ABSTRACT
This book is concerned with the practical management of development projects. Development is used here in the sense that some countries are described as being ‘developed’ while others are ‘developing’ or ‘underdeveloped’. It is a concept which has become widely used only since the Second World War. A variety of theories have been advocated as the best method of achieving development. The neo-classical approach emphasized national economic growth based on investment and growth theories such as the Harrod Domar model (Sen 1970) in which particular emphasis was put on industrial expansion. The approach was dominant in the 1950s and 1960s, both in the free market and centrally planned economies. A development of the neo-classical approach was the ‘trickle-down’ theory, which suggested that all members of society would benefit from national growth, as increased wealth gradually spread from the richer sections of the community to the poorer. When this appeared not to be happening, the neo-classical approach based on industrial growth was replaced by an emphasis on the direct satisfaction of basic human needs (food, shelter, health, transport and education), particularly for the poorer members of society. The concept of development then began to assume a precise form as first, the satisfaction of basic human needs and, beyond that, as giving people the capacity to determine their own future. Throughout this period projects played a key role, because they seemed to represent the most practical method of achieving specific goals and targets in both the neo-classical and basic needs approaches, and were a way of concentrating and combining scarce human and material resources to achieve maximum effect. Indeed they were particularly appropriate to the neo-classical approach with its emphasis on the expansion of production; for a considerable time the word ‘project’ came to be associated almost exclusively with the construction of industrial, infrastructural or directly productive facilities.
