The United Nations defines community development as "a process where community members come together to take collective action and generate solutions to common problems."
It is a broad concept, applied to the practices of civic leaders, activists, involved citizens, and professionals to improve various aspects of communities, typically aiming to build stronger and more resilient local communities.
Community development is also understood as a professional discipline, and is defined by the International Association for Community Development as "a practice-based profession and an academic discipline that promotes participative democracy, sustainable development, rights, economic opportunity, equality and social justice, through the organisation, education and empowerment of people within their communities, whether these be of locality, identity or interest, in urban and rural settings".
Community development seeks to empower individuals and groups of people with the skills they need to effect change within their communities. These skills are often created through the formation of social groups working for a common agenda. Community developers must understand both how to work with individuals and how to affect communities' positions within the context of larger
social institutions
Institutions are humanly devised structures of rules and norms that shape and constrain individual behavior. All definitions of institutions generally entail that there is a level of persistence and continuity. Laws, rules, social conventions a ...
.
''Community development'' as a term has taken off widely in anglophone countries, i.e. the
United States
The United States of America (U.S.A. or USA), commonly known as the United States (U.S. or US) or America, is a country primarily located in North America. It consists of 50 states, a federal district, five major unincorporated territorie ...
,
United Kingdom
The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, commonly known as the United Kingdom (UK) or Britain, is a country in Europe, off the north-western coast of the continental mainland. It comprises England, Scotland, Wales and North ...
,
Australia
Australia, officially the Commonwealth of Australia, is a Sovereign state, sovereign country comprising the mainland of the Australia (continent), Australian continent, the island of Tasmania, and numerous List of islands of Australia, sma ...
,
Canada
Canada is a country in North America. Its ten provinces and three territories extend from the Atlantic Ocean to the Pacific Ocean and northward into the Arctic Ocean, covering over , making it the world's second-largest country by tot ...
,
New Zealand
New Zealand ( mi, Aotearoa ) is an island country in the southwestern Pacific Ocean. It consists of two main landmasses—the North Island () and the South Island ()—and over 700 smaller islands. It is the sixth-largest island count ...
, as well as other countries in the
Commonwealth of Nations
The Commonwealth of Nations, simply referred to as the Commonwealth, is a political association of 56 member states, the vast majority of which are former territories of the British Empire. The chief institutions of the organisation are the Co ...
. It is also used in some countries in
Eastern Europe
Eastern Europe is a subregion of the Europe, European continent. As a largely ambiguous term, it has a wide range of geopolitical, geographical, ethnic, cultural, and socio-economic connotations. The vast majority of the region is covered by Russ ...
with active community development associations in
Hungary
Hungary ( hu, Magyarország ) is a landlocked country in Central Europe. Spanning of the Carpathian Basin, it is bordered by Slovakia to the north, Ukraine to the northeast, Romania to the east and southeast, Serbia to the south, Croatia a ...
and
Romania
Romania ( ; ro, România ) is a country located at the crossroads of Central Europe, Central, Eastern Europe, Eastern, and Southeast Europe, Southeastern Europe. It borders Bulgaria to the south, Ukraine to the north, Hungary to the west, S ...
. The ''Community Development Journal'', published by
Oxford University Press
Oxford University Press (OUP) is the university press of the University of Oxford. It is the largest university press in the world, and its printing history dates back to the 1480s. Having been officially granted the legal right to print books ...
, since 1966 has aimed to be the major forum for research and dissemination of international community development theory and practice.
Community development approaches are recognised internationally. These methods and approaches have been acknowledged as significant for local social, economic, cultural, environmental and political development by such organisations as the UN, WHO, OECD, World Bank, Council of Europe and EU. There are a number of institutions of higher education offer community development as an area of study and research such as the
University of Toronto
The University of Toronto (UToronto or U of T) is a public research university in Toronto, Ontario, Canada, located on the grounds that surround Queen's Park. It was founded by royal charter in 1827 as King's College, the first institution ...
,
Leiden University
Leiden University (abbreviated as ''LEI''; nl, Universiteit Leiden) is a Public university, public research university in Leiden, Netherlands. The university was founded as a Protestant university in 1575 by William the Silent, William, Prince o ...
,
SOAS University of London
SOAS University of London (; the School of Oriental and African Studies) is a public research university in London, England, and a member institution of the federal University of London. Founded in 1916, SOAS is located in the Bloomsbury are ...
