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ADUKI:
Adam Fforde and Associates Pty Ltd
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Research output, mainly
related to Vietnam (Academic and Consultancy)
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- Edmund J. Malesky, Ph.D. (Assistant Professor, Graduate School of International Relations and Pacific Studies, University of California, San Diego
"You think that outward-oriented policies produce better results than import-substitution policies, or that beneficiaries' participation in project design makes for better project performance? Think again. Adam Fforde's book unpacks these and other familiar development prescriptions to reveal the implicit assumptions about agency, intentionality, and causality behind the whole development "industry". Drawing on sources from World Bank research reports, to Japanese and Vietnamese economists, to Marx and Cardinal Newman, and on to philosophers of science, the book provides a highly original rethinking of what is being said and done in the name of "development".
- Robert Wade, Professor of Political Economy, London School of Economics and winner of Leontief Prize in Economics, 2008
"Coping with Facts is an unorthodox book by a renowned scholar of development studies, Adam Fforde. He benefits from his 30 years of experience as a consultant in official development aid projects, mostly in Vietnam.
Adam Fforde labels his own book an “extended essay on the nature of development thinking and development policy”. It is unorthodox because it is based on his perception that dominant approaches of national economy and development studies fail to take into account the complexities of current realities (“coping with facts”, in his words). Consequently, he fiercely argues against the paradigm that development is a predictable process with knowable solutions, and he favours instead a sceptical stance to deal with comparisons of development policy. In addition, he believes that reality is far more varied than it appears with single correct rationalities of development theories.
To prove that, he builds up his arguments based on a bundle of selected quotes both by other scholars and from his own previous work, such as when he uses the term “homogeneity assumption” (2005) or when he claims that policy does not necessarily matter in analysing the transitional economic process in the case of Vietnam (De Vylder and Fforde 1996).
Within the six chapters of Part I, “The Problem of Development”, he builds up a solid scientific basis for his argumentation. ... In the following chapters, he thoroughly smashes almost all aspects of policy ideology. ...
All in all, Adam Fforde’s vibrant argumentation and unorthodoxy in thinking have to be very positively appraised. He certainly has an important agenda and a deeply rooted distrust in the power of policy, the belief in which he labels “policy fetishism” on several occasions. In this way, Adam Fforde’s book is a very personal synthesis. It is a provocative publication, which surely enriches the debate in the field of development studies."
- Waibel, Michael (2011), Review: Adam Fforde: Coping with Facts: A Skeptic’s Guide to the Problem of Development, in: Journal of Current Southeast Asian Affairs, 30, 1, 125-128.
"Fforde’s concluding argument is that the gross misconception that picking the right policy is the key to development needs to be overturned, since development is not a ‘‘predictable process with knowable solutions.’’ The aim of his book is thus to present ‘‘coping strategies’’ for the reader to use, to help them make sense of this jumbled mess concerning developmental theory, case studies, policies, and proposed solutions to the problem of development.
Overall Fforde’s book is a refreshing read, tearing down the traditional assumptions of developmental theory, providing a novel approach to an age old problem. This book stands in stark contrast to other books in the development field due to its conceiving of development not as a standard problem with a knowable solution. For anyone disenchanted with current development thinking, or for students studying developmental theory, this interesting book breaks away from the orthodox conceptions of development that we so often hear. Thus I recommend this book either as an undergraduate text to be read alongside other more traditional texts, or as a graduate text focusing on its criticism of contemporary development thinking. Overall Fforde should be applauded for his writing of a book that so goes against the grain; he draws out crucial implications for development thinking, that all too often are ignored or rejected as nonacademic."
- Roger Chao, Agric Hum Values 24 Dec 2010 DOI 10.1007/s10460-010-9302-x
Key words: Vietnam newsletter, Vietnam economy, Vietnam development, Vietnam aid, Vietnam economic growth, Vietnam trade, Vietnam SMEs, Vietnam rural, Vietnam, economy, development