Engineering for Development header

ENGINEERING FOR DEVELOPMENT

(First Draft)

E J Jefferies

March 1969

CONTENTS

PART 1 THE WORLD DEVELOPMENT PROGRAMME

Chapter 1 Introduction
Chapter 2 Closing the Gap
Chapter 3 Resistance to Change
Chapter 4 International Technical Assistance

PART II AN ENGINEERING APPROACH TO A PLAN FOR A COUNTRY

Chapter 5 Outline of the Approach
Chapter 6 Setting the Problem
Chapter 7 Basic, Concepts, Terms and Definitions
Chapter 8 Background Data Available
Chapter 9 The Starting Point for a Case Study
Chapter 10 Preliminary Calculations
Chapter 11 Patterns of Economic Growth
Chapter 12 Development Plan for Year 1
Chapter 13 Development Plan for Year 2
Chapter 14 Development Plan for Year 3
Chapter 15 Review of Changes During the Three Years
Chapter 16 The Control of Development
Chapter 17 Financing the Development

PART III THE IMPLICATIONS OF RAPID GROWTH

Chapter 18 Economic Growth and Technological Changes in Rural Communities
Chapter 19 The Influence of Agriculture on Industrial Development
Chapter 20 The Role of Manufacturing Industry
Chapter 21 The Contribution of Industrial Engineering to a Solution

PART IV DESIGNING FOR BALANCE IN DEVELOPMENT

Chapter 22 The Prediction of New Manufacturing Capacity Requirements by Product Group
Chapter 23 The Productivity of Labour
Chapter 24 The Growth of Productivity
Chapter 25 The Calculation of Appropriate Levels of Productivity in New Plants

CHAPTER 4

INTERNATIONAL TECHNICAL ASSISTANCE:

COULD ITS EFFECTIVENESS BE IMPROVED?

The objective of the many types of programme of technical assistance to the developing countries is to break down the bottlenecks which are hindering their technical and economic growth. Such programmes cover every phase of human activities: agriculture, industry, banking, commerce, transportation, communications, town planning, community development, education at all levels, public health, family planning, social and political organisation, etc. In all, some 10,000 people (excluding large numbers of technical salesmen of private manufacturing firms) are deployed in these programmes: they are drawn mainly, but not exclusively, from the industrial countries and are assigned to work in developing countries whose total population is about 2000 millions, or about one Expert to every 200,000 people.

These 10,000 people are called "Technical Assistance Experts", each charged with adapting and introducing techniques new to the country of his assignment, within his own specialist field. Their own view of the results of their effort seems to be that only about one-tenth has any immediate effect, most of which is lost when they return home, and that the bulk of their work has little reference to their own specialisation at the level they were accustomed to at home. The growing view of the recipient countries can be summarised: "Why spend good money on sending people to tell us how to do things we can’t find the money or the people for? Give (not lend) us the equivalent cash and we will make better use of it in our own way". However, it can be argued that, by their mere presence in a country, the Technical Assistance Experts do produce some residual effects, not on the lines intended by their backers, but by the direct transfer of some technology (not necessarily in their own speciality) and some new attitudes and motivations, by direct person-to-person contacts, in a form which can be absorbed and retained by the recipient.

This last argument has led in the last few years to the development of organisations such as the Peace Corps and Volunteers for Service Overseas, which set their recruits to work in much closer personal contact with the people whom they serve. In the main, these recruits are young, enthusiastic and adaptable, but do not have the years of experience in their home countries to have formed an appreciation of their own society or even of their own technical speciality as changing and developing organisms.

Costs

The cost of maintaining 100,000 official "Technical Assistance Experts" in developing countries adds up to about US $200 millions a year, financed from various sources, mainly from "Bilateral Aid" programmes and from contributions channelled through the United Nations and its many specialised Agencies.

This $200 million can be compared with the $9,000 million or so a year flowing into the developing countries as temporary capital "Aid" for development (and with the $3,000 million which is now also flowing out of the developing countries to repay the temporary capital "Aid" received in past years). This flow of new capital also carries with it a component of "Technical Assistance" in the form of construction and commissioning engineers, surveyors, temporary managers and accountants and so on, probably costing a tenth of the new capital, or around $900 million a year.

However the personnel involved in this "Aid"-linked "Technical Assistance" are largely used for shorter periods of time and their terms of reference are much more restricted. Their assignment is to get wheels turning by imposing alien techniques on local conditions with a minimum of adaptation.