, and the
Balsillie School of International Affairs
The Balsillie School of International Affairs (BSIA) is a centre for advanced research and teaching on global governance and international public policy, located in Waterloo, Ontario. As one of the largest social sciences initiatives in Canada, t ...
, among others.
Definitions
There are complementary definitions of community development.
The United Nations defines ''community development'' broadly as "a process where community members come together to take collective action and generate solutions to common problems."
and the International Association for Community Development defines it as both a practice based profession and an academic discipline. Following the adoption of the IACD definition in 2016, the association has gone on to produce International Standards for Community Development Practice. The values and ethos that should underpin practice can be expressed as: Commitment to rights, solidarity, democracy, equality, environmental and social justice. The purpose of community development is understood by IACD as being to work with communities to achieve participative democracy, sustainable development, rights, economic opportunity, equality and social justice. This practice is carried out by people in different roles and contexts, including people explicitly called professional
community workers (and people taking on essentially the same role but with a different job title), together with professionals in other occupations ranging from
social work
Social work is an academic discipline and practice-based profession concerned with meeting the basic needs of individuals, families, groups, communities, and society as a whole to enhance their individual and collective well-being. Social work ...
,
adult education
Adult education, distinct from child education, is a practice in which adults engage in systematic and sustained self-educating activities in order to gain new forms of knowledge, skills, attitudes, or values. Merriam, Sharan B. & Brockett, Ralp ...
,
youth work
Youth work is community support activity aimed at older children and adolescents. Depending upon the culture and the community, different services and institutions may exist for this purpose. In the United Kingdom youth work is the process of cre ...
,
health disciplines,
environmental education
Environmental education (EE) refers to organized efforts to teach how natural environments function, and particularly, how human beings can manage behavior and ecosystems to live sustainably. It is a multi-disciplinary field integrating discip ...
,
local economic development
Local Economic Development (LED) is an approach to economic development, of note in the developing world that, as its name implies, places importance on activities in and by cities, districts and regions. Local economic development combines eco ...
, to
urban planning
Urban planning, also known as town planning, city planning, regional planning, or rural planning, is a technical and political process that is focused on the development and design of land use and the built environment, including air, water, ...
,
regeneration
Regeneration may refer to:
Science and technology
* Regeneration (biology), the ability to recreate lost or damaged cells, tissues, organs and limbs
* Regeneration (ecology), the ability of ecosystems to regenerate biomass, using photosynthesis
...
,
architecture
Architecture is the art and technique of designing and building, as distinguished from the skills associated with construction. It is both the process and the product of sketching, conceiving, planning, designing, and constructing building ...
and more who seek to apply community development values and adopt community development methods. Community development practice also encompasses a range of occupational settings and levels from development roles working with communities, through to managerial and strategic community planning roles.
The Community Development Challenge report, which was produced by a working party comprising leading UK organizations in the field including the (now defunct) Community Development Foundation, the (now defunct)
Community Development Exchange
{{No footnotes, date=October 2022
The Community Development Exchange (CDX), was a British not for profit membership organisation for individuals, organisations and networks who work in communities and are involved in community development. CDX wor ...
and the (now defunct) Federation for Community Development Learning defines community development as:
A set of values and practices which plays a special role in overcoming poverty and disadvantage, knitting society together at the grass roots
The Grass Roots are an American rock band that charted frequently between 1965 and 1975. The band was originally the creation of Lou Adler and songwriting duo P. F. Sloan and Steve Barri. In their career, they achieved two gold albums, two go ...
and deepening democracy. There is a community development profession, defined by national occupational standards and a body of theory and experience going back the best part of a century. There are active citizens who use community development techniques on a voluntary basis, and there are also other professions and agencies which use a community development approach or some aspects of it.
Community Development Exchange defines community development as:
both an occupation (such as a community development worker in a local authority) and a way of working with communities. Its key purpose is to build communities based on justice, equality and mutual respect.
Community development involves changing the relationships between ordinary people and people in positions of power, so that everyone can take part in the issues that affect their lives. It starts from the principle that within any community there is a wealth of knowledge and experience which, if used in creative ways, can be channeled into collective action to achieve the communities' desired goals.
Community development practitioners work alongside people in communities to help build relationships with key people and organizations and to identify common concerns. They create opportunities for :the community to learn new skills and, by enabling people to act together, community development practitioners help to foster social inclusion and equality.
