Improving the organization and administration of agricultural development. Report of an expert consultation held in Manila, September 1979
Anonymous
FAO Report, Development Organization and Administration 1: 45
1979
Document Number: 521442
The main focus of the prepared FAO Programme is on the training of senior administrators concerned with the planning and administration/management of agricultural development. Experts from seven countries in the Asia and Far East Region were invited by FAO to advise on the relevance of this Programme to national situations and on how it might be applied in individual countries in the Region. A major conclusion of the meeting was that there is a most urgent need in many countries for improvements in the organization and administration of agricultural development. Among several factors noted, the most critical were: (i) the enormous complexity of public sector operations with large numbers of ministries, departments, agencies involved in the agricultural development process, and some major difficulties in getting the various agencies to coordinate their activities in planning and implementing inter-related agricultural programmes; (ii) that nowhere is this problem more evident than at the field level of operations, where services to small farmers and other rural primary producers are extremely limited and, in some cases, totally ineffective, largely because of the way they are managed; (iii) that because of weaknesses in the administrative process scarce resources are wastefully applied through overlap and duplication of functions by the many agencies involved; and (iv) that outdated administrative and managerial practices, with largely overcentralized control of decisions regarding the utilization of resources at local levels, are a major factor in limiting the impact of agricultural development programmes. It is the ineffective performance of delivery systems which constitutes a principal source of the constraints on more effective use of existing agricultural technology. The report gives details of main lines of the experts' conclusions on the conduct of a training programme for senior administrators, and how it could be organized and maintained within any country. The Meeting strongly recommended that FAO should take action along the following lines: (i) make available on a continuing basis information on innovations in the organization and administration of agricultural development taking place in the Region; (ii) continue to promote acceptance by policy makers and planners of the need to strengthen national capabilities for training of senior administrators/managers; (iii) assist member countries in formulating and organizing their own training programmes; (iv) develop training materials for use in such training; (v) undertake research into the kinds of management training being undertaken, as applied to agricultural development, and the methodology employed; (vi) develop proposals on a programme for the training of trainers.