Organisational Change

Abstract

The rural development agenda outlined in the previous eight chapters indicates that the late 1990s and early twentieth century are and will be an era of substantial change in institutional arrangement and organisational policies. It is an era for radical decisions. One of the skills rural development managers will need is that of promoting and managing organisational change. This is true in all agencies — donors, governments, parastatals, NGOs and the private sector. In donors, governments and the private sectors, organisational change appropriate to the new paradigm in rural development will be heavily constrained by other overriding political and organisational objectives. Part of the challenge will be to influence these wider organisations to change their practices insofar as they have an impact on rural development. Given the unbundling which is now characteristic of public sector reform, this should not prove impossible.