Think big, start small : restricted room for manoeuvre by practitioners in socio-spatial planning of peripheral regions in Third World Countries

In a first part of this study van den Ham reacts to the increased free-market thinking and makes in chapter 1 a plea for continued efforts in active, public socio-spatial development policies in order to contribute to sustainable poverty alleviation in remote areas. This policy should aim at lifting restrictions, both material and socio-cultural, of people to realise their human capabilities to qualitatively and sustainably change the conditions of life and livelihood. It is argued why, from a development practitioner's perspective, it is important to understand the dynamics in both development thinking and doing. A research construct is introduced to explore the framework within which development paradigms, policies and practices at normative ( "what for" and " for whom?" ), strategic ( "how ") and operational ( "what, where, when, by and with whom?" ) level change over time. This change is assumed to be influenced by key-development practitioner's 'inner-guiding' individual beliefs and values, acquired academic insights and practical, learning-by-doing experiences. In practice the proposed policies seem to be very much constrained or stimulated by the development practitioner's appreciated, influenceable and controllable environment which are subject to changing power relations between the state, the corporate sector and civil society.In chapter 2 Veenstra elaborates the above research framework by highlighting the various components on the three axes depicting (1) inward-looking personal perspectives, focusing on habitual life-attitudes and roles of both indigenous and expatriate development practitioners (2) outward-looking, professional knowledge bases expanding in substantive, procedural as well as politico-institutional sense and (3) problem and action orientations as tried-out in time at various levels.In chapter 3 van den Ham reviews at a glance the origins of international development co-operation and the elements that in practice impact upon the outcome of foreign-supported, expatriate-staffed development projects; they relate to identification, organisational setting, the role of expatriate practitioners, co-operation with local counterparts, the time dimension, the role models in transfer of knowledge and "voice, loyal and exit" strategies of the practitioners.In the second part of the book seven case studies from Africa and Asia, all within the framework of international development assistance, are presented and related to the framework that has been introduced in the previous three chapters. In chapter 4 Veenstra explores his sequential experiences and struggles with emic and etic aspects in the evolving design of development programmes and practices in five projects in Sierra Leone, Tanzania, Yemen, Indonesia and Cameroon with special reference to area development planning and natural resource management. Both in sub-sections 4.6 and 6.3 Veenstra sums up his conclusions from outer and inner learning rounds in socio-spatial planning practices. In reaching after 'sustainable' livelihoods, -particularly in agrarian societies under patrimonial resource control in Sierra Leone, West Africa, of the 1960s-, strategic and operational incommensurabilities, with hindsight, cropped up as related to large-scale 'hard' infrastructure and agro-technical innovations. After actuality had completed its developmental course, shortcomings were, later on, laid open inside and between knowledge bases used, of corresponding policy instruments (not) employed, of statutory powers (not) granted and skilled personnel, budgets plus equipment (not) available. Above all, incongruity made itself manifest among stakeholders' normative outlooks holding sway at various territorial levels for prioritising their own resource claims. So it happened that in spite of 'common-good and great cause' intentions, 'kleptocratic' life styles both of rural and urban élites in a 'soft-state' setting were to be, distrustfully, endured.In the case of socialist single-party Tanzania of the 1970s 'integrated' rural development pointed toward self-reliance, poverty alleviation and fair distribution of social and physical infrastructure. These laudable aims were thwarted, however, by a over-burdened state-apparatus and the rural populace, of necessity, exiting both into 'black-market' sales of its produce and clientship-like distribution channels for local provision of its basic services,- without revenues for the state coffers. So, both the Tanzanian bureaucracy and its open-handed foreign-aid advisors made themselves not responsive and trust-worthy, - in terms of the 'good local governance' fashion of the 1990s. Under these adversary working conditions expatriate area planners were willy-nilly forced to self containment, - for instance, in our 'remote' case of the neglected Shinyanga Region. Here, a prudent step-by-step integration both in planning and eventual implementation was intended 'from overseas' through initially restricting sectoral, time/space, problem and resource development perspectives to prioritised, low-level and small-scale, concentrated area project packages. So, 'for the time being', long-haul normative policy making, including its medium-term strategic issues, were put aside; socio-spatial arithmetics were to prevail through index-number, factor-, and flow-analysis methods; thus entrapped, both expatriate and indigenous planning officers felt their 'rationalising' efforts being frustrated by short-sighted detachment in public choice situations - like ostriches bury sometimes their heads in the sand.In entering the 1980s, this neutral technocratic habitus was, -depending on politico-institutional contexts-, re-shaped towards those of mediatory brokers and advocates on behalf of beneficiary target groups. In the Rada'-case of North Yemen, 1981/82, phased social differentiation and changing leadership-styles in the long run were accounted for, but immediately shifting gears from operational towards strategic models of resource management emerged as leading theme. Here, in promoting still sustainable livelihoods, foreign development practitioners were to manoeuvre between the 'devil and the deep blue sea' of conflicting