·The act of approval with which the preparation stage ends is not the final stare in planning. The most serious difficulties arise in· implementing the plan. In considering them, a distinction must -be made between administrative factors and political or technical factors.
1 - Political factors
These are naturally the most important. In some cases, planning has be.en undertalçen to provide a basis for the use of foreign aid. In this case, the plan is designed from a technical point of view by the preparation .of. projects for which fin:ancial aid may be forthcoming rather than as a tool of development policy based on internai activity.
The mobilization of effort for the purposes of the plan is based on an assumption of poli tical continui ty, which does not depend merely on governmental stability. During the execution period, internai or external pressure aimed at altering the targets or the decisions related to the application of projects is inevitable. Plans are drawn up _on the basis of a list of priorities which benefit sorne objectives through sacrificing other possible choices and lihich benefi t sorne interests to the detriment of ethers. The approval procedure does not lead to the final disappearance of this kind of opposition, which extends itself in efforts to bring back into question the decisions taken or to carry out discarded projects independently of the plan.
Furthermore, plans are usually based on optimistic bypotheses, e.g.
the stabili ty (at any event re la ti ve) of priees and waé_;es, regular expansion of export trade, foreign aid, public revenue and public and private investment. Therefore, it is not possible for every eventuality to be anticipated in planning, so that unforeseen events may very often re-open the whole question of priorities.
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-Foreign aid and foreign investment projects often have a similar effect when ne1>1 proposais are made during the period of execution.
Finally, the plan does not include every aspect of economie and financial policy, and short-term exigencies which may call for urgent measures for carrying out the plan may have been overlooked. The desire to balance·· the budget or to main tain a positive balance of foreign
exchanges may resul t in steps being taken which are in compati ble wi th long-tarrn development targets. A planning policy must be .closely linked with the policies referring to man-power, the budget, credit and taxation, all of which nust rest on continuity in governmental poliqy.
These political aspects of plan execution.may be studied on .the basis of clearly-defined standards:
the measurement of the internal mobilizatipn of resouroes,.
botha priori (the ration of internai public and private investment to the anticipated amount of foreign resources) and a posteriori (according to the results noted);.
the extent of actual "extra-plan" investments, bath domestic and foreign;
the extent to which short-term and long-term economie and financial polioies concur or diverge.
It is possible to go beyond this descriptive survey by considering the dèployment of forces on the political and ·economie levels between the various pÙblic and private organs of decision. vihich interests are in faveur of the plan? Hhich interests are against J.t? How are these opposing interests expressed on the economie and political levels?
To what extent do government~l decisions take into account planning needs?
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64-2 ~ Technical factors
Technical difficulties may also crop up during execution.
The plan may turn out defective because of the lack or inaccuracy of data; because the methode used have not been adjusted to local conditions, e.g. rash extrapol-ations, the use of forecasts based on unchecked prnpa- . gation mechanisms or techn{cal relationships; because there are contradictions betvTeen the tar3ets forecast and the means of execution (in credits, products and staff).
The technical preparation of projects may also have been inadequate.
There is no e"''-ordination for the technical execution of projects, e.g. machinery is delivered before the factory has been built and, by the time it is ready, the machinery has deteriorated through lack of maintenance.
The available resources may turn out lower than anticipatèd, This is frequently the case in the developing eountries, which have to con tend i'Ti th a wide range of fluctuation in the priees for thei·r experts j a fall in priees resul ts in a loss of revenue, and consoquently in a eut in their
budgets. Furthermore, foreign aid may be eut for reasons over whi·ch the ben~ficiary has no control.
3 Administrative factors
Even when the poli ti cal will to execute· the plan exista and the technieal problems have been solved satisfactorily, the administration may be an obstacle to implementation:
because the plan does not fit in with administrative activity and the steps for its execution are not taken. This is due
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65-to the lack of communication between the conceiving organ and the executive organe and to the fact that the vàrious responsibilities have been too vaguely defined;
because the plan arouses resistance on the part of adminis-trations which prefer to carry out their ow.n specifie pro-jects without bringing them into lina with the general policy or directives involved in the plan. Specialization tends to reinforce the rigidly watertight independance of the. various administrative divisions and thus handicap the co-ordination required for the implementation of the plan.
tnother snag affecting the execution of planning is the shortage 9f trained.staff in the services responsible.
In con:sidering the reasons for the adminstrative obstacles, a dis-tinction must also be made between the various problems arising out of the execution ·of the plan. There is no doubt that the executi'>ll stage is ,to a· large extent candi tioned by the preparation staa:se preceding
i~:t, ~or .a realistic plan in which the Ümi tati on of the material and human resources actually available has been taken into·account bas more chance of being achieved. The same is true if the planning organ bas taken the precaution of obtaining the lvidest possible participation of the various· branches of the àdminstration and of the private sector.
Howèver·~ problems of execution arise even in the case of a perfect plan •. The st~ps conditioning the execution of the plan will be considered distinct .from the implementation of the various programmes contained. .