Langzeitfolgen Der Entwicklungshilfe - Empirische Untersuchungen Im Ländlichen Westafrika release_o3bkhljqpzbyvnneye44hvstni

by Dirk Kohnert, Dirk Kohnert, Georg Elwert

Published by Zenodo.

1991  

Abstract

The long-term effects of development aid. Empirical studies in rural West Africa] - This article is based on field studies in rural West Africa. It concentrates on the socio-structural effects of development aid in the long run, in contrast to numerous available evaluation reports on the short-run effects of development projects. The study reveals that superficial generalisations or condemnations of development projects, like the big farmers benefit at the expense of the smaller ones, or the men benefit at the expense of the women, do not hold up to verification. Quite to the contrary one observes a wide range of specific adapted forms by which the target groups react to the demands and offers of development projects, and thereby transform their own social structure. In short, one observes a great diversity of social self-organisation. The bureaucratic structures of the development administration do, however, unfortunately - more often than not - ignore the social dynamic of their target groups which they nevertheless sustain unconsciously. Development aid has become an important political and economic factor in most African countries. Its financial impact often exceeds that of the national budget. It contributes, therefore, significantly to the development of a bureaucratic class and of its clients: the project development degenerates into a project nationalization / bureaucratization. This contrasts vividly with the strategies of the peasants. Men and women at village level do not accept any longer the paternalistic development approach. They just select what they need out of the packages of solutions that are offered to them, while they develop their own solutions, like a variety of seeds adapted to their specific resource endowments, diversified sources of income, different strategies of accumulation and risk prevention. All this allows for a gradual evolution by variation and selection. The dynamic of the rural society is to a large extent due to a competition of different (strategic) groups, opposed to one [...]
In text/plain format

Archived Files and Locations

application/pdf  12.0 MB
file_fvzqnur5rnbnfpv6k7tnzj2wpq
zenodo.org (repository)
web.archive.org (webarchive)
Read Archived PDF
Preserved and Accessible
Type  article-journal
Stage   published
Date   1991-07-12
Language   de ?
Work Entity
access all versions, variants, and formats of this works (eg, pre-prints)
Catalog Record
Revision: 82a177ee-4859-498c-a2d6-4e52aa093667
API URL: JSON