Institute of Development Studies

Despite current ideological and philosophical objections to planning, it survives in new forms, generating Policy Framework Papers, Poverty Assessments and Food Security Strategies. The route these follow is littered with organisational elephant traps; but the traps can be avoided by learning the lessons of past experiments with multi-disciplinary or multi-sectoral planning. The key is to establish a task culture, characterised by co-operative goal definition, a high degree of participation, supportive leadership, and strong integration of planning and implementation.