiEtfRuralDevelopment, Rome. Food and Agriculture Organization(FA0) (1981)Admini.rterin~dgricu/rura/Developmenf.for SmallFarmers: Issues rn Decentralization and People’s Parriciparion, Rome. Fortmann, L. (1980) Peasnntr. ~ffciais and Participation in Rural Tanzania: E.vperience rc,ith Villagization and Dp~en~rfffizurion, Itha 1. Cornell University. Center for International Studies. Special Series on Rurai Local Organization, 1. Frank, A.G. (1981) Crisis: in the Third Worid, Heinemann, London, Chapter 7; Economic crisis and the state in the Thu -I World. Friedmann, J. and Weaver, C. (1979) Torrirory andFunction: The Evolurion CfRqqional Planning. Edward Arnold, London. Friedmann, J. and Douglass, M. (1978) Agropolitan development: towards a new strategy for regional development in Asia. Ir.: Growth Pole S1rateg.v andRegional Development Policy (F.C. Lo and K. Salih, eds), Pergamon, Oxford, pp. 163-92. Gant, G.F. (1979) Devefopmem Administrarion [.Jniversity of Wisconsin Press, Madison, Wisconsin. Geer, R. van de and Wallis. M. (1982) GovernFnenr ffndDevefopmenf rn RuralLesotho National University of Lesotho, Roma. Ghai, D.P. (1977) What is a basic needs approach to development all about?. In: The Basic Needs Approach 10 Development, (D.P. Ghai ed.) International Labour Office, Geneva, Chapter 1. Ghai, Y.P. (1976) Control and management of the public economy: research perspectives on public enterprise, Vwjassung

und Rechr in Ubersee (Hambur~g). 9,157-85.

Gilbert, A. fed) (1976) Devefopme~~~ Pfa~~ni~~~and~paiiQ/Srru~ture Wiley, Chichester. Glasson, J. (1978) .An lnfroducrion fo Re,qionaf Pfanninp Hutchinson, London, second edition. Gore, C. (1984) Rekqions in Question, Meihuen, London. Go’ulbourne, H. (ed.) (1979)Polilrcs andStare in rhe Third World Macmillan, London. Greenwood, R. and Stewart, J.D. (1974) CorporrriePfannin~~ in English Local Government Charles Knight, London. Greenwood, R. et al. (1980) Patrerns of Manu~ement in Local Governmeni, Martin Robertson, Oxford. Griffin, K. (1981) Economic development in a changing world, WorfdDevufopmenr, 9,221-26. Hague, C. (1982) Reflections on community planning. In: CriticalReadings in Planning Theor.v(C. Paris, ed.) Pergamon, Oxford, pp. 221-244. Hail, P. (1974) Urban ffndRe~jona/ Planni~r~, Penguin, Harmondsworth. Hambleton, R. (1978) Policy Planning andloeul Government, Hutchinson, London. Hansen, N.M. (ed.) (1972) Growth Cenrres in RegionalEconomic Planning, Free Press, New York. Harriss, J. (ed.) (1982) Rural Developmenf: Theories ofPeasant Economy andAgrmrian Change. Hutchinson, London. Harvey, G. et ai. (1979) R~r~fEn~plo~.r:~ -Y( ffndAdm~nis~ralion in the Third Worfd, Gower, Farnborough, for ILO. Healey, P. et al. (eds) (1982) Planning Theory: Prospecrsfor the 1980s. Pergamon, Oxford. Heathcote, R.L. (1983) The Arid Lands; Their Use andAbuse, Longman, London. Hebbert, M. (I 982) Births and deaths of regional planning agencies, Environmeqr and Planning B. 9,13 I-42. Heyer, J. (ed.) (1981)RuralDevelopment in TropicalAfrica, Macmillan, London. Hilhorst, J. (1971) Regional Planning: A ~.vstemsApproQc~~, Rotterdam University Press, Rotterdam. Hill, F. (1980) Administrative decentralization for development, participation and control in Tanzania, Journal of African Studies, 6 (4), 182-92.

