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This article compares the approaches to poverty elimination adopted by the UK government White Paper on international development and the Australian government's review of its overseas aid programme (Ausaid Review). Both documents adopt sustainable poverty reduction/elimination as the key policy leitmotiv of overseas aid policy. However, a difference of approach is in evidence. The UK White Paper ventriloquizes the DAC and World Summit social policy targets and ambitiously elevates its own departmental policy and values to that of government policy overall--though without specifying the instruments by which this consistency can be assured. The silence on the resource implications of the overriding objective of poverty elimination, in terms of budgetary provision, could create a credibility gap between intentions and programme implementation. The Ausaid Review, on the other hand, hones its cutting edge on the complex, often self-serving array of development programmes that are often lacking in focus and harboured from external scrutiny by an overprotective bureaucracy. The Review suggests the adoption of a single value statement of 'poverty reduction through sustainable development' by which all programmes should be judged. The predominantly Australian-based tertiary education scholarship programme is criticized for pandering to domestic educational constituencies and reflecting a weak linkage to poverty reduction. However, in the final analysis the narrow geographical focus of the programme, the privileged status of PNG and the level of tied aid remain substantially intact--despite serious question marks over their poverty content. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Presents abstracts of several articles on public administration and development. "Health Services and Space Utilisation in Urban and Rural Communities: A Case Study of Ile-Ife, Nigeria"; "Access to Health Services"; "Urban Design Practical in Socialist China."

The intention of this paper is to examine the political and administrative limits on the effective implementation of privatization in developing countries and so to present a challenge to the view that slow progress is primarily attributable to economic constraints. After examining these economic aspects, the paper provides an explanatory framework which incorporates those political and administrative processes central to an understanding of what happens to state economic policies in practice. The significance of these processes is demonstrated by drawing on research material from India, Pakistan, Thailand, and Sri Lanka. The conclusion drawn is that responses to pressures for economic reform will be determined, not so much by economic criteria as by the political and bureaucratic resources available to decision makers. Since policy processes in developing countries show considerable variety it is likely that there will be substantial variations in the practical achievement of privatization objectives. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Rural development has attracted attention from many quarters. The present administration in Nigeria is particularly anxious to bring it about in the shortest time possible. But most of the discussions of rural development tend to neglect the vital link between it and administrative structure. This paper therefore stresses the role which an appropriate administrative arrangement can play it bringing about rural development. The paper reviews the various efforts that Nigeria has made since 1950 to derive a suitable local administrative structure. It focuses on the 1976 reform and shows how it has failed to provide a suitable spatial framework for rural development. Based on the experiences of the past and realities of the present, some principles are put forward as guidelines for an effective local administrative structure. Finally, an administrative arrangement which is development oriented and comprehensive enough to cater for the interest of all communities is proposed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The use of challenge funds to promote economic and social development continues to grow but has been the subject of relatively little research. This article draws on institutional economics (particularly principal-agent theory) to define challenge funds and review how they differ from other development funding mechanisms, taking into account their purpose, financial terms, interagency relationships, screening processes, selection mechanisms, implementation and risk sharing characteristics. It then draws on web-based data for 50 challenge funds to analyse variation in some of these characteristics. The paper identifies evaluability as an important influence, including the relative importance attached to promoting the financial performance of grantees relative to the indirect social benefits of their activities. We conclude with suggestions for further research into the design and performance of challenge funds. Copyright © 2015 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Summary: This paper argues that recent developments in practice and theory provide a more promising basis for public service reform in developing countries than we have had since at least the turn of the century. There have been significant instances of large‐scale reform success, such as Nepal's Public Service Commission and Malaysia's delivery unit, Pemandu, and also “pockets of effectiveness” in individual agencies in many countries. They contribute to a more fruitful and diverse repertoire of reform approaches than generally realized. Policymakers can draw on all those instances and types of reform, together with relevant rich country experiences, as they improvise and tailor responses to their always unique reform problems. Proceeding in this way helps reformers to expand the “reform space” available within the political economy. Donors can help reformers if they facilitate reform in the spirit of the Busan Partnership rather than impose their preferred models. In short, the new direction which this paper identifies can be stated as creative problem solving by local actors facilitated by sympathetic donors, building on examples of reform success and drawing on a repertoire of poor and rich country reform approaches. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Presents abstracts of articles on poverty and economic development. "Broadening the Agenda for Poverty Reduction: Opportunity, Empowerment, Security," by Nora Lustig and Nicholas Stern, published in the 2000 issue of "Finance and Development"; "Building on Poor People's Capacities: The Case of Common Property Resources in India and West Africa," by Tony Beck and Cathy Nesmith, published in the 2001 issue of "World Development"; "Economic Mobility and Poverty Dynamics in Developing Countries," by Bob Baulch and John Hoddinott," published in the 2000 issue of "Journal of Development Studies"; "From the Culture of Poverty to Inclusive Cities: Re-framing Urban Policy and Politics," by Jo Bealt, published in the 2000 issue of "Journal of International Development.