Other Influences

There are also unknown numbers of foreigners living in developing countries - traders, employees, refugees, settlers, retired persons, artists, and so on - who are helping to transfer cultures, attitudes, motivations and techniques from one background to another. However, their main concern is not with the development of the country they are living in.

Effectiveness

All of these contacts - official, commercial and unofficial - are having only marginal effects in inducing the changes which will lead to the development of the underdeveloped countries. Indications are that "the Gap" is likely to continue to widen, whether or not greater or less efforts are made by present international development mechanism.

The present forms of international aid and technical assistance are mainly oriented to:

Economic Development: Planning for maximum use of scarce resources - money, natural resources and skilled manpower, and foreign markets. This is subdivided into subjects such as Agriculture, Industry, Power Supply, Transport, Communications, Housing, Water Supply, etc.
Human Development: General and technical education at all levels; control of disease; family planning; the arts; conditions of work; control of crime, etc.
Political Development: Government organisations; monetary policy; control of trade and commercial practices; price and wage level controls; distribution of purchasing power.

However it is now suspected that none of these is a fundamental first cause of development in its wider sense, but that this is to be found only in a basic change in the "culture", that is, in the roots of motivation of the people and in their attitude towards change⁵. How could an attack be mounted on these?

New Approach

As indicated in the paper "Society and Cultural Implications of Accelerated Development", the main barriers are likely to be found in resistance to social change and development, and inadequacy of education and re-education; and on the scales needed, formal efforts to break these barriers, however massive, would be bound to be strained to the limit. They would also be likely to generate further resistances, since they would necessarily be intensive, theoretical and related only to something in the future, to concepts at present alien to the recipients, who have no point of reference to link these concepts of the future with themselves personally.

A Catalytic Development Organisation

Here, maybe, we have a clue to a possible new use of "Technical Assistance Experts": to use them to inject into a population new concepts covering a wide cross-section of the attitudes and activities of a different form of society which is already more advanced by, say, half the span of a man’s working life. This can only be done by personal contact and by example; by envoys living among the people but pursuing occupations and ways of life which will become appropriate to those people at some time in the future. If we had an additional international organisation devoted primarily to this and having at its disposal, say, $10,000 million a year⁶ (as expendable funds in many currencies, not as capital), what could be done?

The requirements for mounting an attack in this form can be listed:

Personal Contacts on a Large Scale: This can only be provided through large numbers of envoys. The present scale of technical assistance at about one envoy to 200,000 people would probably need to be increased ten times (e.g. from the equivalent of two or three envoys per medium-sized city, to one or two to every small town).
Envoys Enabled to Provide Practical Demonstration: At present, technical assistance experts cannot provide much useful practical demonstration in any activity, economic or otherwise, since they do not have funds at their disposal. Our new envoys must have disposable funds under their own control.
Demonstration Not Controlled by Present-Day Local Social and Economic Factors: It in mounting his activity the envoy is forced to scale it back in time from the point in the future which it is derived to demonstrate, in order to ensure its survival, its catalytic effect will be lost. He must be insulated to some extend from present-day local customs and influences. He must be free from economic pressures: the need to earn a living or to make immediate balance sheet profits.

Development Envoys

Let us now try to define our ideal envoy and his activities in general terms:

Background

A person who is well-versed in some activity which he has carried on in an economic background well ahead of the background in which he will work; with ability to design, establish and operate an enterprise.
A person who has in the past originated his own activity but who can collaborate with others at all levels.
Ability to live in the background to which he will be assigned without generating antipathies.
Knowledge of the local language and at least some knowledge of local tradition and customs.
Resistance to the climate and local health hazards.
Minimum personal preoccupation with family and business affairs elsewhere.

Activity

No limit on type of activity except that it must be one that will be of some importance to the community in twenty-five years’ time and preferably one already known in elementary terms to the community.

Personal Qualities

Stable personality, high integrity, honest and law-abiding.
Imaginative and able to learn.
An innovator and leader.

The selection of an envoy might therefore be framed somewhat on the following lines:

Married man, or widow or widower, who has already reared a family to beyond high-school age.
Mature, normal and stable personality; no direct personal business activities at home; long and varied experience in his own field, preferably including some successes; experience of organising and starting an enterprise; minimum of close family ties, especially financial.
Some experience of group activities such as trade union, sports or cultural clubs, local government, charity organisations etc.
Good health and an active mind, with the prospect of at least ten years further active life in a new career.
Some experience of living under conditions similar to those in his country of assignment.
Knowledge of or willingness and ability to learn the local language.

