Chapter 6: DEVELOPMENT ADMINISTRATION

Importance of Development Administration

It is administering, organizing public agencies such as to stimulate, facilitate defined programs of social, economic progress with a purpose to make change attractive and possible.  It is an open system where links are present with experts, grassroots, people rather than centralized structures. Development administration is concerned with attitudes, processes than structures and procedures.

Features:

1. Administration of policies, programs, projects to serve development purpose.
2. Concerned with achieving national development.
3. Tasks, processes of formulating and implementing [plans, policies, programs, projects] to achieve mixture of goals, objectives that are politically determined.
4. Has two interrelated tasks - institution building and planning.
5. Implementation of programs to bring about modernity, progress and changes within the administrative systems which increase its capacity.
6. Action and goal oriented administration system. The process of guiding towards achievement of political, economic, social objectives.

Riggs: "The efforts to carry out programs designed to change physical, human, cultural environment but also to enlarge the government capacity to engage in such programs".

Development administration has two sides: Development of administration and administration of development. Administration can't change unless environment is changed and environment can't change unless the administration of programs is changed.

Riggs believed that Development administration is a process of increasing autonomy [discretion] of social systems made possible by rising levels of diffraction. Autonomy manifests itself in form of human societies capable of shaping their own physical, human, cultural environment.

Characteristics of Development Administration

1. Change orientation: Bring socio economic change.
2. Goal orientation: Achieve socio, economic, political, cultural goals.
3. Commitment: Have high morale, motivation for people at work.
4. Client orientation: Treat people as customers that demand service.
5. Temporal: Complete tasks on time.
6. Citizen participation
7. Responsive: to citizens needs, demands
8. Ecological: Interaction between bureaucracy and environment
9. Innovative-ness: Continuously identify new strategies to help achieve development objective with greatest possible facilitation.