PLA Notes CD-ROM 1988-2001 7 Adaptive local planning: institutional issues

Document begins: PLA Notes CD-ROM 1988­2001 7 Adaptive local planning: institutional issues Donald Curtis Introduction or small), lacking any interest in collaboration. The question that we face is whether adaptive · local planning techniques are sufficiently In some places, plurality of NGO powerful, persuasive and, in themselves, initiatives: adaptable to local situations to facilitate a · each exerting demands for breakthrough in the logjam of local information or permissions etc. institutional structures, procedures and interests that has so far set limits to the How does planning fit? effectiveness of local planning. In this context planning is not just-a question The local planning context of knowing what best to do in an area (itself a difficult enough matter) but of providing: In many Third World countries three principal forces are at work at local levels of · a legitimate means of decision making at a governance. decentralised level (i.e. a framework through which the centre/local issue can · Conflicting centralisation - be resolved). decentralisation imperatives: · a means of co-ordination: between the activities of departments, between other At macro level these are seen as the development agencies, and between conflicting requirements of holding statutory and voluntary sectors. the state together versus ...