Structure

Participatory Governance 
Development administration in most advanced countries of the West is the primary 
responsibility of local government institutions in the urban as well as the rural 
levels. In developing countries like India, Pakistan, Bangladesh and Sri Lanka, the 
shadow of their colonial heritage still looms large. Even decades of independence 
have failed to throw up truly autonomous structure of governance that enjoys 
genuine power over programme-formulation and implementation. Afflicted with 
the scarcity of resources, the local self-governing institutions have failed to 
dominate the development process in most developing countries. Conversely, the 
developed countries have accorded respectful status to their decentralised 
governance bodies and have vested them with adequate resources and powers to 
enable them to initiate, guide and regulate the process of socio-economic 
development in their respective institutions. 
Local government institutions in Great Britain, particularly counties, have been 
able to transform the urban as well as the rural jurisdictions. Regional Economic 
Councils and Prefects have enjoyed enormous powers in France. Russia was 
known for its strong local government bodies, while the American regional and 
local organisations enjoy massive authority in most segments of development, 
and more particularly education. 
There is a truly participatory democracy in most Western nations. This is the 
upshot of long healthy traditions of grass-roots democracy. It has made 
development administration in these nations people-centred and responsive.
Indicative Planning 
Starting with France which adopted the system of indicative planning in 1946 in a 
structured manner, most other developed countries have, at one time or the other, 
created institutions of planning for giving direction to their socio-economic 
development. Unlike the practice in developing countries, these developed nations 
have not adopted “detailed” or intensive planning. Their planning has been an 
instrument of indicating the direction of growth and of providing guidelines to the 
private sector. The objective of the exercise is to integrate the efforts of the 
government and the private sector in the areas of socio-economic change. 

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