This paper defines small countries according to factors that constrain the development of national research institutions. It Identifies the types and numbers of institutions involved in agricultural research in a sample of small countries. Their reduced scale and limited resources imply a different set of functions and roles for the various public, private and parastatal components of the national research system. Issues that affect agricultural and institutional development in small countries include economies of scale and scope, institutional consolidation versus coordination, coping with environmental issues in natural resource management and strategic planning. Research policy can help define a manageable national research portfolio by identifying the comparative advantages of institutions within different research. Public sector research institutions may need to expand their policy and management functions within the national system to promote coherence and effectiveness in contributing to development goals. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper argues that corruption is a product of self-aggrandizement; of unrealistically low remuneration which makes it impossible for public servants to live within their legitimate means; and of a closed political system which inevitably tends to exclude aggregated interests. Corruption leads to loss of much needed revenue and human talent for development, distorts priorities for public policy, and shifts scarce resources away from the public interest. The mutual distrust that results among the different sections of society, and the growth of despondency in the general public, are incompatible with the requirements for successful public policy. The main theme running through the paper is that political instability, corruption and underdevelopment are mutually reinforcing. The paper finally outlines certain measures that need to be taken in order to clear the path for sustained growth and development. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Authors of recent case studies of the political and administrative practices of small developing states continue to disagree about the consequences of 'smallness' in promoting development. This paper reviews these arguments and attempts to clarify the issues surrounding the factor of state size and its impact on the relationship between politics and administration. The most important difficulty with providing any resolution to these arguments is the continued lack of comparative studies of administrative problems and potentials in small developing states. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Presents several abstracts on public administration and development. "Privatization in India--A Case for the Joint Sector," by R. K. Mishra and A. Lateef Syed Mohammed; "Liberalization and Privatization in Tanzania and Zambia," by Jean M. Due; "The Role of Senior and Middle Management in Developing Countries: A Case Study of Public Manufacturing Firms in Tanzania," by Kabossa A. B. Msimangira; "An Industrial Strategy for a Post-Apartheid South Africa," by Avril Joffe, David Kaplan, Raphael Kaplinsky and David Lewis.

