Indigenous Development and the Developing World

Abstract

‘The problem is not to wipe the slate clean in undeveloped countries, and to write our own technical and economic equations on it, but to recognise that different countries have a different language of social action; and possess, and indeed have long exercised, peculiar aptitudes for solving the problems of their own time and place; aptitudes which must be further developed in the historic setting of their own past to meet the exigencies of the present and the future.’2

The Economist's Dilemma—The Relevance of Development Economics to Public Administration

“…At times it seems that all they will receive is a hotch potch of quantitative techniques and theories; mixed with indiscriminate borrowings from a range of disciplines, such as management, sociology, political science and behavioural studies, and flavoured with a number of largely unrelated and often conflicting strategies. The growing consensus amongst development economists is that an alternative can only emerge out of their own traditions and experiences (Hunter, 1974), and the advice to "do what you can" until this day arrives fills them with dismay and anger (Caiden and Wildavsky, 1974:25). Is this the best that the developed countries can offer, and is it worth travelling this far to hear?…”