The Role of Public Administration: A Global Perspective

From my experience with public administration in my country, Cape Verde, and through readings in the area of development administration, I have found that a distinctive role and specific societal goals are usually ascribed to public administration in developing country. In studying American public administration approaches and operation, I was stuck by the fact that the definition of roles and societal goals for public administration seems not to be a forefront concern in the field. How to do things and achieve efficiency, in a managerial and rational perspective, seemed to draw much more attention than the purpose of doing things. Somehow, the contrast with the concept of development administration seemed too sharp, and I became curious about the reasons for such disparate approaches. Historical, cultural, and environmental differences would probably not be the only explanation for that since the concept of development administration was shaped, in the late 50���s and 60���s, by American authors and institutional aid agencies, and then ���offered��� to developing countries. At the same time, looking to poor results of the successive prescriptions of the development administration movement, I was no sure that such a concept and the framework it establishes was worthwhile. What practical answers and arrangement did they bring to the needs and challenges of public administrations in developing countries? ���

A Luta Contra a Desertifica����o em Cabo Verde

O problema da seca, dos processos de desertifica����o e da fome s��o particularmente acutilantes no arquip��lago de Cabo Verde, onde a irregularidade das chuvas associada ao car��cter insular e ��s caracter��sticas do relevo, muito acentuado nas ilhas com maior potencial agr��cola, constituem desafios avassaladores, que no passado implicavam a morte por fome de percentagens significativas da popula����o. Ap��s as fomes da d��cada de 1940, come��aram a ser implementadas um conjunto de infra-estruturas de combate �� desertifica����o, baseadas na conserva����o do solo e da ��gua, que hoje s��o omnipresentes na paisagem da ilha de Santiago e das ilhas com maior voca����o agr��cola, e que em muito contribuem para que desde ent��o os per��odos de seca n��o tenham degenerado em crises alimentares s��rias. Neste trabalho fazemos o invent��rio das diferentes t��cnicas usadas num esfor��o colectivo que ganhou um f��lego acrescido depois da independ��ncia, e que constitui um dos pilares da sociedade Cabo Verdiana no caminho para o desenvolvimento sustent��vel.