Dynamics of development: an international perspective

WHEN the idea of technical assistance for international development was first popularized, it was assumed that the key would be technological, i.e. what was popularly called "know-how." It was assumed that the scientific and technological knowledge of the more industrialized countries could, with little modification, be shared with the poorer countries of the world and quickly adapted to help them solve their own problems.

When the administrative requirements of development were recogniz ed, a similar philosophy also prevailed. It was assumed that an important, if not decisive, aspect of administrative performance consisted of technology, not just the use of machines and sophisticated tools, but more generally, the procedures and guide-lines of administration could be viewed as a kind of "technology". Hence the original target of technical assistance in public administration was typically to transmit to recipient countries, particularly by training "counter-parts", the knowledge of administrative techniques that, supposedly, enabled the more affluent countries to achieve whatever success