Planning and Agricultural Policy in Iran. Program Effects and Indirect Effects

Abstract

It is often said that national economic plans are worth the paper they are written on, because the plans are not implemented, or else implementation bears little relation to what the plans call for. This way of evaluating the success of planning efforts-comparing the actual with the planned pattern of accomplishment and expenditure-is common. The general failure of planning endeavors to meet this criterion accounts for much of the current disappointment with national economic planning. An alternative view, which is the thesis of this article, is that the activity of planning may generate benefits which do not depend wholly on what becomes of the plan and which may persist even though the plan is drastically modified or even abandoned. An examination of economic development in Iran four years after the current development plan started indicates enough support for this viewpoint to soften the gloomy judgments so often pronounced on the Iranian planning effort. This article discusses evidence for this thesis drawn from the agriculture sector. Its retroactive appraisal hopefully will serve to improve understanding of national planning as a development tool in open societies and of the criteria for judging the effectiveness of technical assistance.1 There are two main forms which the potential effects of planning may take. One is the straightforward impact of planning on subsequent economic development activities carried out in accord (or more or less so) with the plan itself. This may be termed the program effect. The other is more difficult to define but may be more important, especially during the early years of a country's planning experience. It includes a bundle of humanresource improvements which lead to better policy-making for economic development. These may include a better recognition of development problems throughout the government, greater participation in policy-making by qualified technicians, and a spreading comprehension of the planning process throughout the society. These benefits may be termed effects.2 Assessment of indirect effects is tricky, since evidence is often contradictory and conclusions unavoidably subjective. The case of