ABSTRACT
A new implementation strategy in international development is emerging from field experience in development projects, encouraged by advances in social science concepts and methodology. Traditionally, development strategies have been based on economic criteria, centralized plans, and center-to-field action orientations. This chapter summarizes the primary components of the social learning concept and its contribution to international development strategy. It examines two implementation strategies called community empowerment and bureaucratic reorientation. People-centered development action designed to give primary attention to the management and implementation issue is new to the development profession in several distinct ways. First, development has been defined in economic growth terms and development strategy guided by centralized concepts of planning. Second, management-oriented professionals have not traditionally participated directly in policy formulation or in the implementation of economic development programs. Third, management structures and practices, whenever explicitly included in development projects in the past, have been centrally designed and imposed on subordinate administrative agencies and on their clients.