Scale of Operation

As to the numbers of such envoys we may be able to deploy, this will depend on the amount of money we decide to make available to each. Since rapid economic development implies large numbers of small but rapidly growing undertakings starting from very limited money resources, the initial cash outlay for each envoy need not be very large.

As noted above, a technical assistance expert at present costs his backer about $20,000 a year. Suppose we add to this a further $30,000 a year which he can use to start and develop his activity. In a few years he will have a sizable sum accumulated and, if he is astute, he will be able to augment this by local partnerships, borrowing, mortgages, etc, and will be able to plough back surpluses, since he does not need them to live on. But on this scale he would not be likely to become an embarrassment in his host country by becoming a controlling economic influence.

So, calculating on $10,000 million a year income, we could support 200,000 envoys in the developing countries or an overall average of one envoy to every 10,000 population (two if we count his wife). This is better by far than our present figure of one "Expert" to 200,000 people and may be approaching the threshold at which an impact might be expected.

Rules of the Game

We would have to lay out some rules under which such a scheme might operate with maximum effect. They would need acceptance between an international body and each national government involved.

The key points to be covered might include the following:

Personal Status of Envoys

In both their own countries and in their countries of assignment, envoys should be given "international" personal status as at present conceded to UN field staff and experts. This should cover:

freedom from income tax on a portion of their annual grant sufficient for their family commitments and for retirement;
freedom of movement across international boundaries;
freedom to own and use foreign exchange for the purpose of their assignment where this is derived from their annual grant. On the other hand, money and assets generated by their activity should be treated by the rules applying to local businesses, with access to all reliefs and rebates conceded by government to such businesses;
freedom from obligations in respect of military service, from local taxation and levies, and from personal control by professional bodies, trade unions, business associations and the like.

Origin of Funds

Since about half the funds supporting the organisation would arise in the developing countries themselves (one of whose chronic problems is convertibility) one-half of the annual grant should be in local currency and the rest in foreign currencies. Both parts of the grant - "personal" and "business" - should contain elements of both local and foreign currency.

Disposal of Personal Funds by an Envoy

The "personal" part of an envoy’s grant should be his to dispose of as he sees fit, with the following provisos:

He should use some of it in maintaining foreign contacts and in travel; especially to visit his home country at least every other year.
Any of it that he cares to put into his activity would thereafter rank as "business".

Disposal of Business Funds

The "business" part of the grant would be the envoy’s to dispose of as he wishes with the following provisos:

None of it ever becomes part of his personal fortune.
Once converted into local currency or into goods or property in the country of assignment, it becomes subject to the local laws governing currency, property and taxation as a business.
It may be left unused indefinitely on deposit in any local or foreign bank but on the death of the envoy or his separation from the assignment will revert to the Organisation.

Disposal of Values Generated

Any income, surplus or assets developed by the activity would be treated similarly to "business" funds.
On separation of an envoy from an assignment, the envoy’s share in the activity and its assets would revert to the Organisation who would assign it to a new envoy or sell it in the open local market.

Control by the Organisation

The Organisation, in collaboration with the government concerned, would select the general fields of activity considered useful; and arrange suitable geographical distribution of envoys.
The Organisation would provide the envoys with an outline forecast of the range of development to be expected in his locality in, say, ten to twenty-five years’ time, e.g. population, standard of education, average and distribution of spending power, composition of total economic activity, development of sports, entertainments, recreation and cultural activities; urbanisation, communications and so on.

There would be no control over the activity or business by the Organisation. It would limits its interest to providing the grants, receiving brief annual reports and balance sheets, and ultimately taking over the residuals. Adequate legal controls will be provided by the laws of the country, since the objective is to generate development by the personal and unfettered initiative of the envoy, within the local legal framework.

If some such attack could be aimed at inducing fundamental social change, then all the present forms of international aid and technical assistance would have a better chance of becoming effective. But first of all someone - and this must necessarily fall upon the social and political leaders of each country, without reference to the people as a whole - must decide that the changes likely to be generated would in the long run by "good".

Santo Domingo, 1963

Kabul, October 1967