There is a view that decentralization brings tangible benefits to the developing world, increasing material welfare and reducing the alienation of traditional societies when faced with centralized and modernizing bureaucracies. In theory, this is plausible, but in practice decentralization seldom lives up to its promises. Only strong states are in a position to cede a realistic range of powers. 'Successful' decentralization often takes place in conscious opposition to the state, and for that reason it is likely to be short-lived. This paper draws on the past history and more recent experience of decentralization in Bangladesh, to conclude that the reform of local government structures has not in practice been of benefit to rural areas, the villages and the rural poor. The delivery of basic needs has not improved, nor has there been any significant increase in popular participation. The conclusion emphasizes the need to view decentralization in its social and political context. Proper account needs to be taken of the interests that dominate the political process in a highly stratified society such as Bangladesh. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Commentators in many poorer countries, examining the political realities of the Third World from within new and interesting micro-economic perspectives, have rediscovered the relevance of dysfunctions in government as pointers to the true nature of state relations and economic development. The result has been the appearance of a literature on two commonly observed phenomena in the least developed countries of Africa, South Asia and Latin America: the enhanced economic role of 'second' or 'informal' economies, and the declining relevance of formal state structures which results partly from economic incapacity. This paper surveys some of the more significant recent examples of this literary output and relates their findings to the problems of public administration in those countries which experience or are likely to experience these phenomena. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Privatization is recommended unconditionally by some scholars as the optimal means for achieving economic development. While privatization can be helpful medicine, it provides no universal cure for all the ills associated with low economic growth. A country's economic and political institutions are intertwined. Mandating privatization without being mindful of both political and economic consequences to such a policy can bring undesirable consequences during and after policy implementation. This paper proposes that to enhance the likelihood of economic growth a leader should blend economics with politics. Sensitive political leadership can stimulate a bonding among citizens, a bonding which can generate the commitment to risk by investing personal savings, to work the long hours which much precede the rewards, and often to be satisfied by a job well done rather than with material reward. Analogous to the chief executive officer of a successful corporation, the effective political leader involves stakeholders, steers decision processes, takes reasonable risks, encourages private investment, and rations public resources according to national priorities. Collective decision-making guided by the political leader, who also acts as a strategic manager during implementation, is offered as a model for development. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In many works on comparative public administration and development management the arguments put forward are often presented within the framework of comparing developed and less-developed countries. However, within the latter category there are fairly substantial differences, usually categorized within the context of system of government, or degrees of per capita income. Rarely is the question of scale addressed head on. One dimension of this, for instance, is the nature and operation of public administration where the proliferation of traditional ministries, and the impartiality of the administration, become very problematic in terms of the extremely limited resources and the very personal nature of public life--especially in the microstates. In this paper the question of scale is addressed in the context of the relationship between one island state, Fiji, and its bilateral and multilateral partners. This is considered not just in terms of aid and loans, but in terms of such issues as the 'critical mass' of skilled professional people, and the problems of functioning in a system where the rules for such things as overheads seem to have been evolved in the context of the Third-World giants. It is shown that the scale variable is a very powerful one in both the effectiveness and efficiency of governments working in tandem with major external sources of capital assistance. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

