Is integrated rural development sustainable? An investigation of a process-oriented approach in Moneragala, Sri Lanka

This research examines the sustainability question of a process approach to rural development with an empirical focus on the Moneragala District, Sri Lanka. The Integrated Rural Development (IRD) approach, popular in the mid 1970s, was discarded a decade later by major funding agencies as an unsustainable strategy for rural development. Those who criticized the IRD had not made any distinction between its approaches--the blueprint and process versions--to planning and management. This study is based on the major premise that a process strategy helped to sustain IRD propositions in contrast to its counterpart blueprint approach to planning.;The concept of sustainability is defined in this study in terms of behavioral changes of actors--local bureaucrats, local politicians, and small entrepreneurs--responsible for rural development decision making. The evaluations of IRDs and their sustainability which were based merely on positivist philosophy failed to capture the attitudinal and behavioral changes of actors resulted from the influence of the process form of integrated rural development.;This study is grounded in Moneragala a poor and remote district in Sri Lanka which experienced more than a decade of process IRD influence. It brings empirical evidence to show the behavioral changes of actors, responsible for rural development decisions at local levels. Some of the propositions of IRD have been gradually absorbed by these actors as revealed from their knowledge levels, attitudes, and practices. These changes would contribute to sustain IRD propositions for some time to come. This finding can be generalized only if certain conditions were met as in Sri Lanka and in Moneragala. The practice of those propositions would be constrained by a number of conditions such as poverty status, degree of devolution, availability of resources to practice a process type planning approach, and the nature and the origins of the bureaucracy and the local politicians. The study used a hybrid of quantitative and qualitative research methodologies. Nevertheless, its analysis heavily depended on experiential knowledge of sericulture farmers, local officers, and local politicians. The data for the study was collected using structured as well as unstructured interview methods.