NEEDS and National Development Planning

One of the most influential proponents of national planning for developing countries after the Second World War was the Polish economist Paul Rosenstein-Rodan. Why should states engage in economic planning? Rosenstein- Rodan (1963, 123) explains:

The free and unimpeded mechanism of market forces would lead to a maximum national income according to the liberal classical doctrine. Any conscious deliberate active economic policy designed to influence the amount and the composition of investment could not, according to this school, raise national income in the long run. It is our contention that the opposite is true, that an economic policy designed to influence the amount and composition of investment can raise the rate of economic growth and increase national income. In addition, it can also aim at realizing other desirable social objectives which market forces alone—even according to liberal doctrine— could not achieve.

If economic planning provides the answer for developing countries, how come Nigeria failed to see many of the promised benefits? Is this an indictment of planning itself? Or are the shortcomings unique to Nigeria’s institutional arrangements?

The latter seems to be a more appropriate answer than the former. As Wade (1989) describes, economic planning was central to the success of the post-war East Asian economies. Clear economic objectives matched with a strong state that will go as far as needed to discipline the private sector is a recipe for grand economic transformation. Also, as Chang (2002) details, developing countries during the pre-1980s planning era grew much faster than the post-1980s when developing plans worldwide were abandoned.

Analyzing the Chilean economy under Allende, Rosenstein-Rodan (1974) designates the poor economic outcomes of the time as a result of the lack of smart, creative planning, not because of planning itself. (For how the economic elites played a decisive role in destabilizing the economy during the Allende government see Girardi and Bowels, 2017).

Ikeanyibe (2009) notes though the past development plans were unsuccessful due to a variety of reasons such as corruption, unpreparedness, and lack of interest, NEEDS failed at sustained development because it was more interested in promoting a model of development that satisfied the desires of the international financial institutions and western developed economies rather than serve the interest of the Nigerian people.

As stated in the previous section, Ugwu (2012) recommends that the Nigerian state should be so committed to national development, that in doing so the state becomes the prime instigator for inclusive economic prosperity. Yes, development planning is still very much practical for Nigeria’s future if government officials are willing to apply it in a way that puts poverty reduction and structural transformation at the forefront. Planning can happen without the mass corruption and carelessness of the past plans, and without the rigid ideology that confined foreign imposed policies such as the structural adjustment programs.

Vision 2020, Nigeria’s current development initiative, has the admirable goals of a life expectancy of seventy years, a 40% contribution of manufacturing to GDP, among other things (Ibietan, et al. 2013). Is Nigeria currently capable of meeting these goals? Likely not. Though, sometime in the future, Nigeria may one day have the plan-focused developmental state that its people deserve.