ABSTRACT
Reviews and evaluations of development projects have cited institutional and administrative weaknesses within developing countries as a major cause of poor performance. Administrative incapacity affecting both planning and implementation is often described in terms of ineffective management, incompetent or untrained staff, restrictive government regulations, corruption, or simply inefficiency. There has been a tendency on behalf of donors and lenders of development funding to blame the recipients. But other writers, for example Rondinelli (1983) and Korten (1980), have questioned the whole paradigm of development planning and funding. Rondinelli challenges the appropriateness of project ‘blueprints’ which attempt to predetermine and control development processes that are inherently uncertain and changeable. Korten emphasizes the need for flexibility in achieving a ‘fit’ between the objectives of a development programme, the needs of the recipients, and the administrative structure and process to articulate the two. Achieving this fit is a process rather than the implementation of predetermined structures.
