Institute for Development Studies, University of Nairobi

This paper proposes an approach to the analysis of rural development problems for voluntary development agencies based on four questions: 1. Is there really a problem? 2. What are the causes of the problem? 3. Why has the problem not been solved? 4. What can we do to assist in producing a solution? The paper is primarily concerned with the first two questions. Part I looks at the case for using nutritional status as an indicator of problems, and suggests that at present in East Africa the removal of malnutrition should be the paramount objective of voluntary agencies. The problem of obtaining and interpreting nutritional measurements are then discussed. Part II is concerned with finding the causes of malnutrition. After some general considerations, a procedure is outlined by which the relevance of different agricultural, economic and social factors to the malnutrition problem can be determined.