People's participation is both a method and an objective of rural development programmes in Nepal. The government has adopted decentralization measures to facilitate this. As the subject of decentralization involves new roles and responsibilities for both people and government officials, designing viable training programmes has been emphasized. Commensurate with this, a pilot training programme has been conducted in the Tanahun District for two years. The objective of this programme was to produce a decentralized planning training module which could be replicated elsewhere. This paper deals with the content of this programme and highlights the lessons learnt. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Chinese reformers wish through their economic programme to create a new form of developmental state in China and a new relationship between state and economy. This paper examines these issues through a study of the impact of Chinese economic reforms on the structure and behaviour of local government, focusing on urban government at the district level. It looks at three aspects of the issue--the trend towards financial decentralization, institutional changes in district administration and changes in the relationship between local government and the urban economy. It concludes (contrary to arguments which regard bureaucratic response to the reforms as one of pure inertia and obstruction) that urban local government has changed in several major ways, the most obvious being a trend towards institutional expansion and proliferation. From the point of view of the reform process, some institutional changes have been positive, others negative, resulting in a 'dualistic' state which contains elements of both old and new forms of developmental state. There is a need for systematic analysis of the specific future needs and evolution of China's urban government which would guide a process of politico-administrative reform comparable to the current economic reform. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper presents an overview of issues in NGO project identification, formulation and start-up in the context of rural development in Thailand. It identifies the types of projects, the methods used to identify them, the initial activities in projects, the problems faced in project formulation and the influence of various factors on the process, e.g. government regulations and the NGO staff in the organization. There is limited pressure on NGOs from the government even though recent regulations may lead to more control of their activities. The importance of leadership training in the initial stages of a project is emphasized. In particular, when comparing small with larger NGOs, the technical inputs in project identification and formulation seem to be a constraint for small NGOs. Usually project identification methodology consists of following up on existing projects. In larger NGOs more bureaucratic or formalized methods are used and the ideology of the organization is more important. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Criticism of development projects is widespread, and blame for disappointing results is cast in many directions. One line of criticism which has become quite strong in the recent development literature is that development projects are too top-down and need to be more bottom-up (e.g. Maguire, 1981). Projects should involve more participation by beneficiaries. In fact, some would argue that real development, by definition, must involve beneficiaries in their own improvement (e.g. Gran, 1983a,b). Without participation the people may benefit but not develop from a project. Thus participation has intrinsic value. As the recognition of the value of public, popular, beneficiary, or community participation has increased, so has the range of what is meant by participation. Some authors have expanded the concept to mean empowerment and capacity-building, sometimes including institution-building. In this paper we do not attempt to redefine participation per se, but aim instead to make an inventory of the principal concepts that have evolved in the literature so far, elicit a general model of participatory development projects, deduce the central implicit hypotheses from this literature on the relationship between participation and project effectiveness, and statistically test these hypotheses from the empirical evidence provided by AID's series of 52 Impact Evaluation Reports. Our major question is how much does beneficiary participation contribute to project effectiveness? [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper deals with some aspects of practical experience in the implementation of regional planning in developing countries in sub-Saharan Africa, particularly Kenya and Malawi. It is also specially concerned with the role in pursuing regional planning policies of physical planners. After some discussion of general experience with physical planning's role in regional planning in Africa the experience of Kenya is discussed in some detail, a country with more commitment than most in elaborating such policies but still limited success in implementation. The main emphasis is on the analysis of the experience of Malawi, a poor and very crowded country whose development in several ways parallels that of Kenya, while in other respects being very different, especially with its even more limited resource base in any economic activities other than agriculture. The limited effectiveness of physical planning is discussed in some detail, both within particular projects, and generally in rural areas, with particular reference to the administrative machinery within which it operates. Malawi's experience underlines the need, if physical planning policies are to be successfully implemented, for them to be consistent with regional planning activities of other Government agencies, as welt as other macro-economic policies including those for agricultural pricing and other policies affecting the relative success of the estate and smallholder sectors. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Variants of the project planning sequence or cycle are widely employed to provide the conceptual framework for investment in developing countries. However, the current models attempt to generalize activity sequences across a range of projects with differing objectives. They also tend to abstract project planning from its institutional context, and to make little allowance for the possibility that alternative approaches to organizational and managerial problems may be available. The article outlines a technique that facilitates the analysis of active-organization patterns. Commencing with the classical tripartite system, a number of standard forms are identified and described. A series of observations are then offered on the organizational choices and control procedures that are available for public sector projects. The paper concludes with some remarks on the relationship between project planning and strategies for the development of indigenous institutional capacity in developing countries. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In 1975 the U.S. Agency for International Development (AID), the principal administrative agent for American bilateral development assistance, mandated a social analysis component to the project preparation and approval process.' Although 'social soundness analysis' is now a required dimension of project identification and design its presumed positive effects are not yet apparent on the output side. Post project impact evaluations reveal that there continue to be negative social effects from AID's development efforts, regardless of project type. In the process by which projects are identified, framed, approved, and ultimately implemented, important signals identified by pre-project social analysis get displaced. This occurs because anticipating social impact is only one of several goals or functions served by pre-project design analysis. This essay interprets the role of social analysis in the dynamics of project preparation, identifying structures and procedures which attenuate its influence. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article investigates whether differences in public sector management quality affect the link between public debt and economic growth in developing countries. For this purpose, we primarily use the World Bank's institutional indices of public sector management (PSM). Using PSM thresholds, we split our panel into country clusters and make comparisons. Our linear baseline regressions reveal a significant negative relationship between public debt and growth. The various robustness exercises that we perform also confirm these results. When we dissect our data set into 'weak' and 'strong' county clusters using public sector management scores, however, we find different results. While public debt still displayed a negative relationship with growth in countries with 'weak' public sector management quality, it generally displayed a positive relationship in the latter group. The tests for non-linearity shows evidence of an 'inverse-U'-shape relationship between public debt and economic growth. However, we fail to see a similar significant relationship on country clusters that account for PSM quality. Yet, countries with well-managed public sectors demonstrate a higher public debt sustainability threshold. Copyright © 2015 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

