Developing Capability for Managing Development

Development, as I have discussed in earlier chapters of this study, has to be a planned process of economic and social change undertaken through the apparatus of the state in the absence of the market. Constraints on resources in the TW have led the state to play a more active role compared with its role during the period of capitalist development when the market was a driving force. Initially academics, particularly economists and policy-makers, believed that appropriate policies with investment were important for development. Then it dawned on them that the development of the First World had come about through the capacity of institutions and through individual skills (Esman, 1991). So it was realized that, irrespective of the economic strategy adopted, attempts to promote development require the capacity to manage development by creating an effective political and administrative system. That recognition by academics in the 1960s led to the emergence of Development Administration as distinct from traditional Public Administration as a field of study. Development Administration ‘refers to organised efforts to carry out programs or projects thought by those involved to serve development objectives’ (Riggs, 1971, 73).