64

Progress

in Planning

Hirschmann, D. (1981) A&inOrrrrtion off’lunniny in Lctorho. University of Manchcstcr. Manchester Paper\ in Development, 2. Hinings, B. PI N/. (1980) Munq~rmcnr Svrrrrn, in I_oro/ <;o~c~nrnr!7t, Umverslty of Birmingham, Institute of Local Government Studies. Honadle, G. (1982) Rapid reconnusbance for development admimstration: mapping and moulding organizational landscapes, World Developmenr. 10, 633-49. Hunter, G. et crl. (I 979) Polic,y and Practice in Pwal Development, Overseas Development Imtltule. I.ondon Hyden. G. (I 9X0) Be,,o& li;~;rutrcr m Ta~ranra: C’ntierrle,‘rl~~pnlcnt ctnrl on l’nccrpmt-e;l Pcrrwnr,:,~. Hcincmann. London, Chapter 4. Hyden, G. ( 1983) No Shortwrs to I’wgre~.~ Afriutn Development Mana,ycmenr in Pcrcprt ttw. Hcincmann. London. International Labour Office (ILO) (1978) />i\rr-ic/ LevelPlnnning irr Sri La&u, Report of an ll.O/Sll~A Mission, Geneva. International Labour Office(IL0) (1981-82)Serirs ofreports on particlpatorq planning pubhshed In Geneva in the World Employment Programme Research Working Paper series. Jackson, R. (1982) Oli Tedi: The Pot ofGold. University of Papua New Guinea. Port Morcsby. Jameson, K.P. and Wilber. C.K. (eds) (1981) Socialist models of development, Wo&/ /)e~r/opm~,nt, 9 (9/l(l) (whole issue). Johnson, E.A.J. (1970) The Or,yani:rrrion ofSpace irt Developing (~ounrrre.\. Harvard Ilnlvcrslty Press, Cambridge, Mass. .Jones, S. (1983) Personal communication Kent, G. (198 I) Commumty-based development planning, Third Wwld P/annin,y Revww. 3, RI 3-26. Kenya (1979) Traintng Diy/rkt Dewlopment Teumx A Planning Workshop, Ministry of Economic Planning and Community Affairs, Nairobi. Khan, A.R. (1979) The Comilla model and the Integrated rural development programme of Bangladesh: an experiment in ‘cooperative capitalism’, World Drvelopmem, I, 397422. Kraushaar, R. (1982) Structural problems and local responses: the final reports of the local Communit> Development Projects, Community I~evrlopment.lournal. 17,68-72. Kriesel, H.C. (1981) The need to coordinate central and local rural development planning and administration. In: Rural Change: The Challen,~e/or A~~~iculru~alEconomivt,. (G. Johnson and A. Maunder, cd\). Gower. Farnborough, pp. 187-98. Kuklinuki, A. (1971) Education for regional planning. In: Ir\ur\ uz RejironalI’krnnrnS (D. Dunham and J. Hilhorst, cds), Mouton. The Hague, Chapter 2. Laclau, E. (1975) The specificity of the political: around the Poulantras-Miliband debate, Etonont>~ and Society. S ( I ). Landau, M. and Eagle, E. (1981) On the Concepr of/)r,cmtra/izrrtion, University ofCalifornia at Bcrkcley. Institute of International Studies, Project on Managing Decentralization. Lele, U. (1975) The Deign ofRura/Deve/opment. Johns Hopkins Press, Baltimore. Leonard, D.K. (ed.) (1973) Rrrr-a/Admini.~tration in Ken),a, East African Literature Bureau, Nairobi. Leonard, D.K. and Marshall, D.R. (eds) (1982) 1nsriturion.x @‘Rural Developntenr for the Poor. IJniversity of California at Berkeley. Institute of International Studies. Lipton, M. (1977) Whj,Poor People Staj' Poor: Urban Rios in Rural De\4opmenr. Maurice Temple Smith. London. Livingstone. I. (1979) On the concept of ‘integrated rural development planning’ in less developed countries, Journal qfA,yricultural Economicc, 30,49-53. Lo, F.C. and Salih, K. (eds) (1978) Growth Pole Strarexy and Regronal Developn7errt f’olic:v, Pergamon, Oxford Long, N. (1977) An Introdwtion IO the Sorio@!, qfRural Development, Tavistock, London. Longhurst. R. (ed.) (1981) Rapid rural appraisal. Bullet/n of/he In,trtute o/Development Srudies, Ilniversity ot Sussex, 12, no. 4. Mangheri, A. (1976) Clara, E/ire and Communit_y in A.friran Developmm~, Scandinavian Institute of African Studies, Uppsala, Chapter 3. Markovitr. I.L. (I 977) Pea er and Class in Africa: An Introduction to Churye and Con_flt~r tn A/k/can Politic.,, Prentice-Hall, Englewood Cliffs, NJ. Mathur, O.P. (1981) A Third World view of regional planning. In: Trainin,y,forRe,yiona/ Development Planning (O.P. Mathur, ed.) Maruzen Asia, Singapore, for UNCRD, Chapter 2. Mawhood, P. (1983) The search for participation in Tanzania. In: Loco/ Government in the Thtrd Work/: The Experience of TropicalAfrica (P. Mawhood, ed.), Wiley, Chichester, Chapter 4. Milibrand, R. (1969) The State in Capitalist Soctet_v, Weidenfeld & Nicolson, London. Misra, R.P. and Sundaram, K.V. (1980) Multi-level Planning and IntegratedRural Development in India. Heritage Publishers, Delhi.

