Nicaragua: Development Under Fire

Volume 19 Number 3 July 1988 Edited by: Gordon White and Kate Young

Five years ago a conference met at this Institute to consider the immediate post-revolutionary experience of Nicaraguan development. At that time we came to several conclusions: first, that the development strategies adopted by the Sandinista government had several features which distinguished them from orthodox forms of socialist development, notably the commitment to a degree of economic and political pluralism.

Second, although there had been significant progress in achieving more equal distribution and meeting basic social needs, Nicaragua's development performance was problematic in certain basic areas [for a more detailed discussion see White and Young 1985]. Third, an already worrying economic situation was being exacerbated by the escalation of the Contra war and the hostility of the Reagan administration.

In November last year a workshop was convened to review the situation four years on. It placed particular emphasis on the way the war has impinged on Nicaragua's ability to deal with its pressing economic problems and implement its distinctive development model. Most of the papers in this Bulletin were presented at that workshop.'

Adjustment of the State: The Problem of Administrative Reform

Volume 19 Number 4 October 1988 Edited by: E.A. Brett

In our view administrative competence in the modern state is just as important for economic performance as getting the prices right'.. Economic inefficiency can stem from excessive state intervention based upon rigid and non-accountable bureaucratic structures, but, like it or not, no privatisation programme can ever remove the main responsibility for economic management from the state and its administrative apparatuses. This being so, the current over-emphasis on prices in the policy debate has led to a neglect of the associated problem of administrative competence and left us dangerously under-informed about how to achieve the equally essential need for administrative reform.

This issue of the IDS Bulletin, like its predecessors in the public policy area,' has therefore been put together to attempt to draw attention to the distinctively political elements involved in the adjustment process, and to the distinctive contribution which political scientists can make to their better understanding. Briefly, this requires an analysis of two distinct but associated issues - the problem of economic< regulation and of public provision.

Adjusting to Economic Crisis

Volume 20 Number 1 January 1989 Edited by: Peter Ngomba and John Oxenham

Over the last two decades the winds have become more persistently chilling for many developing countries whose economies have fallen into the throes of profound and unprecedented economic crises. The halcyon years of the 1950s and l960s, which were characterised by rapid expansion of many socioeconomic sectors, have been replaced by a period of restraint and decline. Falling Gross National Product (GNP) and per capita incomes, retrenchment in public expenditures and cuts in take-home pay have occurred more frequently and proved enduring. 

The articles in this special issue of the IDS Bulletin on 'Adjusting Education to Economic Crisis' attempt to deal with some of these issues. They provide a set of authoritative analyses of the choices currently confronting education policy-makers in hard-pressed economies.

Vulnerability: How the Poor Cope

Volume 20 Number 2 May 1989 Edited by: Robert Chambers

'Vulnerable' and 'vulnerability' are common terms in the lexicon of development, but their use is often vague. They serve as convenient substitutes for 'poor' and 'poverty', and allow planners and other professionals to restrain the overuse of those words. Some precision can be found in the use of 'vulnerable groups' where this refers to pregnant and lactating women, to children, or to disadvantaged communities such as Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes in India. More often, though, vulnerable is used simply as a synonym for poor.

With concerns like these a workshop on vulnerability and coping was held at IDS in September 1988, leading to this Bulletin. Some 20 people took part, about half of them reporting on recent fieldwork. The focus was at the household level, and the aims were to try to understand better the nature of vulnerability, how poor people cope with risks, shocks and stress, and what should he priorities for policy and research.

Dudley Seers: His Work and Influence

Volume 20 Number 3 July 1989 Edited by: John Toye

This issue of the IDS Bulletin examines Dudley Seers' work on development policy and development issues, and his continuing influence on these areas in the years since his death. It does so in two separate ways. In the first section of this issue, we publish the texts of three lectures on themes closely related to some on which Seers himself worked - nationalism, the future of Europe as a region and the role of the development economist.

These lectures, given in a Dudley Seers memorial series, are by three highly distinguished development academics and practitioners - Hans Singer, Louis Emmerij and Gerald Meier. In the second section, we publish four new interpretative essays - by Paul Streeten, Richard Jolly, Barbara Ingham and myself aimed at elucidating key aspects of the personality, intellectual thrust and practical leadership of Dudley Seers.

This section is rounded off by Mike Faber's reconstruction of the journey leading up to Dudley's untimely and much mourned death in March, 1983. Rosalind David's first attempt at a bibliography of Dudley's many writings concludes the Bulletin.