Development is recognised as a major challenge, if not the major challenge, facing us all as we enter the twenty-first century. Yet those who practise development do so in a terrain which has become highly contested and contentious. Allan Kaplan demonstrates that the discipline of the development practitioner is an art which demands imagination, flexibility and the ability to work with ambiguity and contradiction; one which can use guidelines but not rules.

Uniquely, The Development Practitioners’ Handbook views development from the point of view of the individual, the organisation, the community and society, as well as a living process in its own right, and explains where the development practitioner is best placed to pursue his or her work. Allan Kaplan outlines the illusive nature of development itself, in order to deepen and underpin the practice of development and to provide it with foundation and meaning.