“Development” has become a magic word throughout Africa in this decade. And, in a great rush disturbingly reminiscent of the early days of European colonialism, national and foreign agencies are scrambling for a role in this or that project. “Consultant” and “management” offices are appearing in former storefronts in many of the larger cities; these, for a fee, will magically produce plans for any conceivable development scheme. (In 1976 I saw one thick and lavishly bound and illustrated plan for a new industrial town produced by one such firm for a project in a rural area in Nigeria; the volume envisioned in minute detail a plan for living, and for dying—several pages were devoted to plans for the town cemetery, even listing the projected costs of variously located and appointed burial plots!) A great many are playing the development game. The overall result is something like a Hydra, but the heads of the Development serpent often seem to grow randomly and independently of each other. “Development” has become a magic word, but like all things magical, no one is quite certain how it works.

Projects are being undertaken and completed, to be sure, and many of them successfully. But nearly all of them are executed quite rapidly, if not precipitously; time, after all, is money. And in the process, people are being affected.

Development problems, to paraphrase Lerner (1958: viii), are people problems, and this is the level at which social scientists should be able to play a role. From our training in social and cultural systems we think we are uniquely equipped to assess the social impact and implications of projects which seem likely to precipitate rapid social change. But social scientists, even those with extensive African field experience, most often play minor roles in African development. Why?