Agriculture Reference
In-Depth Information
role of institutions in the development process and which institutional variables work, to
what extent and in what circumstances, it is necessary to assemble sizeable amounts of data
over time and analyze them with appropriate methods. The studies reported in this volume
made an attempt at filling this gap but they are only limited in terms of their temporal
coverage. The variables need to be tracked over time to ascertain their patterns of action
and how they can be incorporated into the policy process. Such information exists for
developed countries. For now, it suffices to fall back on general theories and draw lessons
from developed country experiences and our limited studies and attempt to incorporate
these in simulation models as part of policy experiments.
Development practitioners and theorists have particularly found that good policies
alone, like good intentions, are hardly sufficient to bring about sustainable and positive
change in rural livelihoods. No where is this truer than in South Africa today where the
plethora of policies and programmes put in place since 1994 to bring about rapid and
drastic transformation of the rural sector have produced little or no improvement in the
conditions of the under-resourced black farmers who reside and eke out a hard existence in
those areas. Academic researchers and commentators have often argued that this is because
rural people need to be assisted and facilitated to access both private and public resources
and services that lead to wealth creation. There are issues with service delivery all across the
country today and it is convenient to blame the service delivery shortcomings on the lack of
implementation capacity of personnel employed in the local municipalities. Quite rightly,
rural people, whether farming or otherwise, need institutions that promote transparent
governance so that conflicts arising from unclear rules are minimized. But this may be only
part of the problem and possibly not the most crucial.
The key to resolving this development impasse possibly lies elsewhere. North (1990) was
indeed categorical about the primacy of institutions when he said: 'that institutions affect
the performance of economies is hardly controversial. That the differential performance
of economies over time is fundamentally influenced by the way institutions evolve is also
not controversial'. This seems to leave little room for dissenting views but it still leaves
the obligation to find out exactly where that link lies and how it operates. An important
question posed by Bardhan (2005) also deserves a definitive answer: 'which ones?' Even if it
is accepted as an article of faith that institutions work, given that there are many, one should
be interested in identifying which ones work best and when, etc., more so as resources are
scarce and there is need for finer targeting and rational use of available resources.
North (1994) himself has thrown what might be seen as a lifeline in this regard. In a short
note entitled 'institutions matter, North (1994) set of to disaggregate 'institutions' into
its two main components namely, formal rules and informal norms. He then looked at the
unique characteristics of each of these different components to see if there is anything in
the way they present that can form the basis for linking institutions to national economic
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