Community Development
between Self Help
Ideology and Radical
Practice
Definition
(Radical) Community Development:is
commited to the role of community work
in achieving transformative change for
social and environmental justice, and
develops analysis and practice which
move beyond symptoms to the root
causes of opression (Margret Ledwith).
Essential elements of CD:
- Empowerment
- Participation
Definition (Garry Craig)
The key purpose of CD is to collectively
bring about social change and social justice
by working with communities to:
- Identify their needs, opportunities, rights
and responsibilities;
- Plan, organise and take action;
- Evaluate the effectiveness and impact of
the action all in ways which challenge
oppression and tackle inequalities.’
CD (Garry Craig)
- Community development also
works with public authorities,
services and agencies, to enable
them better to understand, engage
with and respond to communities.
- A fuller definition would add that
community development also works
with public agencies to increase
their ability to strengthen, engage
with, respond to and work jointly
with communities.
Empowerment
- a process through which individuals, as
well as local groups and communities,
identify and shape their lives and the kind
of society in which they live.
- can be experienced on an individual level
or in terms of the household, local
groups, community and a larger
- it means that people are able to organise
and influence change on the basis of their
access to knowledge, to political
processes and to financial, social and
natural resources (Guijt and Shah)
- the consequence of critical consciousness
(Freire, M.Ledwith)
Participation
Participation as means used in order to
accomplish the goals of a project more
efficiently, effectively or cheaply and
participation as an end – where the
community or group sets up a process
to control its own development.
Participation in setting the agenda,
identifying and defining problems,
finding solutions, planning
Brief history of CD (Midgley and
Livermore)
-CD – distinctive form of community
practice that emerged in the Global
South in the mid decades of the XX th
century in the context of European
Colonialism
- the term CD – invented by the British
government in the 1950s to connote
small scale development programmes
that combined local labor with
government resources
- CD shaped by modernisation theory
Brief history of CD (Midgley and
Livermore)
- The end of the 60s, beginning of the 70s witness
a radicalisation of CD
- critiques of the use of CD as a means to secure
people's support during elections and for getting
cheap labour
- Radicalisation of CD under the influence of
dependistas (Dependency theory), liberation
theology, Paulo Freire's (1972) conscientisation
theory
- the 1980s the rise of the political right incorporation of neoliberal orthodoxy into CD
- Individual self reliance and self help, people
liberated from the oppressive influence of the
state and empowered to realise their full potential
CD in Romania
• CD has arrived in Eastern Europe at the
beginning of the 90’s when CD discourses
and practices were dominated by
neoliberalism
• International development agencies and
programmes (World Bank& IMF, USAID,
UNDP, SIDA, CIDA) championing CD
• Blueprints transferred from different
developing countries to Romania
• Mainstreaming and instrumentalisation of CD
and participation.
• Consequences of mainstreaming CD: striping
it off its core values such as empowerment
and social justice; depoliticisation;
instrumentalisation of participation
CD in Romania
In Romania CD was introduced by different
international donors with certain discourses
attached
Project approach to CD
Fragmented community of CD practitioners
3 different types of programmes within the area
of CD:
Rural Development (Romanian Social
Development Fund – IMF, WB, Government,
National Rural Development Programme
(WB)) training independent facilitators to work
in different communiyties – outcome oriented
CD in Romania
- Programmes aiming to bridge education
and community development –
relationship between schools and
communities (mainly run by and through
schools and school inspectorates) and the
integration of Roma students in schools
and communities
- Programmes aiming to stimulate civic
initiatives, building up community groups
or community based organisations (CBOs)
– mainly implemented by NGOs
Changed meanings
The embracing of participation by the
mainstream development and the uncritical
use of it led to the association of
participation with a large variety of
meanings and to the assumption that
anything called participatory is ‘good’ and
‘empowering’
The project approach to participation very
much concerned with getting the techniques
right fails to understand the realities of the
poor people beyond the project, and the
mechanisms through which social change
can be achieved.
Changed meanings
A shift away in empowerment from a real
empowerment focus to one which views
empowerment more as ‘management of power
when in the hands of the powerful’.
A romanticised vision of community, as a
homogeneous social group whose members
would recognise their shared interests and
work together harmoniously for the common
good
A need for clear administrative arrangements idea of a homogeneous social entity in order to
deliver fast services and goods
CD in other contexts
• Belgium and France – states and NGOs
(heavily financed by the state) in the
driving seat of CD and participation.
Private companies and firms as
technicians of participation.
• Communities engagement/involvement
rather than CD;engagement in tasks
assigned by the local government.
• Communities have become more and
more incorporated into government
agendas, accepting resposnibility for their
own situations, and legitimating through
their presence decisions made by others.
Current trends
•
•
•
•
The rhetoric of participation has become a
mainstay of policy documents and political
speeches from the UN to local councils
Ad hoc alliance of market research
corporations, foundations and other
organisations with infleunce on governments
have presented themselves as cutting edge
practitioners and promoters of best practice in
participation.
They have worked with policy makers to
develop and validate schemes that promise a
voice to citizens, yet which ignore the rich
traditions of social justice movements
Invited spaces of participation – citizens are
invited for a short while by local public
authorities to have a say on specific issues
Questions
Group 1
How is it possible to be both in and
against the state? - Agenda setting
rather responding to others' agenda
Group 2
Is the CD sector capable of developing
coherence and impart its own
agenda? Can it develop
coalitions/alliances – the critical mass
to influence change?
References
Ledwith, Margret. Community Development:
A Critical Approach, Policy Press 2005
Guijt, Irene and Meera Kaul Shah. The
Myth of Community: Gender Issues in
Participatory Development, ITDG
Publishing, 1998
Weil, Marie. The Handbook of Community
Practice, Sage Publications, Inc, 2004