Growing criticism of inefficient development aid demanded new planning instruments of donors, including international NGOs (INGOs). A reorientation from isolated project-planning towards holistic country concepts and the increasing rationality of a result-orientated planning process were seen as...

The role of ideas in the policy-making process has been taken up by institutional analysts who found the structured approaches of institutionalism wanting in predicting political changes. But this ideational turn has been plagued by definitional ambiguity with repercussions for the research...

The existence of constraints affecting the social services in developing countries is only too obvious. Neither donor nor recipient countries have yet paid sufficient attention to this sphere in the context of development policy. Practicable planning proposals are therefore put forward in the...

In September 1973, the President of the World Bank, Robert S. McNamara, made a challenging address to the Governors of the Central Banks of the member states of the international Monetary Fund. The main subject in his speech was the problem of poverty particularly in rural areas of developing...