ABSTRACT
This chapter begins with a discussion of the efforts that have been made to clarify the meaning of the term 'planning', of its potential importance in advancing the cause of social welfare, and of the reasons why difficulties continue to surround welfare planning wherever it has been undertaken. There is a tendency among some writers to treat planning as almost synonymous with development. At the Symposium on Social Policy and Planning held under UN auspices in 1970, development was more precisely described as 'a process of improving the capacity of national institutions and value systems to meet increasing demands, whether of a social, economic or political character'. Participants saw planning as contributing to a more comprehensive formulation of the objectives of development. Kuusi also views planning as a long-term pattern of action adopted to promote the indispensable social aims of a country — to rationalize its social policies by degrees.