Different approaches
There are numerous overlapping approaches to community development. Some focus on the processes, some on the outcomes/ objectives. They include:
*
Community Engagement; focuses on relationships at the core of facilitating "understanding and evaluation, involvement, exchange of information and opinions, about a concept, issue or project, with the aim of building social capital and enhancing social outcomes through decision-making” (p. 173).
*
Women Self-help Group; focusing on the contribution of women in settlement groups.
* Community
capacity building
Capacity building (or capacity development, capacity strengthening) is the improvement in an individual's or organization's facility (or capability) "to produce, perform or deploy". The terms ''capacity building'' and ''capacity development'' ha ...
; focusing on helping communities obtain, strengthen, and maintain the ability to set and achieve their own development objectives.
*
Large Group Capacitation
Large-group capacitation is an adult education and social psychology concept associated with the Brazilian sociologist Clodomir Santos de Morais, and grounded in the "activity" of the individual and the social psychology of the large group.de ...
; an adult education and social psychology approach grounded in the activity of the individual and the social psychology of the large group focusing on large groups of unemployed or semi-employed participants, many of whom with Lower Levels of Literacy (LLLs).
*
Social capital
Social capital is "the networks of relationships among people who live and work in a particular society, enabling that society to function effectively". It involves the effective functioning of social groups through interpersonal relationships ...
formation; focusing on benefits derived from the cooperation between individuals and groups.
*
Nonviolent direct action
Direct action originated as a political activism, activist term for economic and political acts in which the actors use their power (e.g. economic power, economic or physical) to directly reach certain goals of interest, in contrast to those a ...
; when a group of people take action to reveal an existing problem, highlight an alternative, or demonstrate a possible solution to a social issue which is not being addressed through traditional societal institutions (governments, religious organizations or established trade unions) to the satisfaction of the direct action participants.
*
Economic development
In the economics study of the public sector, economic and social development is the process by which the economic well-being and quality of life of a nation, region, local community, or an individual are improved according to targeted goals and o ...
, focusing on the "development" of
developing countries
A developing country is a sovereign state with a lesser developed industrial base and a lower Human Development Index (HDI) relative to other countries. However, this definition is not universally agreed upon. There is also no clear agreem ...
as measured by their economies, although it includes the processes and policies by which a nation improves the economic, political, and social well-being of its people.
*
Community economic development (CED); an alternative to conventional
economic development
In the economics study of the public sector, economic and social development is the process by which the economic well-being and quality of life of a nation, region, local community, or an individual are improved according to targeted goals and o ...
which encourages using local resources in a way that enhances economic outcomes while improving social conditions. For example, CED involves strategies which aim to improve access to affordable housing, medical, and child care.
** A
worker cooperative
A worker cooperative is a cooperative owned and self-managed by its workers. This control may mean a firm where every worker-owner participates in decision-making in a democratic fashion, or it may refer to one in which management is elected by ...
is a progressive CED strategy that operates as businesses both managed and owned by their employees. They are beneficial due to their potential to create jobs and providing a route for grassroots political action. Some challenges that the worker cooperative faces include the mending of the cooperative’s identity as both business and as a democratic humanitarian organization. They are limited in resources and scale.
*
Sustainable development
Sustainable development is an organizing principle for meeting human development goals while also sustaining the ability of natural systems to provide the natural resources and ecosystem services on which the economy and society depend. The des ...
; which seeks to achieve, in a balanced manner, economic development, social development and environmental protection outcomes.
*
Community-driven development Community-driven development (CDD) is an initiative in the field of development that provides control of the development process, resources and decision making authority directly to groups in the community. The underlying assumption of CDD projects ...
(CDD), an
economic development
In the economics study of the public sector, economic and social development is the process by which the economic well-being and quality of life of a nation, region, local community, or an individual are improved according to targeted goals and o ...
model which shifts overreliance on central governments to local communities.
*
Asset-based community development Asset-based community development (ABCD) is a methodology for the sustainable development of communities based on their strengths and potentials. It involves assessing the resources, skills, and experience available in a community; organizing the co ...
(ABCD); is a methodology that seeks to uncover and use the strengths within communities as a means for sustainable development.
* Faith-based community development; which utilizes faith-based organizations to bring about community development outcomes.
