The Nature of Development Planning
Economic planningmay be described as a deliberate governmental attempt
to coordinate economic decision making over the long run and to influence,
direct, and in some cases even control the level and growth of a nation’s prin-cipal economic variables (income, consumption, employment, investment,
saving, exports, imports, etc.) to achieve a predetermined set of development
objectives.
2
Aneconomic planis simply a specific set of quantitative economic
targets to be reached in a given period of time, with a stated strategy for
achieving those targets. Economic plans may be comprehensive or partial. A
comprehensive plansets its targets to cover all major aspects of the national
economy. Apartial plancovers only a part of the national economy—industry,
agriculture, the public sector, the foreign sector, and so forth. Finally, the
planning processitself can be described as an exercise in which a government
first chooses social objectives, then sets various targets, and finally organizes a
framework for implementing, coordinating, and monitoring a development
plan.
3
Proponents of economic planning for developing countries argued that
the uncontrolled market economy can, and often does, subject these nations
to economic dualism, unstable markets, low investment in key sectors, and
low levels of employment. In particular, they claimed that the market econ-omy is not geared to the principal operational task of poor countries: mobi-lizing limited resources in a way that will bring about the structural change
necessary to stimulate a sustained and balanced growth of the entire econ-omy. Planning came to be accepted, therefore, as an essential and pivotal
means of guiding and accelerating economic growth in almost all developing
countries.