Rural

Regional

Planning:

Towards

an

Operational

Theory

65

Montgomery, .l.D. (1983) Decentralizing integrated rural development actlvitics. In: /)cc.c,/l/,.rr/i~~/ron rrnrl I)evc~lopmcnr: Policing Implc~mc~nrcttton tn Dc~lopt~q Cormtrrc~\ (G.S. Cheema ;~nd D.A. Rond~nclli, eds) Sage, Beverly Hill\, Chapter 8. Moore, J.R. (ed.) (1967) The Economics Imp~t o/ /he TVA. lJnivcr\ity ofl cnne\Liec Press, Knoxville. Marl-is, A. ( 19X I ) f.utm Amcrtut: L’umomtc D~clq~mcnt ttndRc,~ioncrl I~i/~i,rc,n/tcttion. Hutch~nson, London. Oakley,

P. and Marsden, D. (1984) 0hs1acle.c andApproaches tu Participution in Rural Developmenr, International Labour Office. Geneva. O’Regan. F. ei a/. (I 979) Public, Prtrrkiptttion tn R~yionctl I)c~~l~~pmc~nr f’lcrnntn~, l‘he Development Gap, WashIngton DC. Ovcr\eas Development Institute (ODI) (1979) /ntc:~~ttr/cdR~r~~//~~~~~~~/~pm~~~t. OLII Briefing Paper. London. Oyugi, W.O. (198 I ) Kurd /)cvr~/opmcwr Admin~\trnrtont The /I’~WIWI /z’~pcrtc,nc~c,.Vlka\ Publi\hlng House, Nairobi. Paris, C. (cd.)( 19X2) Cr//ic tr/ R~uIinq\ in Plunntyy Theor,,, Pcrgamon, Oxl’ord. Poulant/a\. N. (1975) Soc~irtl C/N\\(‘\ in C‘onrc.,llporctt:l, C‘rrpirtt/,\m. New lxl’t Book\,. I.ondon (originally publi\hcd In French In 1968). Prasad. K. (19X1 ) Area planning approach to rural dcvclopmcnt and the prohlcm ol’con\!\tency hetwecn local and natlonal planning. In: 7‘3ch’urul Cho//cn,yc,. (M.A. Bellamy and B.L. Grccnshlelds. cd\), Gower, Farnborough, pp. 84-Xx. Pritchltt, C.11. (1943) 7% TVA, University ofNorth Carolina Pros\. Chapel HIII. Qobo, M ( 1983) Thuhu-Tu,ho Inrqro/c~l Rurctl Dc,\~c4opmcnt Prqrummc,: un I-yet-tmcnt iu Dc( ~WII.N/IZ~Y~ P/rtnnin,y:. Unlver\lty of Nottingham.Institute of PlanningStudies, MA dl\sertation. Reilly, W. ( 19X1) District development planning in Botswana. In: .y/r/r/ict tn /)(,(c,ntt-rt/,-trtto,,: /‘spurt h’c~ <;uinu. Hor.\u mu. Sri /.rtnktt. Ilnlversity of Manchester, Manche\tcr Paper\ In I)c\elopment. 3, pp. 2X+9. Rondinelll, D.A. (1978) National Investment planning and equity policy In dcvcloping countric\: the challenge ofdccentrali/ed admlnistration. Polic:vSctmc’e.,. IO, 45-X4. Rondlnelh, D.A. (19X0) Spcrtiul Anrt/),\i\ for Rr,qtonn/ Dcvrlopment: A C‘UW SW(L, m the Htc~olR~er Hovm of the Pht/tpptnc~\. The IJnitcd NatIons University. Tokyi) Rondinelll, D.A. (19X3)f~cvelopmcnt /‘ro/rirc u$ Poli~vFvpc,rimrnt\. Mcthuen. London. Rondlnelli, DA. and Cheema,G.S. (19X3) lmplementingdecentrali~ation policies: an Introduction, In: /)rc c~ntrultxrrnn und lkvrlopment: I’ollc:v Implcmc~ntcttion tn Dcvc~loptn,~ (‘ountric,c (G.S. Cheema and D.A. Rondinelli, eds), Sage, Beverly Hills, Chapter I. Rondlnelli. D.A. and Mandell, M.B. (19X I) Meeting basic needs in Asia, Public, Admini\trution ond Dcvc+~pmc,nr. 1. 