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total situation. Hence, with less ambition than in the initial stages and free from certain misconceptions, the development planners will have to face up to "the heavy
and
ungrateful tasks consisting in a patient analysis of socio-economic reality and a permanent and laborious search for adequate instruments of action",!
4.
The concept of unified socio-economic development and planning
The above-mentioned weaknesses of the predominantly economic approach to development planning were soon noted by the international agencies dealing with this problem, particularly by the United Nations.
In its earliest stages, the United Nations' approach to social development focused primarily on the improvement of levels of living on a sectoral basis, i.e. through the promotion of public programmes in the fields of health, education, social welfare, etc.2 Later, it became evident that this method, which worked well in the European context during the period of post-war reconstruction, was not fully relevant to the problems of the lcw-income countries which became the principal concern of the United Nations and their specialised agencies. It was found that, while economic growth in most of the high-income countries was largely a self- sustaining process, if sufficient resource investment was forthcoming, the deficiencies in institutional and administrative structures prevented such growth in low-income countries. The correction of these inadequacies came, therefore, to be considered as crucial in over-all development strategy.
The analysis of shortcomings in the existing development planning technique went further to identify factors such as lack of public participation in the development process which constitutes, as many believe, not only a pre-condition for long-term economic growth, but also a desirable social objective in itself. Factors neglected by the earlier planners also involve differences in income and levels of living between classes, regions, sectors or urban and rural areas, and matters relating to health and education, as well as to consumption, for instance in relation to nutrition or housing.
The earlier conviction that economic growth would be followed more or less automatically by improvement in material and living conditions for the majority of the population was not confirmed by events. Even some of the low-income countries which achieved a rapid increase of economic growth saw the levels of living of the main bulk of the population remaining static or actually declining. Moreover, the une ven distribution of income was further accentuated, as the heavy unemployment continued rising. As a UN report observed, "the fact that development either leaves behind or, in some ways, even creates large areas of poverty, stagnation, margi- nality and actual exclusion from economic and social progress is too obvious and too urgent to be overlocked".3
This experience gave birth to the dualist theory of development, taking account of the differences in the structure of many developing societies as between modern and traditional sectors, and those participating in development and those left behind. The concept of dualiso was accepted as being more adequate to an understanding of the social problems and social a spects of development than aggregate growth models and consequently more useful for analysis of problems involved in development planning.*
The conviction was thus growing that there was a pressing need to elaborate new and more realistic conceptual and methodological approaches to the problem of
1 See Czeslaw Bobrowski: "Dix ans de planification dans les pays sous- développés", in European Journal of Sociology, No. 1, 1970, p. 103.
2 The information contained in this chapter is largely based on "Evolution of the United Nations' approach to Planning for Unified Socio-Economic Development: an Introduction", in International Social Development Review, No. 3, 1971.
3 See "Social Policy and Planning in National Development", in International Social Development Review, No. 3, 1971.
Dual Society in
• Cf. Hans W. Singer: "A New Approach to the Problems of the Developing Countries", in International Social Development Review, No. 3, 1971.
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