Currently both the practices and the theories of rural development in Uganda, Kenya, Tanzania, and Zambia put special emphasis on ‘the human factor.’ Conceptualisations of this quality vary detail but there are several common characteristics. Usually singled Out for their special causal significance are social relations, cultural values, and ‘types’ of individual personal qualities.
In the most general terms there are many similarities between this approach to rural development in Africa and the ‘human relations’ and ‘scientific management’ philosophy of industrial and urban development in Europe and North America.
But comparisons across such wide historical and technological gulfs
are apt to be misleading, And the present concern with rural development in at least the Eastern region of Africa must be seen against the background, not merely of functional situations, but of a whole realm of new opportunities for material and institutional changes following uhuru and continuing trends of politicisation of the state and ideology-building.
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IDS Bulletin 1.3