element, there were also COOP elements (more so than in Colonial medicine, probably) and
payment (either in kind or cash) was important in securing some services. In fact, Illiffe
describes indigenous healers in East Africa as ‘entrepreneurial, competitive and often
mercenary’, with many refusing to do anything without an initial payment (Illiffe, p11), while
in India, the indigenous medical practitioners mainly worked for payment, many making
substantial sums (Jeffery, p 55).
B. Interventionism from the 1950s to the 1970s
Most countries of the developing world acquired political independence between 1945 and
1960, though, of course, in Latin America it was much earlier. In the developed countries a
quite strongly interventionist economic philosophy prevailed then, due to the successful
planning in the second world war and the Keynesian revolution in economic thought. This
was also the era of apparently thriving socialism in the Russian empire. The interventionist
philosophy resonated with the objectives, politics and philosophy of the newly independent
countries, and of Latin American governments, which had already started to initiate active
industrial policies in reaction to the fall in commodity prices in the 1930s.
For most developing countries at the beginning of the 1950s the overriding reality was a
situation of underdevelopment, characterised by low incomes, a predominantly agrarian
structure with a large subsistence subsector, and heavy dependence on the advanced countries
for all modern inputs. Countries had two related economic objectives: to become
economically as well as politically independent and to raise their incomes to the levels of the
developed countries. Developed countries, too, recognised the need for a new approach to the
former colonial territories. Indeed, already in 1937, the governor of Nigeria announced that
“The exploitation theory is dead ..and the development theory has come to take its place”
(quoted in Cowen and Shenton, p7). In a famous statement President Truman declared that
We must embark on a bold new program for making the benefits of our scientific
advances and industrial progress available for the improvement and growth of
underdeveloped areas. The old imperialism is dead - exploitation for foreign profit has
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