Contenu du sommaire : L'administration rurale.

Agricultural cooperation in France After recalling the origin of the cooperative movement and defining the legal status of agricultural cooperative societies, the author analyses successively the functioning of such a society, the relation between the agricultural cooperative societies and the State and, finally, the requirements for the establishment of a cooperative society. By indicating that peasants join forces no longer for the same reasons as initially, the author believes that it is essential at this stage to develop a cooperative spirit among the members. The targets of the French agricultural cooperative movement are hence above ail to renew the cooperative commitment and to confirm the principle of solidarity between the branches of coopération and ail cooperative undertakings.

Rural administration The authors analyse the place and rôle of administration in rural areas. They survey administration of rural space, administration and agriculture, administration and rural development. Even though the specificity of administration for rural people seems rather more difïicult to circumscribe, it is nevertheless a stifï reality. The final finding is that administrative action is looked for and expected in rural areas.

Administrative and legal arrangements for integrated rural development : present status and future prospects The author analyses the arrangements for integrated development in three countries with different political Systems : Malaysia for the French System, India for the British system and the Philippines, whose type of government represents a spécial case. After defining “integrated rural development” as “a séries of measures meant to translate over the longer term permanently changes into reality in respect of rural areas”, the author spells out the necessary legal and administrative arrangements. The concrete analysis of each case seems to show that a country's political System has little bearing on the efficiency of IRD programmes. The best IRD approach would hence be, according to the author, “an alternative solution to individual endeavours aiming at concentrating simply on food production as an end in itself”.

Participation in public affairs : the senegalese rural communities The paper is concerned with the 1972 reform which substantially changes the territorial organization in Senegal. This reform is meant to cover, in terms of decentralization, the whole of the national territory, i.e. in particular to extend to 70 p.c. of population not covered so far, and to strengthen through diversification participation of the rural population in the management of public afïairs. In view of the difficulties for local people to look after actual decentralized local governmental bodies, the new organization has been brought about through a process of half decentralization to which the rural community has been particularly instrumental.

Can rural administration in Africa become a tool for true development ? The African civil services in rural areas encounter a series of problems when focussing on developmental tasks since they tend to copy European models. Actual functions of civil servants in rural areas in terms of both administration and économie and social aspects, the shaping up of genuine “regal functions” on account of the enormous gap separating, in économie, cultural, and psychological terms, rural populations and the civil service, and, as a resuit, the difficulty of establishing a true dialogue between both worlds, the paucity of means earmarked for rural development, ail these explain the Administration's disfunctioning in the light of rural development. The only way to get out of this predicament would be to adopt a new strategy for rural development focussing on a restitution or dévolution of decision-making to the rural people and redefining the tasks of civil servants, whereby important changes would hâve to be introduced into the conditions of recruitment, training, and career development of the latter.