*
Community-based participatory research (CBPR); a partnership approach to
research
Research is "creativity, creative and systematic work undertaken to increase the stock of knowledge". It involves the collection, organization and analysis of evidence to increase understanding of a topic, characterized by a particular att ...
that equitably involves, for example,
community
A community is a social unit (a group of living things) with commonality such as place, norms, religion, values, customs, or identity. Communities may share a sense of place situated in a given geographical area (e.g. a country, village, tow ...
members, organizational representatives, and researchers in all aspects of the research process and in which all partners contribute expertise and share decision making and ownership, which aims to integrate this knowledge with community development outcomes.
[Israel, B.A., Schulz, A.J., Parker, E.A., Becker, A.B., Allen, A., & Guzman, J.R. (2008). Critical issues in developing and following CBPR Principles. In M. Minkler & N. Wallerstein (Eds.), ''Community-based participatory research for health: From process to outcomes ''(2nd ed., pp. 47–66). San Francisco: Jossey-Bass.]
*
Community organizing
Community organizing is a process where people who live in proximity to each other or share some common problem come together into an organization that acts in their shared self-interest.
Unlike those who promote more-consensual community bui ...
; an approach that generally assumes that social change necessarily involves conflict and social struggle in order to generate collective power for the powerless.
*
Participatory planning
Participatory planning is an urban planning paradigm that emphasizes involving the entire community in the community planning process. Participatory planning emerged in response to the centralized and rationalistic approaches that defined early ...
including community-based planning (CBP); involving the entire community in the strategic and management processes of
urban planning
Urban planning, also known as town planning, city planning, regional planning, or rural planning, is a technical and political process that is focused on the development and design of land use and the built environment, including air, water, ...
; or, community-level planning processes, urban or rural.
* Town-making; or machizukuri (まちづくり) refers to a Japanese concept which is "an umbrella term generally understood as citizen participation in the planning and management of a living environment".
It can include redevelopment, revitalization, and post-disaster reconstruction, and usually emphasizes the importance of local citizen participation. In recent years, cooperation between local communities and contents tourism (such as video games, anime, and manga) has also become a key driver of machizukuri in some local communities, such as the tie-up between CAPCOM's Sengoku Basara and the city of Shiroishi.
*
Language revitalization
Language revitalization, also referred to as language revival or reversing language shift, is an attempt to halt or reverse the decline of a language or to revive an extinct one. Those involved can include linguists, cultural or community groups, o ...
focuses on the use of a language so that it serves the needs of a community. This may involve the creation of books, films and other media in the language. These actions help a small language community to preserve their language and culture.
* Methodologies focusing on the educational component of community development, including the community-wide empowerment that increased educational opportunity creates.
* Methodologies addressing the issues and challenges of the
Digital divide, making affordable training and access to computers and the Internet, addressing the marginalisation of local communities that cannot connect and participate in the global
Online community
An online community, also called an internet community or web community, is a community whose members interact with each other primarily via the Internet. Members of the community usually share common interests. For many, online communities may fe ...
. In the United States, nonprofit organizations such as
''Per'' Scholas seek to “break the cycle of poverty by providing education, technology and economic opportunities to individuals, families and communities” as a path to development for the communities they serve.
There are a myriad of job titles for community development workers and their employers include public authorities and voluntary or non-governmental organisations, funded by the state and by independent grant making bodies. Since the nineteen seventies the prefix word 'community' has also been adopted by several other occupations from the police and health workers to planners and architects, who have been influenced by community development approaches.
History
Amongst the earliest community development approaches were those developed in Kenya and British East Africa during the 1930s. Community development practitioners have over many years developed a range of approaches for working within local communities and in particular with disadvantaged people. Since the nineteen sixties and seventies through the various anti poverty programmes in both developed and developing countries, community development practitioners have been influenced by structural analyses as to the causes of disadvantage and poverty i.e. inequalities in the distribution of wealth, income, land, etc. and especially political power and the need to mobilise people power to affect social change. Thus the influence of such educators as
Paulo Freire
Paulo Reglus Neves Freire (19 September 1921 – 2 May 1997) was a Brazilian educator and philosopher who was a leading advocate of critical pedagogy. His influential work ''Pedagogy of the Oppressed'' is generally considered one of the foundat ...
and his focus upon this work. Other key people who have influenced this field are
Saul Alinsky
Saul David Alinsky (January 30, 1909 – June 12, 1972) was an American community activist and political theorist. His work through the Chicago-based Industrial Areas Foundation helping poor communities organize to press demands upon landlords ...
