The Anomalous Nature of Development Success: A case study from China
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development. Copyright © 2002 Society for International Development. SAGE Publications (London, Thousand Oaks, CA and New Delhi), 1011-6370 (200209) 45:3; 76–80; 027172. NB When citing this article please use both volume and issue numbers.
Local/Global Encounters
The Anomalous Nature of Development Success: A case study from China SETH COOK AND HUILAN WEI
ABSTRACT Seth Cook and Huilan Wei examine a successful rainwater harvesting project in northwest China. They argue that while the project is an anomaly in its success, it holds many lessons for how development projects can be conducted more effectively. In order to be sustainable, the authors contend that development projects should first try to guarantee peasant subsistence; build upon indigenous techniques and knowledge; focus on pressing but frequently overlooked problems that people in developing countries face in everyday life; and limit projects to tinkering with what already exists while eschewing a ‘grand design’ approach. In order to move from a situation where successful projects are the exception, to one where they are the rule, it requires fundamental re-thinking of the approach that development agencies take to projects. KEYWORDS appropriate technology; cash crops; Gansu province; irrigation; local initiatives; rainwater harvesting; rural development
Introduction The record of development projects in the Third World is bleak. The development literature is replete with examples of failed and often disastrous projects, such as large dams (Bunyard, 1997; Goldsmith and Hildyard, 1984; Jing, 1999; McCully, 1996); water supply development (Cleaver, 1995; Wilson, 1995); transmigration schemes (Hancock, 1997); resettlement and cattle ranching in the Amazon (Bunker, 1985; Parayil and Tong, 1998; Wood and Schmink, 1993), rangeland enclosures (Galaty, 1994; Peters, 1994; Williams, 1996); and sedentarization of pastoralists (Fratkin, 1997; Khazanov, 1994). There are very few examples of successful projects in the literature, and those few tend to be small, localized, relatively unknown and therefore difficult to verify (e.g. Cullis and Pacey, 1992; Reid et al., 1988; Tull et al., 1987; Uphoff et al., 1998). The one well-known example is that of the Grameen Bank in Bangladesh, and even that model has been subject to critique (Rahman, 1999).
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Cook & Huilan: The Anomalous Nature of Development Success The literature indicates that successful projects are rare, but this case study demonstrates that they are possible.1 By all accounts – local, academic and official, as well as our own observations – the dissemination of rainwater harvesting has been quite successful in solving water shortages in semi-arid areas of Gansu province in northwest China, particularly in its household applications. It has basically solved the drinking water problems of over a million people in semi-arid, rural areas.2 This is a major achievement, and has led to a significant improvement in the living standards of rura
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