135-50, 1X9-210. Rondinelli, D.A. and Ruddle, K. (197X) Urbantzu/ion und Rurctll~rvelr~pment: A Spurrrtl Polrc:l,/orI;‘yuitrrhle Dc~velopmo~t. Praegcr, New York. Roy, P. and Patil, B.R. (1977)Mrrmralfor R/o& /xvr/P/onnin,~. Macmillan. Delhi. Ruttan, V. (1975) Integrated rural development programs: a skeptical perspective, Intcrnulrc cr/Dcve/r~pment Revic~, 17, 9- 16. Saha, S.H. and Barrow, C. (cd\) (19X1) Rtver Ro~tn /‘hlnnin,y: Theor~,unc/PruL.tt(.P. Wiley, Chicheater. Shelat, K.N. (I 982) M~nuol on Plcmnin:: /or Rurrtl /)rv:~/opmmt, GuJerat State Rural Development Corporation, Gandhinagar. Saul, J.S. (1979) The state in post-colonial socletles: Tanzania, In: Politics and S/ate in the Thirld World (H. Got~lbourne. cd.), Macmillan, I.ondon, Chapter 5. Scare, R. (ed.) (1977) fnduvtrrrtl Society: C/u\\. Clenvajie and Control, Allen & Unwin, London. Schaffer, B. and Lamb, G. (1981) Gun Eyutt)~bc Or~anizrd.~. Cower, Farnborough. Seers, D. (1969) The meaning of development. Internuliona/Drvr/opment Revie\j,. 6, December, pp. 2-6. StBhr, W.B. (19X I) Development from below: the bottom-up and periphery-inward development paradigm. In: Drre/opment from Abo\‘c, or B&M? (W.B. Stiihr and D.R.F. Taylor, eds), Wiley, Chichester, Chapter 2. Stohr, W.B. and Taylor, D.R.F. (eds) (l9Rl)Drvelopment.frum Above or Belong.? The DialecticsofRe~ionnl Plunntn~ tn Develop@ Countrier, Wiley, Chichester. StGhr, W.B. and TBdtling, F. (I 978) Spatial equity -some antitheses to current regional development strategy, Puprrv of the ReSytonul Scirnce Ax~ocirrtion, 38, 33-53. Tanrania ( 1974) The Plunnin,? and ContrulSyrtem for Decentrulization: Tasks of the Regions andDistricts, Mmstry of Development Plannmg, Dar cs Salaam. Tordoff, W. (1981) Decentralization in Papua New Guinea. In: Studies in Decentralization: Papua tVebj>Guinea. Borc~~‘rtna. Srr /.ctnko, University of Manchester, Manchester Papers in Development, pp. l-27. Town and Country Planning Association (TCPA) (forthcoming) A book reporting the findings of a pilot project m community-based planning, known as the New Communities Project.

