Multicriteria Analysis for Development Planning

Nijkamp, P. & Voogd, H. (1983). Multicriteria Analysis for Development Planning. IIASA Collaborative Paper. IIASA, Laxenburg, Austria: CP-83-005

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Abstract

A particularly vexing methodological difficulty in the design and evaluation of planning proposals concerns the way in which choices are made. Clearly, the selection of the "best" action from several alternatives, each of which will have different outcomes or consequences, is very subjective. This problem grows in importance if the actions under consideration will ultimately determine the welfare and wellbeing of a region, as is often the case in development planning. Many planning activities in developing countries are concerned with the construction of new infrastructure, rather than the improvement of an existing regime more typical of developed countries. Hence, methods and techniques which facilitate the treatment of choice or classification problems can be of tremendous importance in development planning.

One important subset of such tools is that composed of approaches which use a multidimensional set of sometimes conflicting criteria or objectives to structure and solve a choice or classification problem. These are usually called multi-criteria methods. The purpose of this paper is to assess various multicriteria approaches in terms of their potential use in development planning.

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