Rural development in Southeast Asia

The Southeast Asian Social Science Association Conference on Rural Development in Southeast Asia held in Kuala Lumpur in January 1975 was attended by a host of distinguished academic and practising economists and sociologists of eight countries, drawn from various research institutes, universities, national and regional development authorities, and administrative training centres.

The Conference sittings spanned two major cities of Malaysia (Kuala Lumpur and Penang); and delegates also took time off their working sessions to see for themselves at first-hand, the very same land development schemes and agricultural projects under way in the host country. In terms of serious work alone, the Con ference took in fourteen papers presented at gruelling sessions which needed rigorous rapporteuring. When we add to this the fact that the writers came from far-flung corners of both island and mainland Southeast Asia; that the Conference sat in two places over three hundred miles apart (and visited quite a few places in between), we can only just begin to appreciate the tremendous amount of work that had to be faced by the various sub-commit tees of the local Organizing Committee. That the Conference went off so smoothly and well is a tribute to the hard work put in by all: the paper-writers; the rapporteurs; the committee members under the able supervision of Dr. Stephen Chee; and the myriad well-wishers and willing helpers from the various institutions whose facilities the Conference tapped to all of them I like to record my gratitude. Finally to the Vice-Chancellors of the liver sity of Malaya and University Sains Malaysia on the one, and to the International Development Research Centre and the Ford Foundation on the other, a special word of thanks is due for their respective personal and financial support to the Conference and last but not least to the Honourable Encik Mokhtar bin Haji Hashin, Deputy Minister of Agriculture and Rural Development, for opening the Conference.