Published online by Cambridge University Press: 23 May 2014
Since attaining independence nearly every African government has initiated a national planning exercise founded on the recognition that the technological imperatives of specialization and exchange essential for modern development require large markets, large capital investments, a broad range of natural resources, and the training of skilled manpower—all of which require mobilization of resources at least on a national level. Plans limited to allocating resources merely on a village or even on a regional level would be incapable of contributing to significant increases of productivity because such small units lack these essential prerequisites. However, the record of national planning in Africa has not been very successful in contributing to significant development (Waterston 1965). This is particularly true if development is defined—as it will be throughout this article—as increasing productivity in all sectors of the economy accompanied by raising the levels of living of the broadest masses of the population.
The somewhat dismal record of national plans underscores the realization voiced by more and more development theorists: development cannot be attained merely by transplanting to Africa the refined planning techniques devised to allocate resources in developed countries such as input-output tables, linear programming, or macro-economic models based on assumed capital-output ratios. This is true in part because the lack of adequate data requires that many of the essential coefficients must simply be “invented,” which, over time is likely to lead to results seriously deviating from planned goals (Lewis 1966, especially pp. 15, 20-21).