Development strategies and the rural poor

With few exceptions, the process of economic growth in the developing economies in the post‐war period has been characterised by a persistence, and more recently probably an intensification, of rural poverty. The primacy accorded universally to accelerated industrialisation in third world development strategies cast the rural sector functionally in a resource‐providing supportive role. However, for most developing economies, industrialisation has been ‐ and is likely to remain ‐ unable to generate any significant Lewisian trickle‐down flows. Indeed, the relative failure of industrialisation in Africa has created structural conditions and fresh accumulating debt burdens which have generally prevented the retention and productive utilisation of the agricultural surplus within the rural sector. A reorientation of the growth process along ‘agriculture first’ lines is also unlikely to create trickle‐down effects which have a strong enough impact on rural poverty so long as it is based on emphasising export‐orientation and technological intensification within institutionally inequitable and ecologically fragile systems. Neither piece‐meal reactive policy interventions nor structural adjustment packages provide viable general solutions.     

Book reviews

Global Transformations: Politics, Economics and Culture. By David Held, Anthony McGrew, David Goldblatt and Jonathan Perraton. Cambridge: Polity, 1999. Pp.xxiii + 515. £59.50 and £16.99. ISBN 0 7456 1498 1 and 1499 X

Housing and Finance in Developing Countries. Edited by Kavita Datta and Gareth A. Jones. London and New York: Routledge, 1999. Pp.xxiii + 270. £50. ISBN 0 415 17242 X

Comprehending and Mastering African Conflicts: The Search for Sustainable Peace and Good Governance. Edited by Adebayo Adedeji. London and New York: Zed Books, in association with African Centre for Development and Strategic Studies (Ijebu‐Ode, Nigeria), 1999. Pp.xxii + 384. £50 and £16.95. ISBN 1 85649 762 3 and 763 1

Income Poverty and Beyond: Human Development in India. Edited by Raja J. Chelliah and R. Sudarshan. New Delhi: Social Science Press, 1999. Pp.xxvi + 221. Rs 395. ISBN 81 87358 00 9

Fiscal Decentralisation in Developing Countries. Edited by Richard M. Bird and Francois Vaillancourt. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1999. Pp.xiv + 304. £37.50 (US$59.95). ISBN 0 521 64143 8

The Future of Development Assistance: Common Pools and International Public Goods. By Ravi Kanbur and Todd Sandier with Kevin M. Morrison. Baltimore, MD: Johns Hopkins Press, 1999. ODC Policy Essay No.25. Pp.x + 106. $34.95/£10.50. ISBN 1 56517 026 1

The Global Crisis in Foreign Aid. Edited by Richard Grant and Jan Nijman. Syracuse, NY: Syracuse University Press, 1998. Pp.xxiv + 224. $34.95. ISBN 0 8156 2771 8

Economic Development. By Michael P. Todaro. Harlow: Addison Wesley Longman, 2000. Seventh Edition. Pp.xxvi + 783. £24.99 (paperback). ISBN 0 201 64858 X

Growth and Development: With Special Reference to Developing Economies. By A.P. Thirlwall. Basingstoke: Macmillan Press, 1999. Sixth Edition. Pp.xvii + 521. £62.50 and £21.99. ISBN 0 333 74678 3 and 74679 1

Economics of Development. By Malcolm Gillis, Dwight H. Perkins, Michael Roemer and Donald R. Snodgrass. London: W.W. Norton, 1996. Fourth Edition. Pp.xvi + 604. £23.95 (paperback). ISBN 0 393 96957 6

A Finger in the Wound: Body Politics in Quincentennial Guatemala. By Diane M. Nelson. Berkeley CA: University of California Press, 1999. $55.00 and $22.00. Pp.xvii + 450. ISBN 0 520 21284 3 and 21285 1     

Technology transfer perspectives in globalising India (drugs and pharmaceuticals and biotechnology)

The paper briefly outlines the status of technology transfer related issues in drugs & pharma and biotechnology sectors in India. The paper also outlines the contemporary business strategies including R&D and technology transfer models. The study indicates that present technology transfer policies and mechanisms are weak and need to be restructured. The current fiscal incentives and tax concessions etc. available for R&D in industry seem to have outlived and are no longer attractive because of continuous lowering of tariff rates and tax rates in the context of WTO and liberalization of policies. Moreover, the issue of R&D support to industry is not covered in the WTO as in case of subsidies. Therefore, it is advisable for the government to revisit the existing promotional measures for R&D. FDI policies also need to be tailored to encourage Technology transfers and capability building. Recommendations are made for making Technology Transfer more effective for the growth and competitiveness of the industry. A technology transfer management model is suggested.      

Production,prices and poverty in rural India

This paper challenges the view that increases in agricultural production have reduced poverty in rural India. Rural poverty is related directly to the consumer price index number for agricultural labourers, and inversely to agricultural production. The underlying time trend term indicates a residual rising trend in rural poverty after accounting for the influence of these two factors. There are plausible, though conjectural, reasons for believing that to a significant extent, the price factor as well as the variables implicit in the time trend term both derive their strength, if not their existence, from the nature of the growth processes which have generated the observed growth in agricultural production. These results contradict Ahluwalia's earlier conclusions, even though they are themselves based on essentially the same data set.     

From collectives to markets: Restructured agriculture‐industry linkages in rural China: Some micro‐level evidence

The article attempts to put together micro‐evidence for constructing an initial sketch of the emergent structure of linkages between agriculture and rural industry. It focuses mainly on three aspects : (i) the transfer of land from peasants to industrial and other enterprises, (ii) mechanisms and practices for absorbing peasant labour into the rural non‐farm sector, especially in the form of wage labour, and (iii) the forms and relative dimensions of various direct and indirect financial flows between rural enterprises and the agricultural sector. The article also offers some observations concerning the likely implications of the restructuring of rural economic relationships for rural (and agricultural) accumulation, for the efficiency of resource use, for equity and welfare in the rural sector, and for social processes in the countryside. The article provides a comparative perspective, whereby the post‐reform forms, pattern and nature of rural agriculture‐industry linkages are set against the lapsed context of the rural people's commune.