Administering Rural Development; Have Goals Outreached Organizational Capacity?

Abstract

"In the Philippines an irrigation project charges fees farmers cannot pay for its water. In Indonesia concrete and steel irrigation gates are unused while farmers dig cut-aways to reach channels. In Sudan 400 million dollars is spent to irrigate land for export cotton while corporation-fixed prices paid tenants are insufficient for them to pay corporation-set cotton production costs. In Senegal rural health posts systematically decapitalize themselves because medicines are incorrectly priced. In Ghana a program in agricultural management requested by the Ministry of Agriculture withers because the Ministry's field personnel refuse to implement its program and demoralize it s alumni. Are these problems random and idiosyncratic to these projects, or are there underlying patterns which explain them? Why do those patterns exist? Can anything be done about them, or have rural development goals come to exceed organizational capacity?"