An assessment of the relevance of development administration as a system of action in developing nations

Abstract EN

Development administration is of a recent origin.

The concept usually refers to the directly government-led effort to intervene in the process of socio-economic development of a nation with modernisation, socio-economic development, institution building, and creation of an integrated political community as its main concern.

The field can be said to have started in the developing countries after World War II when some of the colonies in Asia, Latin America and Africa started agitating for independence.

Many of these colonies emerged as politically independent states out of their dark colonial experience but with huge challenges such as poverty, illiteracy, poor health facilities and low agricultural and industrial development as well as socio-political instability.

It was therefore felt that the western development models and concept of public administration might not be appropriate for these new nations.

Development administration was adopted by these nations to modernise their economies, accelerating development to be equivalent, eventually, to the advanced countries of the West.

This paper therefore attempted to reflect on whether the field is still a relevant system of action in meeting the exigencies of development in the developing countries.

The study relies heavily on secondary data for its analysis.

It was revealed that most of the reliance on development administration to bring about the needed development was misplaced and the results were not what had been expected.

While the motivations of practitioners of development administration were high, there were problems such as high levels of poverty, and unemployment as well as a yawning gap between the rich and the poor.

Other problems include formalism, corruption and elitism.

There is therefore the need to refocus the discipline in the new nations with Nigeria inclusive to meet the exigencies of development.