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Rural development projects in LDCs: Appraisal, participation and sustainability
Author(s) -
Tacconi Luca,
Tisdell Clem
Publication year - 1992
Publication title -
public administration and development
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.574
H-Index - 44
eISSN - 1099-162X
pISSN - 0271-2075
DOI - 10.1002/pad.4230120305
Subject(s) - blueprint , sustainability , project appraisal , empowerment , government (linguistics) , sustainable development , social sustainability , politics , business , economics , environmental resource management , environmental planning , economic growth , environmental economics , political science , engineering , ecology , mechanical engineering , linguistics , philosophy , environmental science , finance , law , biology
Evidence on the performance of development projects shows that sustainability is seldom achieved. Project sustainability is influenced by ecological, social, political and economic systems. However, the blueprint approach to project choice tends to incorporate sustainability into the project cycle by considering only economic and environmental systems. This is done by adopting elaborate methodologies such as expanded CBA and EIA. This approach is unlikely to lead to sustainable projects. The ‘participation approach’ is more sensitive to the social and political systems than the blueprint approach. It involves people in decision‐making and sees the achievement of sustainable projects as the result of people's empowerment and self‐reliance. However, under certain circumstances, this approach can lead to environmentally unsustainable projects. Smaller scale projects tend to bring about sustainability, but government control might be needed to ensure this. Social obstacles exist in implementing participation but occur for top‐down projects as well. Problems exist in combining the bottom‐up and top‐down approaches.