policy sets:on the one hand, in response to self-interests of national government headquarters and of private enterprise including 'progressive farmers', in favour of politico-institutional stability and free-market economic growth guided 'from above'; andon the other hand, in response to local community interests of deprived peasants and herdsmen in favour of equalisation, citizen participation and resource mobilisation 'from below', in combination with local value patterns and natural resources to be left in a well balanced order.After a decade of Rada'-development efforts, i.e. 1975-85, it was concluded that in spite (or because) of selectively applied, concentrated area project packages local village life remained principally unchanged; that at a higher level of district government implementation capacity improved through ad hoc foreign assistance; but that at the higher sub-national level of the province strategic planning and governance did not find their co-ordinating niche, neither divergent statesman-like leadership. Therefore, the two case-studies of Aceh in Indonesia, 1977-1986, and of the Tikar water catchment basin around 1990 in Cameroon, West Africa, refrained initially from formulating a e state, corporate sector and civil society was rather modest.In sub-sections 6.1 and 6.2 van den Ham concludes that the views of the key-players in the development projects can very much be traced to their previous experiences. The extent to which their views can be 'translated' into new approaches towards local area development is only to a small extent influenced by the 'power' of either the normative/inward-looking or the academic/outward-looking perspective of the concerned development practitioners. Effectuating the aspired 'real' participatory development, -implying redistribution of resources and (decision-making) power-, within the context of 'foreign' projects would for example run up against the resistance of vested interests; such an approach, whatever its desirability, can therefore not be pursued. Political room for manoeuvre turns out to be the determining factor in the normative domain. However, there is usually (limited) room at the strategic and operational levels. There it appears that the design and implementation of the advocated strategies and practices is guided by the (normative) disposition of the key players towards the essence of development and their perception of the (strategic) role of the various actors in the development process. These are fed by a commensurate cognitive outlook on reality as well as their practical experiences. Again, substantive 'objective' knowledge bases appear to play only a rather limited role in the actual formulation of programmes and practices. Hence, the foreign-funded socio-spatial development projects 'ploughed through' with limited, isolated and above all 'accidental' (because very much depending on the individual practitioner involved and very specific local conditions capacitating or constraining the potential actors) experiments.With a view towards the future van den Ham outlines in sub-section 6.4 a changing context for local development practitioners. As in sub-section 6.5 van den Ham explains, this changing context poses new challenges to, and requires new roles to be played by (teams of) future development practitioners. It is suggested that specific capabilities are required to more structurally and successfully address the socio-spatial inequalities from the local level upwards. Development practitioners should not only be technically trained in a number of skills that have traditionally been linked to the function of regional development officer. They rather should start with acquiring a thorough understanding of the dynamic way normative, strategic and operational dispositions are achieved in practice and can be influenced in an effective and legitimate way. Empathy towards other stakeholder's dispositions and potential contributions as actors in their own right, as well as self-critically reflecting on their own positioning, should development practitioners make more conscious of the link between personal or inner change, and social or outer change. This (un-)conscious reflection on implementation will contribute again to reshaping the perspectives on intended societal advancement and results in new approaches to deal with the outstanding issues.However, development practitioners should be aware that neither their own understanding of reality and their way to deal with it, nor the other stakeholder's positioning and his/her use of the results are fixed or value-neutral. These are all very much influenced by personal and professional life history, inner normative guidelines of individual beliefs as well as values, economic interests, gender, class - all very much time-, space- and context-bound possibilities and constraints. Therefore, it is for development practitioners highly important that they are capable of opening up space for public dialogue on the directions of development. They should be able to analyse the diverse options of the participants and identify the potential conflict of interest that will occur among the various stakeholders, before certain positions getting accepted as "appreciated' and translating them in (normatively) disputable strategies, projects and programmes.In addition to the 'traditional' technical skills in economics, regional science, physical geography, public administration, data management etc., communicative and analytical skills as well as abilities in the field of conflict prevention and resolution are needed to (help) translating the normative dispositions in strategic and operational terms. Next to engaging actor groups in shaping development processes, local development practitioners should also be able to facilitate reconciliation of the claims of people living in poverty with those of other contesting actor groups and to integrate them in the framework of (central) state policies. Thus, the development practitioner should facilitate that lower-level needs, aspirations and potentials meet response at the higher influenceable/strategic and appreciated/normative levels with the ultimate aim of creating an effectively enabling environment that continuously facilitates and supports people to build sustainably upon their own strengths.