ABSTRACT

Animation rural was a program aimed at “mobilizing the rural masses” for a sweeping reorientation of attitudes and agricultural improvement, begun in Senegal in 1959. Villagers chose people among themselves to be trained as animateurs. The animateurs took intensive courses in general civic duties, national planning, cooperative management methods, and agricultural and animal husbandry techniques. Education can promote development, but how it does so depends on how development is defined. If it is seen as mainly economic growth, which tends to benefit upper-income groups, then schooling has contributed to it by widening the skills and raising the productivity of future workers. China’s unique political system, which allowed the desire to provide better health care to generate a commitment capable of implementing this desire without being defeated by selfinterested groups or professional associations, was clearly a major factor in the success of the program.