With growing uncertainty over the value and impact of traditional bilateral foreign aid to advance development in poor countries, there is disquiet about the future of national public agencies and ministries with responsibility for managing and delivering international assistance. Growing reputational damage to foreign aid has triggered a lively discussion in development policy circles about the best structural configuration for organizing and governing international development functions within donor countries. To date, public administration scholars with expertise in questions of bureaucratic design and performance have yet to weigh in on this debate. This article is an attempt to present current controversies about donor governance and offer guidance for resolving current dilemmas by exploring the potential contributions of public administration. Copyright © 2015 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

SUMMARY Effective economic governance is a key condition for economic growth and development, and donor support to developing countries has increasingly been focused on regulatory reforms that are intended to enable markets to function more efficiently thereby providing a stable and supportive environment for investment, private sector development, and market-led economic growth. This article reviews the empirical evidence on the impact of regulatory reform in developing countries. The evidence is broadly consistent with a priori expectations, showing a positive relationship between regulatory reform and improved economic performance. However, various methodological and data problems weaken the robustness of these findings and point to the need to broaden the range of designs and methods for evaluating the results of donor-supported regulatory reforms in developing countries. Copyright © 2014 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

SUMMARY In this study, basic questions concerning the scope and structure of organisations working on development and poverty activities are addressed. Under what conditions is work on many or few poverty problems by a single organisation warranted? Moreover, for a given organisational scope, how many issues and in what combinations are best in a specific programme? How are these choices related? How does 'inheriting' an organisational structure, that is difficult (very costly) to change, influence choices concerning programme type? The application of the economics of organisation yields useful insights into non-governmental organisation (NGO) structure and activities, revealing opposing forces that may lead NGOs to diversify either excessively, or inadequately. NGOs working in the poverty field are a natural focus for this research because poverty is a multidimensional problem with potential (or contingent) complementarities across dimensions. Perspectives on activity choices such as child sponsorship and microfinance emerge from this broader context. Copyright © 2012 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

SUMMARY Non-government organisations (NGOs) have become a critical constituent of the larger civil society, and their activities have been institutionalised into the development process. Under the title 'NGO', they are only a few decades old in the region, but they had an earlier life as 'voluntary' organisations. In the context of the Indian sub-continent, NGOs evolved from institutions of charity and welfare, mainly within the prerogative of kings and philanthropists, to become stakeholders in the development process and the self-appointed well-wishers of poor and marginalised communities. In their journey, they were sometimes partners and collaborators with the state, sometimes advocates and sometimes adversaries. The state-NGO relationship evolved through various political regimes and was marked by tensions-at times overt and at times hidden. Copyright © 2011 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article discusses how fragile states and the international community can strengthen their capacity to find a path from fragility to socio-economic progress. It focuses on a brief summary of capacity and capacity development (CD) in fragile states. CD in fragile states is said to share similarities with interventions in countries where fragility is not a problem. A model of CD intervention is presented which identifies three dimensions that can be used to characterize interventions to build capacity which includes the amount of time required, the degree of difficulty and complexity and the scope and depth of change involved. The article concludes with some emerging guidance for CD such as donors in fragile states should choose targets selectively and sequence CD assistance.

Presents abstracts of various articles related to public administration and economic development. "The Asian Financial Crisis: What Have We Learned?," by T. Lane; "The Environmental Implications of Asia's 1997 Financial Crisis," by P. Dauvergne; "Towards a World Environment Organization," by P. Newell and J. Whalley.

