Student Testimony

8/3/2019 Student Testimony

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PRACTICE IN URBAN ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT

MSc Urban Economic Development, 2006-2007


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As a future development practitioner, what is the single most important lesson you

have learnt from this fieldtrip?

BY

OBENG-ODOOM FRANKLIN

..

Note to Readers:

As a fresh student on the MSc Urban Economic Development programme, I received with

mixed feelings the information of a field trip as part of the MSc course. Mixed feelings

because in one breadth I felt it was a break from a rather rigorous albeit rewarding MSc

programme but in another breadth we were told that the field trip is not a social event or a

mid-course break (MSc handbook, p.8). Of what use is the field trip? Does it add to or take

from the MSc? In short what is the single most important lesson the field trip offers to

participants of the MSc who eventually become Development Practitioners?

Now that I have undertaken the field trip, I evaluate the experience and submit my verdict. I

wish you an enjoyable reading session.

Obeng-Odoom Franklin

MSc Urban Economic Development (2006/7)


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Introduction

There is a popular feeling that Theory and Practice are opposed to each other and the merits

lie with Practice. This is a false conclusion based on a false supposition: Practice is brick,

Theory is mortar both are necessary to get a good structure

S.P.Lumby, 1981, p.1

The above quote summarises my reflections on the 10-day Ugandan Field Trip. The lesson is

this

By all means, a development planner should read as much as possible about his research

area1 however, no amount of literature review (usually in the office) can substitute for actual

field work. This is because there could be fundamental gaps between what is known in the

literature and what is present in the field.

In the paragraphs that follow, the analysis on which this lesson is built is presented. For want

of space, the analysis will centre on Decentralisation, Economic Growth and Poverty Reduction

in the Ugandan context. First some of the required literature will be reviewed and compared

with what was actually found on the field.

1Both thematic and geographical


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Gershberg and Winkler (2003) for example find that school construction in Uganda is funded

centrally. They show that quality has declined in UPE schools. They suggest that private

schools have mushroomed to fill this quality gap. Contrariwise, the field experience revealed

that the quality of education in UPE schools is not necessarily lower than that of private

schools. Put in other words, contrary to the position of Gershberg and Winkler, the trip has

shown that quality education is a rural-urban affair and not necessarily a public-private-school

affair.

Opponents of Structural Adjustment Policies argue, without qualification, that SAPs has failed

in developing countries. They show that the approach has strengthened macro economic

stability without a trickle down effect. The field trip shows that the case of Uganda is probably

an exception to this critique: both macro and micro economic conditions have improved

pursuant to the adoption of structural adjustment programme. The proportion of population

under the poverty line reduced from 56% in 1992 to 34% in 2000 and a sustainable macro

economic growth was achieved at an average of 6% from 1993-2005 (OECD, 2005). To use

the words of the Governor of the Bank of Uganda, If this is failure, then I dont know what

success is

Further, even though the literature is replete with comments on urban primacy in African

countries resulting from so called excessive investment in capital cities by governments, it is

debatable if Uganda can be cited as one of such with primate cities. Indeed, infrastructure in

Kampala, in the authors opinion looked more deteriorated than that in Mbarara. This suggests

that deliberate public policy and greater investment in secondary cities/towns, could be a

possible way to curb excessive primacy.

With reference to what poverty is, the World Bank has shown that the concept is

multidimensional (WDR, 1999/2000). The field experience deepens this definition by showing

that what poverty is, even differs from one sub county to another. Thus the definition of

poverty differs even within a district and indeed a country. Thus while milk farmers in Mbarara

consider a poor person as one without about ten cows, a farming community in the MilleniumVillage considers one without a farm as poor. Also even though the Millenium Village was

described as a hot hunger spot in the literature, in the words of the residents, they are

neither poor, nor hungry.


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The Structuralist view to development posits that, in the process of development, agriculture

must decline following a rise in industrialisation and subsequently tertiarisation/service-growth.

While this process is true for many countries, from interactions with many people, Uganda is

using agriculture as a modus operandito develop. The raison detre, according to the Governor

of the Bank of Uganda is that since about 80% of Ugandans are engaged in rural agric, agric is

the best vehicle to drive development. While, this approach has not been followed to the core

by any country that has achieved massive poverty reduction, except probably Thailand or

Korea, it remains an empirical question whether the approach will deliver what its proponents

believe it will deliver.


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Not only did the field experience show gaps between literature and practice, the trip also

offered some practical examples of some theoretical arguments in the literature. Drakakis-

Smith (1999) for example argues that agric modernisation leads to greater urbanisation. The

logic, according to him is that modernising agric means a shift from labour-intensive

production to capital intensive production, which also means that fewer farmers will be needed

and the surplus will migrate to cities. While this argument sounds plausible in theory, to the

authors mind, it didnt exist in real world. However, the trip showed that this is happening in

the Rajaro sub-county where so called Progressive Farmers using capital-intensive approach

get subsistence farmers to sell off their relatively fragmented land to seek greener pastures in

Kampala.

In addition, the trip confirmed the suggestion by Laws (2006) that people are more responsive

to non-structured interviews than formally administered questionnaires. Thus it would seem

that engaging in dialogue with respondents holds much more promise than questionnaire

administration in research for development.

Finally, the trip confirmed that, there is no pure economy anywhere but a political-economy.

This is because the success of Uganda in poverty reduction has been closely linked and

influenced by its political success and a general political will.


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Conclusion

In closing, therefore, field work is sine qua non for any serious development practitioner. The

Ugandan field trip offers a lot of lessons, paramount among which is that a development

practioner should not impose his own understanding or meaning in his professional work

obtained from just reading past studies. An initial idea gleaned from the literature is terribly

important to make him aware of what may be going on in his area of work, however he should

not precommit to any of those ideologies,: because literature review, in itself, is not an

infallible guide. It is crucial that views and perceptions of the people for whom development

planning is done, are given the utmost priority in the work of a Development Practitioner, and

the Ugandan fieldwork is ample testimony of this.

Bibliography

Drakakis-Smith David, 2000, Third World Cities, Routledge

Gershberg A and Winkler D, 2003, Education Decentralisation in Africa: A Review of Recent

Policy and Practice, A draft paper prepared on August, 2003

Laws S, Harper C and Marcus R, 2003, Research for Development, Sage Publications

OECD, 2005, African Economic Outlook 2004/2005: Uganda, OECD Emerging Economies,

Number 5, pp. 425-437, OECD Development Centre, Paris

Lumby S.P, 1981, Investment Appraisal and Related Decisions, Van Nostrand Reinhold

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