(
Rules for Radicals
''Rules for Radicals: A Pragmatic Primer for Realistic Radicals'' is a 1971 book by community activist and writer Saul D. Alinsky about how to successfully run a movement for change. It was the last book written by Alinsky, and it was published ...
) and
E.F. Schumacher
Ernst Friedrich Schumacher (16 August 1911 – 4 September 1977) was a German-British statistician and economist who is best known for his proposals for human-scale, decentralised and appropriate technologies.Biography on the inner dustjacket ...
(''
Small Is Beautiful
''Small Is Beautiful: A Study of Economics As If People Mattered'' is a collection of essays published in 1973 by German-born British economist E. F. Schumacher. The title "Small Is Beautiful" came from a principle espoused by Schumach ...
''). There are a number of international organisations that support community development, for example,
Oxfam
Oxfam is a British-founded confederation of 21 independent charitable organizations focusing on the alleviation of global poverty, founded in 1942 and led by Oxfam International.
History
Founded at 17 Broad Street, Oxford, as the Oxford Co ...
,
UNICEF
UNICEF (), originally called the United Nations International Children's Emergency Fund in full, now officially United Nations Children's Fund, is an agency of the United Nations responsible for providing Humanitarianism, humanitarian and Devel ...
,
The Hunger Project
The Hunger Project (THP), founded in 1977 with the stated goal of ending world hunger in 25 years, is an organization committed to the sustainable end of world hunger. It has ongoing programs in Africa, Asia, and Latin America, where it implemen ...
and Freedom from Hunger, run community development programs based upon community development initiatives for relief and prevention of malnutrition. Since 2006 the Dragon Dreaming Project Management techniques have spread to 37 different countries and are engaged in an estimated 3,250 projects worldwide.
In the global North
In the 19th century, the work of the Welsh early
socialist
Socialism is a left-wing economic philosophy and movement encompassing a range of economic systems characterized by the dominance of social ownership of the means of production as opposed to private ownership. As a term, it describes the e ...
thinker
Robert Owen (1771–1851), sought to develop a more perfect community. At
New Lanark
New Lanark is a village on the River Clyde, approximately 1.4 miles (2.2 kilometres) from Lanark, in Lanarkshire, and some southeast of Glasgow, Scotland. It was founded in 1785 and opened in 1786 by David Dale, who built cotton mills and hou ...
and at later communities such as
Oneida in the USA and the
New Australia Movement in Australia, groups of people came together to create
utopian
A utopia ( ) typically describes an imaginary community or society that possesses highly desirable or nearly perfect qualities for its members. It was coined by Sir Thomas More for his 1516 book ''Utopia'', describing a fictional island society ...
or
intentional communities
An intentional community is a voluntary residential community which is designed to have a high degree of social cohesion and teamwork from the start. The members of an intentional community typically hold a common social, political, religious, ...
, with mixed success. Some such communities, formed ''ex nihilo'', contrast the concepts of the development of a community at a later stage.
United States
In the United States in the 1960s, the term "community development" began to complement and generally replace the idea of
urban renewal
Urban renewal (also called urban regeneration in the United Kingdom and urban redevelopment in the United States) is a program of land redevelopment often used to address urban decay in cities. Urban renewal involves the clearing out of blighte ...
, which typically focused on physical development projects - often at the expense of
working-class communities. One of the earliest proponents of the term in the United States was social scientist
William W. Biddle (100-1973).
In the late 1960s, philanthropies such as the
Ford Foundation
The Ford Foundation is an American private foundation with the stated goal of advancing human welfare. Created in 1936 by Edsel Ford and his father Henry Ford, it was originally funded by a US$25,000 gift from Edsel Ford. By 1947, after the death ...
and government officials such as Senator
Robert F. Kennedy
Robert Francis Kennedy (November 20, 1925June 6, 1968), also known by his initials RFK and by the nickname Bobby, was an American lawyer and politician who served as the 64th United States Attorney General from January 1961 to September 1964, ...
took an interest in local nonprofit organizations. A pioneer was the
Bedford Stuyvesant Restoration Corporation
The Bedford Stuyvesant Restoration Corporation (or BSRC, referred to locally in short as Restoration) is a community development corporation based in Brooklyn, New York, and the first ever to be established in the United States.
