ABSTRACT
Up to this point the main concern has been to describe, compare and analyse settlement schemes. This will be justified only if it leads to better understanding and practice. Some of the implications have already been outlined and will not be repeated. Others, while not necessarily explicit, are so obvious as not to need elaboration. For instance, the transformation model used in Chapter 10 might make it easier to anticipate needs and problems in settlement schemes and other projects, particularly where roles conflict or overlap and where handovers have to take place. Again, the typology in Chapter 11 may help to show more clearly what is being chosen in deciding between different approaches to settlement, or indeed other sorts of agricultural development projects. Moreover, these frameworks may possibly provide hooks on which comparative experience of agricultural development projects could be hung intelligibly and usefully in compiling some sort of practical handbook. However not much is claimed for the transformation model and the typology. They are crude. But if they do no more than provoke others into proposing other frameworks which fit the facts more carefully, they may be minimally justified. As for this study as a whole, it may be of some benefit if, even where it is misguided or plain wrong, it stimulates some of those officials in settlement or agricultural development situations to look not just at the people among whom they work but at themselves, to try to understand their own motivations and actions, to see more clearly what they are doing and why, and to consider what they ought to do. Self-awareness and introspection of this sort can incapacitate if carried to extremes; but on a limited scale they can lead to more effective action.
