Dyramics of Community development
- New York Scarecrow. 1963
- 252 p.
This is a study of the theory and practice of commu ity development as articulated in the Village Agricultural and Industrial Development Program of Pakistan. During the nine years from 1952 to 1961, Village AID constituted the Government of Pakistan's major effort at rural develop ment. It was the second largest enterprise of this kind in the world, involving an expenditure of over $35 million and a staff of some 5, 000 persons.
The Village AID experience embraced several ele ments of national development common to efforts of newly developing countries to forge an essentially foreign demo cratic ideology into administrative and educational practices in a traditional culture and government structure shaken by the impact of irresistable and sudden change. Social re form movements in the newly emerging nations will be largely conceived within government bureaucracies where the educated are concentrated. This case study of what happened to a highly idealistic democratic reform move ment when it encountered the bureaucratic legacy of coloni alism may provide some timely lessons.
Chapter I indicates the dimensions and direction of the concept and movement of community development and describes antecedent experiments on the sub-continent. Chapters II and III provide a brief sketch of conditions in Pakistan prior to the introduction of the new program and a review of the objectives and administrative structure of Village AID. Chapter IV reports program developments against the perspective of economic and political theoreti cal expectations. Administrative and organizational pro blems are discussed in Chapter V, with special attention to inter-agency co-ordination. Chapter VI is an analysis of the far-reaching bureaucratic implications of community development. Chapter VII is an interpretation of the role of the village worker as adult educator, and a brief con clusion is contained in Chapter VIII.
This study is based in part upon the author's experi ence as ICA community development advisor to the Village AID program during 1958 and 1959. The production of this manuscript was facilitated by assistance from the Depart ment of Education and the Center for South Asia Studies, University of California, Berkeley, and enhanced by the valuable editorial assistance of Malcolm Roemer and the excellent typing and proofreading of Luise Healey. The au thor is particularly indebted to James W. Green for his perceptive comments regarding the manuscript.