Background Dec ...
in Brooklyn, which attempted to apply
business and
management skills
Management (or managing) is the administration of an organization, whether it is a business, a nonprofit organization, or a government body. It is the art and science of managing resources of the business.
Management includes the activities ...
to the social mission of uplifting low-income residents and their neighborhoods. Eventually such groups became known as "
Community development corporation
A community development corporation (CDC) is a not-for-profit organization incorporated to provide programs, offer services and engage in other activities that promote and support community development. CDCs usually serve a geographic location su ...
s" or CDCs. Federal laws, beginning with the 1974
Housing and Community Development Act, provided a way for state and municipal governments to channel funds to CDCs and to other
nonprofit organizations
A nonprofit organization (NPO) or non-profit organisation, also known as a non-business entity, not-for-profit organization, or nonprofit institution, is a legal entity organized and operated for a collective, public or social benefit, in co ...
.
National organizations such as the
Neighborhood Reinvestment Corporation
The Neighborhood Reinvestment Corporation, doing business as NeighborWorks America, is a congressionally chartered nonprofit organization that supports community development in the United States and Puerto Rico. The organization provides grant ...
(founded in 1978 and known since 2005 as
NeighborWorks America
The Neighborhood Reinvestment Corporation, doing business as NeighborWorks America, is a congressionally chartered nonprofit organization that supports community development in the United States and Puerto Rico. The organization provides grant ...
), the
Local Initiatives Support Corporation
The Local Initiatives Support Corporation (LISC) is a US non-profit community development financial institution (CDFI) that supports community development initiatives across the country. It has offices in nearly 40 cities and works across 2,100 r ...
(LISC) (founded in 1980), and the
Enterprise Foundation Enterprise foundations are foundations that own companies.
Enterprise foundations are independent, self-governing entities with no owners. They are characterised by long time horizons, philanthropic goals and the absence of personal profit motive ...
(founded in 1981) have built extensive networks of affiliated local
nonprofit
A nonprofit organization (NPO) or non-profit organisation, also known as a non-business entity, not-for-profit organization, or nonprofit institution, is a legal entity organized and operated for a collective, public or social benefit, in co ...
organizations to which they help provide financing for numerous physical- and
social-development programs in urban and
rural communities. The CDCs and similar organizations have been credited by some with starting the process that stabilized and revived seemingly hopeless
inner-city
The term ''inner city'' has been used, especially in the United States, as a euphemism for majority-minority lower-income residential districts that often refer to rundown neighborhoods, in a downtown or city centre area. Sociologists someti ...
areas such as
the South Bronx
The South Bronx is an area of the New York City Borough (New York City), borough of the Bronx. The area comprises neighborhoods in the southern part of the Bronx, such as Concourse, Bronx, Concourse, Mott Haven, Bronx, Mott Haven, Melrose, B ...
in New York City.
United Kingdom
In the UK, community development has had two main traditions. The first was as an approach for preparing for the
independence
Independence is a condition of a person, nation, country, or state in which residents and population, or some portion thereof, exercise self-government, and usually sovereignty, over its territory. The opposite of independence is the statu ...
of countries from the former
British Empire
The British Empire was composed of the dominions, colonies, protectorates, mandates, and other territories ruled or administered by the United Kingdom and its predecessor states. It began with the overseas possessions and trading posts esta ...
in the 1950s and 1960s. Domestically, community development first came into public prominence with the
Labour Government's anti deprivation programmes of the latter 1960s and 1970s. The main example of this activity, the CDP (Community Development Programme), piloted local area-based community development. This influenced a number of largely urban local authorities, in particular in Scotland with
Strathclyde
Strathclyde ( in Gaelic, meaning "strath (valley) of the River Clyde") was one of nine former local government regions of Scotland created in 1975 by the Local Government (Scotland) Act 1973 and abolished in 1996 by the Local Government et ...
Region's major community-development programme (the largest at the time in Europe).
The
Gulbenkian Foundation
The Calouste Gulbenkian Foundation ( pt, Fundação Calouste Gulbenkian), commonly referred to simply as the Gulbenkian Foundation, is a Portuguese institution dedicated to the promotion of the arts, philanthropy, science, and education. One o ...
was a key funder of commissions and reports which influenced the development of community development in the UK from the latter 1960s to the 1980s. This included recommending that there be a national institute or centre for community development, able to support practice and to advise government and local authorities on policy. This resulted in the forma establishment in 1991 of the Community Development Foundation. In 2004 the
Carnegie UK Trust established a commission of inquiry into the future of rural community development, examining such issues as land reform and climate change. Carnegie funded over sixty rural community-development
action-research projects across the UK and Ireland and national and international communities of practice to exchange experiences. This included the International Association for Community Development (IACD).