Against the background of paucity of complete and reliable data as the basis for sound policy, this article reports on the results of a major international survey of government employment and wages in about 100 countries. Key findings are that: in developing countries as a whole, relative government employment is now less than half the level of OECD countries; the reduction in the role of the state in the 'decade of adjustment' is striking, and so is the erosion in real government wages in the poorest countries--particularly in anglophone Africa; decentralization in Latin America is visible in the substantial shift of employment from central to subnational government levels; and the lean and well-paid civil service of East Asia is one possible reason why rapid economic growth could coexist for so long with the governance weaknesses that have surfaced in the form of the Asian crisis. The article then undertakes an aggregate cross-sectional analysis of the determinants of government employment. In Africa and Latin America, relative government employment is positively associated with per capita income and the fiscal deficit, and negatively associated with relative wages and population. Clearly, the tendency for government to expand as the economy grows--the so-called 'Wagner law'--is still operative in developing countries. However, it seems no longer at work in OECD countries, suggesting that Wagner's law ceases to operate beyond certain per capita income level. The article concludes, nevertheless, with a reminder of the limits of cross-sectional analysis: even 'good facts' prove little by themselves--good analysis and policy must rest on country-specific quantitative and qualitative evidence. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Provides an overview of various articles that addressed issues on achieving improvements and sustaining progress in several countries as of 1995. Account of the countries' response toward economic reform at both macro and micro economic levels; Assessment of the achievements of the economic transition made in Australia; Role of deregulation in the sustainable recovery and development program in Ghana.

Presents abstracts of several articles about public administration and development. "Sustainability--Oriented Appraisals of Agricultural Projects," by Michiel J. F. van Pelt; "The Impact of Environmental Policies on Agricultural Trade," by Dimitris Diakosavvas; "Adjustment Policy and Agricultural Development," by Patrick Guillaumont.

Institutions are essential for agricultural development, yet confusion is widespread about what institutions are and how to evaluate them. National agricultural research systems embody the lack of clarity. Institutions are stable and valued behaviours to solve collective problems, and can be manifested as both rules and organizations. Institutional development schemes usually concentrate on organizations. Evaluation methods for institutions focus on resource acquisition, internal processes, output and outcomes and the linkages among these activities. All the methods are handicapped by difficult definitional, attribution and temporal problems. To evaluate institutional development requires starting with clear definitions, which admit that institutional development is hard to measure and prove. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Development planning in Bangladesh has not been conspicuously successful, Nevertheless it is essential for the nation to continue to plan its economy, Bangladesh's plans must be explored within the context of the economic and sociopolitical constraints that are placed upon the plan and its implementation. The First Five Year Plan (FFYP) was prepared within the framework of a socialist economy but not implemented accordingly. The attitude of the government was a major factor in the eventual distortion of this plan. The mobilization of national resources and their allocation, land reforms, subsidy measures, and industrial policies pursued by the government appeared to protect group interests rather than following recommendations of the plan, A bitter triangular relationship emerged among the politicians, the bureaucrats and the planners. This can explain why the implementation of the plan fell short of what was minimally expected. Subsequent plans, unlike the FFYP which placed high priority on social sectors, have been formulated in favour of the more productive sectors of agriculture and manufacturing. The outcome has been a modest increase in economic growth, but inequality and poverty have tended to perpetuate themselves. To achieve growth with social equality, planning in Bangladesh appears to need strong public commitment and bureaucratic support, the absence of which may prove to make national development planning ineffective, if not counterproductive. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In 1983 the Government of Kenya embarked on an accelerated programme of decentralization known as 'District Focus'. This exercise in devolution is aimed at promoting more effective and efficient use of scarce domestic resources through efforts to strengthen planning capacity at the district level, improve horizontal integration among operating ministry field agents, and expand authority to district heads of operating ministries for managing financial and procurement aspects of local project implementation. Given the importance of this initiative to the economic growth of Kenya and the current search for administrative reforms that could help accelerate rural development in Africa, District Focus merits close attention by development experts. This article reviews the historical background, content, and implementation progress of District Focus. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

There has been a resurgence of interest in decentralization, but decentralization is now somewhat differently conceived from the way it was in the 1960s. With somewhat different objectives, decentralization also take different forms and this calls into question the value of the well established categories of devolution and deconcentration. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

