Community Developmentbetween 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

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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

QuestionsGroup 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