IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/mth/ijssr8/v4y2016i1p44-60.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Urban Bias, Economic Resource Allocation and National Development Planning in Botswana

Author

Listed:
  • Latang Sechele

Abstract

Michael Lipton formulated a theory of urban bias to account for the poverty and inequalities that rack many developing countries today. The theory proposes that development planning in less developed countries is biased against rural areas in that most of the economic resources are allocated to the urban areas than the rural ones making the poor to get poorer. This article seeks to apply the theory to Botswana’s development planning process. Data was obtained from the analysis of the first nine out of the ten national development plans published since independence which clearly show a distinction in economic resource allocations between rural and urban areas. The findings support the urban bias thesis and suggest its retention in studies of economic development with modifications to incorporate elite bias to account for intra-rural and intra-urban social inequalities. It also proposes diversification into non-agricultural activities as a strategy for rural development in drought prone contexts.

Suggested Citation

  • Latang Sechele, 2016. "Urban Bias, Economic Resource Allocation and National Development Planning in Botswana," International Journal of Social Science Research, Macrothink Institute, vol. 4(1), pages 44-60, March.
    • Handle: RePEc:mth:ijssr8:v:4:y:2016:i:1:p:44-60
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.macrothink.org/journal/index.php/ijssr/article/view/8536/7177
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: http://www.macrothink.org/journal/index.php/ijssr/article/view/8536
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Griffin, Keith & Khan, Azizur Rahman, 1978. "Poverty in the third world: Ugly facts and fancy models," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 6(3), pages 295-304, March.
    2. Paine, Suzanne, 1978. "Some reflections on the presence of `rural' or of `urban bias' in China's development policies 1949-1976," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 6(5), pages 693-707, May.
    3. Jacqueline S. Solway, 1994. "Drought as a Revelatory Crisis: An Exploration of Shifting Entitlements and Hierarchies in the Kalahari, Botswana," Development and Change, International Institute of Social Studies, vol. 25(3), pages 471-495, July.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Joseph Holler & Quinn Bernier & J. Timmons Roberts & Stacy-ann Robinson, 2020. "Transformational Adaptation in Least Developed Countries: Does Expanded Stakeholder Participation Make a Difference?," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 12(4), pages 1-26, February.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. repec:ilo:ilowps:266866 is not listed on IDEAS
    2. Carlos Ferrán & Ricardo Salim, 2008. "Pragmatic fragility: Do information technologies lessen or adapt to the structural deficiencies of developing countries?," Economía, Instituto de Investigaciones Económicas y Sociales (IIES). Facultad de Ciencias Económicas y Sociales. Universidad de Los Andes. Mérida, Venezuela, vol. 33(25), pages 13-45, january-j.
    3. T Banerjee & S Schenk, 1984. "Lower Order Cities and National Urbanization Policies: China and India," Environment and Planning A, , vol. 16(4), pages 487-512, April.
    4. Oberai, A. S., 1989. "Problems of urbanisation and growth of large cities in developing countries: a conceptual framework for policy analysis," ILO Working Papers 992668663402676, International Labour Organization.

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:mth:ijssr8:v:4:y:2016:i:1:p:44-60. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Technical Support Office (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.macrothink.org/journal/index.php/ijssr .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.