One of the most significant problems developing nations have faced in recent years has been finding effective ways of implementing development plans and programmes. This is in large part due to the dearth of knowledge about programme implementation, and the lack of attention given to the design of implementation strategies by planners and administrators in third world nations. But, implementation is now becoming a central concern of governments in developing countries and of officials in international funding institutions. Also, development administration theory in the 1980s is likely to have as its dominant focus the improvement of implementation management of development programmes and projects. One way to improve the management of development programmes and projects is to analyse those development projects that have succeeded, identify the factors that appear to influence successful implementation, and disseminate this information as broadly and quickly as possible to relevant administrators and administrative theorists. It is revealing that relatively few studies of this type have been completed. This article outlines the lessons learned from a programme that the Government of the Bahamas is successfully implementing--the encouragement of foreign private sector investment in the Bahamas. The article (a) briefly outlines the plan for encouraging foreign investment, (b) describes the basic approaches and techniques the Bahamian Government has learned to use to improve the prospects of implementing this programme, and (c) indicates how this experience may be potentially useful in guiding the implementation of similar programmes in other developing countries. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Provides information on approaches to urban rapid economic analysis. Establishment of methods of rapid information collection and analysis in rural development; Approach used by the Development Administration Group to urban rapid economic analysis since 1989; Urban rapid economic analysis conducted by the Town and Country Planning Organization of Delhi in India.

Presents information on a regional cooperation in North East Asia sponsored by the Heilongjiang University and Harbin Municipal Government in North East China in January 1992. Emphasis of the conference; Bilateral political relations between North East Asian countries; Economic development in the region.

Deals with the outcome of the July 1994 Hong Kong, China meeting of the International Association of Schools and Institutes of Administration on managing the transition from centrally-planned economy. Objectives of the meeting; Topics of research submitted in the meeting; Dimension; Economic concerns of South Africa, China and Europe that were discussed in the sessions of the meeting.

Introduces a series of articles about studies from the Economic Development Institute of the World Bank.

Presents abstract of the article "The Government, Financial System, and Large Private Enterprises in the Economic Development of South Korea," by Chung H. Lee.

Presents an abstract of the study "Generalization in Rural Development: Eleven Villages in South Gujarat, India," by Shanti George.

The objective of this study is to explore whether a relationship exists between public financial management (PFM) systems and expert perceptions of countries' governance in an international cross-country study. We examine the extent to which variations in accounting, budgeting and auditing practices are associated with governance in a sample of 97 countries that represent different levels of development, analysing the differences between countries classified into factor, efficiency and innovation-driven economies. Our concept of governance perception includes three dimensions: accountability, government effectiveness and corruption. We find that countries with a higher level of economic development show, on average, more sophisticated PFM systems characterized by the presentation of accrual-based financial statements, the application of value for money audits and higher budget transparency. When analysing the sub-samples of countries according to the level of economic development, we find that countries with similar governance perception scores show different patterns of PFM practices, suggesting that there is no one-size-fits-all approach. Copyright © 2015 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The radical political and economic reforms sweeping through former socialist countries during the last several decades have facilitated economic growth and urbanization. During this period of market reform and urbanization, citizen participation is greatly needed yet easily lost to other priorities. We employ stakeholder theory to examine whether citizen participation differs between large and small cities and between the poor and non-poor people in Vietnam. Using data from a sample of citizens in five centrally managed cities, we found that citizens in large cities and citizens that belong to 'unofficially poor' groups participate less. For policy makers, this implies that citizen participation should be of central importance in the management of current cities' expansions. In addition, the categorization of 'poor households' needs to be closely monitored to minimize the risk of de facto poor households being excluded from the group. Copyright © 2015 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

SUMMARY As part of a growing focus on the effectiveness of development assistance from the World Bank and other agencies, new efforts are being made to relate development finance more closely to outcomes achieved rather than to inputs used, through the results-based financing approach. We provide a framework for analyzing the operational dimensions of results-based financing, including the conditions that suit this approach, and how best to define, measure, and report results. We review some of the early World Bank experience with this approach. Noting that this approach is as yet not fully tested, we suggest evaluative issues for future research while highlighting strengths and challenges in the range of techniques adopted so far. Copyright © 2014 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Summarizes a study that asked the senior officers of the Indian Administrative Service to design international approaches to rural development and poverty alleviation. Effect of the three months time limit of the study on the methodology used by the researchers; Approaches used by the researchers to enable the officers to steer their own learning.