Geography Reference
In-Depth Information
residents to visit the centre and take part in its governance, rather like the Greek
polis
.
Yet other versions emerged in the same period, most notably ecodevelopment,
and then ethnodevelopment (Hettne 1990). Ecodevelopment (see also Ch. 2) had
to be locally based, because it was concerned to conserve local resources and not
to exceed their capacity, which was always associated with outsiders coming in
to exploit these resources. Ecodevelopment has had the greatest impact on theory
of all types of Development from Below, because it has been this branch that
was converted into “sustainable development”, once global concern over global
resources was translated into discussion of possible action and advertised
through the Brundtland Report (World Commission on Environment and
Development 1987). Ethnodevelopment concerns the identification of specific
groups in society with distinctive capacities and knowledge, and their promotion
without bringing them into conflict, usually with other dominant groups. Such
groups might be racial minorities, or groups with a distinctive, historically
identified culture.
The above are all examples of a recognition that some regions have special
problems, needing a one-off, individual approach. A simpler version of the
approach, allowing that rural regions are different from urban regions, was rural
development. This was an early reaction to the fact that regional programmes of
aid tended to help the cities and their industries, and actually made problems
worse in the countryside. From the mid-1970s, the World Bank (1975) has
acknowledged the special problems of rural regions, especially in the Third
World, where there is outmigration of the best-qualified individuals to the towns
and cities, leaving behind the poor, the less qualified, and the old. Lack of
industrial development in such regions, and the lack of social provision, have
been constant themes.
Rural areas are clearly not self-contained in the modern world, and rural
development as a theme had soon to be modified into integrated rural-urban
development. Integrated development of towns with their countryside could
establish cash crops in the farmland, and the agro-industries to process these
crops in the towns, which acted as market centres. The market centre function
could itself be upgraded, since in many such regions a major failing was the lack
of transport from farm to market, and the lack of marketing institutions and
transport agencies to get farmers' goods into the market. Poor levels of services
and welfare in the rural area could be addressed by establishing schools and
other facilities in the local towns, together with organizations to ensure that the
service would reach out into the countryside.
Not all aspects of rural development were Development from Below. Many of
the schemes enacted were funded by central government and international aid,
and directed also from the centre, but they did recognize the imbalances created
through economic development and tried to encourage more local initiative and
control over the process. Much of the writing, such as that by Rondinelli (1985)
or by the World Bank (1975), treated the rural regions problem as a generic