66

Progress

in Planning

Uphoft‘, N.T. and Esman, M.J. (1974) Local Oyanizatimfor Rural Development: Ana1ysi.r qf’Asian E.kprrirnce Cornell University, Center for International Studies, Ithaca. Uphoff, N.T. el ~1. (I 979) Feasihtlity and Application of Rural Development Particrpaiton: A State-o/-the-Art Paper Cornell University, Center for International Studies, Ithaca, Monograph 3. United Natlons (UN) (1970)IntejiratetlRiv~r Basin Development: Report qfa PanelqfE~~pert\. New York. United NatIons (UN) (1975) Popular Participa/ron in Decision-Making for Development. New York. United Nations (IJN) (1975) River Basin Dc\elopmcnt Polici~c and P/annin,y. Proceedings ofa seminar in Budapest, UN, Paris. United Nations Research Institute for Social Development (UNRISD), (1980) Deharwc Comments on L’nyrrrr:,~ into Parttcrpation, Geneva; (See also series of UNRISD reports entitled Dralqye about Participatron) Waterston, A. (1965) Development P1annin.q: kcronv ofE,rperience Johns Hopkins Press, Baltlmorc: paperback edition 1979. Weit7, R. (1971) From Pcrt.~ctnt to Farmer: A Rcvoluttonar:)~ Stratr,qy,for Dewlopment, Columbia University Press, New York. Weitz, R. (1979) Intqyared Rural Developmmt: The Rehovot Approach Settlement Study Centre. Rehovot. Israel. Williams, G. (1979) Takmg the part of peasants. In: Rural Development: Theorrec of Peasant Economic and A,qrctrian Chan,qc (J. Harriss, ed.), Hutchinson, London. Chapter 16. World Bank ( 1975) Rut-al Development: Sector Po1ic.y Paper, Washington DC. World Bank (1980) The Dcvr~n of Or~qanizationvfor RuralDevelopment A Progrcsr Report. World Bank Staff Working Paper 375, Washington DC. World Bank (198 I) Accduated Devrlopment in Sub-Saharctn A.fricu: An Agendu for Ac,tion, Washington DC. World Bank (1983) World Development Report 19X3. Oxford University Press, New York. Wu, C.T. and Ip, D.F. (1981) China: rural development-alternating combinations of top-down and bottom-up strategies, In: Development,fiom Above or Below?(W.B. StBhr and D.R.F. Taylor, eds). Wiley, Chichester, Chapter 6. York-Smith. M. (1983) Personal communication. Zimbalist, A. (1981) On the role of management in socialist development, WorllDevelopnz~n/. 9, 971-78.