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Editorial, volume 1, number 1, 1991
Development in Practice is being launched at a time when development agencies are faced with considerable challenges, and also great opportunities. The shadow of recession, indebtedness, and economic instability has loomed over much of the world for almost a decade. Meanwhile, long-term social and economic inequalities inhibit the lives of such groups as the landless, slum dwellers, minorities, and refugees the majority of them women and children. The absolute physical imperative of poverty is as great as ever, despite advances in certain areas; indeed, improvements in such indices as life expectancy and infant mortality rates have brought with them their own problems. These problems are not new, and as challenges in humanity they have dominated the concerns of development agencies for many years.
What is new is the present crisis of confidence in those development policies and programmes which have been provided by the official aid agencies for the past 30 years. On the one hand, many of the modernisation approaches which were closely associated with neo-classical economic models have been discredited. The orthodox economic models, based on industrial development, export-led growth and so on, have failed except in a very small number of cases (such as the newly industrialised countries like South Korea). For the majority of countries, the benefits have been marginal and vulnerable to external economic pressures. For many, orthodox modernisation models have led to a considerable burden of debt, without creating a viable productive base.
While questions are being raised about the failure of the economic models which have dominated a great deal of Western development thinking, the intellectual crisis confronting socialist models is no less acute. The disintegration of the eastern European bloc, the internal reforms in the Soviet Union, and the problems confronting African socialism have greatly weakened the alternative models previously counterposed to capitalist Western approaches. Many client countries of both blocs now find themselves bereft of role models and viable alternatives. The attempts to rethink development and create alternative approaches will undoubtedly dominate the next decade, and the different adjustments required may be exciting as well as painful.
The non-governmental development organisations have consistently criticised much of what passes for aid (such as military and tied aid) from official agencies, both bilateral and multilateral. Apart from their critique of macro-economic approaches. NGDOs have focused on specific aid programmes funded by official agencies, and have frequently criticised elements such as their lack of consultation with beneficiaries, their reliance on high-cost capital-intensive investment in dams and large industrial plants, and their lack of awareness of the environmental and human costs of so many large top-down aid programmes.
The challenge for the NGDOs is to formulate and share alternative development approaches with each other, as well as with official aid agencies. It is the duty of the voluntary sector to match its success in criticising official aid with equally coherent presentations of alternative approaches. Although Development in Practice will include contributions on macro development, the first priority will be to exploit the comparative advantage of the NGDOs by providing a platform for the description, evaluation and analysis of their development experience.
Development in Practice welcomes contributions from all parts of the NGDO community. We recognise that there is no single consensus among agencies on the best approaches to different types of development, and we hope that some of the current controversies will be aired. We do not intend to be dominated by an entirely project-based view of development, but to find a balance between the invaluable experience gained from small projects and the more general approaches and philosophies current in the international NGDO community. We will also encourage debate on the nature and role of NGDOs, whether based in the North or the South. Our first contribution in this vein, from Alan Fowler, provides a view of Northern donors from the perspective of what Southern NGDOs need to know about them. In future issues we will allow space for correspondence relating to development debates and practices, and for comment on articles in the Journal. So the invitation is open to all readers, both as individuals and as members of development agencies or study centres: write to us with your views. We look forward to hearing from you.
Brian Pratt
Oxfam (United Kingdom and Ireland)
February 1991
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