Center Aids Countries On Economic Problem

A $750,000 Ford grant will finance the establishment of a development advisory service within Harvard's center for international affairs to assist countries on problems of economic development.

The center will develop and maintain a small corps of experienced professionals on a career basis, who will be rotated between field assignments and the University. In the field these advisors will work as fully integrated members of the staff of the government or institution requesting their services.

The professionals will be the nucleus of projects which will normally include a larger number of persons recruited to serve for limited periods. The aim of these groups will be to "work themselves out of a job" as soon as possible, by helping countries to set up their own planning agencies, economic staffs, and research and training institutes.

The service will have three purposes: to fill critical needs of foreign governments and institutions concerned with economic development, to increase the supply of trained professionals who have first-hand experience with the problems of developing nations, and to enrich the teaching and research conducted at Harvard on the subject of economic development.

On the initiative of Edward S. Mason, Lamont University Professor, the University established in 1954 a group of advisors to the government of Pakistan, and in 1954 it provided a similar group to the government of Iran under short-term contracts. The knowledge and documentation provided by these advisors made it possible to undertake major research projects in the two countries and to expand teaching in the field of economic development. The proven usefulness of these projects contributed to the University's decision to establish the development of advisory service.

The director of the development advisory service will be Raymond Vernon, professor of International Trade and Investments in the Harvard Business School. Custav F. Papanek has been named deputy director.