In 1999 the
Labour Government established a UK-wide organisation responsible for setting
professional-training standards for all education and development practitioners working within local communities. This organisation, PAULO – the National Training Organisation for Community Learning and Development, was named after
Paulo Freire
Paulo Reglus Neves Freire (19 September 1921 – 2 May 1997) was a Brazilian educator and philosopher who was a leading advocate of critical pedagogy. His influential work ''Pedagogy of the Oppressed'' is generally considered one of the foundat ...
(1921-1997). It was formally recognised by
David Blunkett
David Blunkett, Baron Blunkett, (born 6 June 1947) is a British Labour Party politician who has been a Member of the House of Lords since 2015, and previously served as the Member of Parliament (MP) for Sheffield Brightside and Hillsborough ...
, the
Secretary of State for Education and Employment. Its first chair was Charlie McConnell, the Chief Executive of the
Scottish Community Education Council The Scottish Community Education Council (SCEC) was set up by the Government in 1982 following the Alexander Report which had recommended the establishment of a national agency to advise the Secretary of State for Scotland on all matters relating t ...
, who had played a lead role in bringing together a range of occupational interests under a single national-training standards body, including
community education, community development and development education. The inclusion of community development was significant as it was initially uncertain as to whether it would join the National Training Organisation (NTO) for Social Care. The Community Learning and Development NTO represented all the main employers, trades unions, professional associations and national-development agencies working in this area across the four nations of the UK.
The new body used the wording "community learning and development" to acknowledge that all of these occupations worked primarily within local communities, and that this work encompassed not just providing less formal learning support but also a concern for the wider holistic development of those communities – socio-economically, environmentally, culturally and politically. By bringing together these occupational groups this created for the first time a single recognised employment-sector of nearly 300,000 full- and part-time paid staff within the UK, approximately 10% of these staff being full-time. The NTO continued to recognise the range of different occupations within it, for example specialists who work primarily with young people, but all agreed that they shared a core set of professional approaches to their work. In 2002 the NTO became part of a wider
Sector Skills Council for lifelong learning.
The UK currently hosts the only global network of practitioners and activists working towards social justice through community development approach, the International Association for Community Development (IACD).
IACD, formed in the USA in 1953, moved to Belgium in 1978 and was restructured and relaunched in Scotland in 1999.
Canada
Community development in Canada has roots in the development of co-operatives,
credit union
A credit union, a type of financial institution similar to a commercial bank, is a member-owned nonprofit organization, nonprofit financial cooperative. Credit unions generally provide services to members similar to retail banks, including depo ...
s and ''caisses populaires''. The
Antigonish Movement
The Antigonish Movement blended adult education, co-operatives, microfinance and rural community development to help small, resource-based communities around Canada's Maritimes to improve their economic and social circumstances. A group of pr ...
which started in the 1920s in
Nova Scotia
Nova Scotia ( ; ; ) is one of the thirteen provinces and territories of Canada. It is one of the three Maritime provinces and one of the four Atlantic provinces. Nova Scotia is Latin for "New Scotland".
Most of the population are native Eng ...
, through the work of Doctor
Moses Coady
Moses Michael Coady (3 January 1882 – 28 July 1959) was a Roman Catholic priest, adult educator and co-operative entrepreneur best known for his instrumental role in the Antigonish Movement. Credited with introducing "an entirely new organizati ...
and Father
James Tompkins, has been particularly influential in the subsequent expansion of community economic development work across Canada.
Australia
Community development in Australia has often focussed on
Aboriginal Australian
Aboriginal Australians are the various Indigenous peoples of the Australian mainland and many of its islands, such as Tasmania, Fraser Island, Hinchinbrook Island, the Tiwi Islands, and Groote Eylandt, but excluding the Torres Strait Islands ...
communities, and during the period of the 1980s to the early 21st century funds channelled through the Community Employment Development Program, where Aboriginal people could be employed in "a work for the dole" scheme, gave the chance for non-government organisations to apply for a full or part-time worker funded by the Department for Social Security. Dr Jim Ife, formerly of
Curtin University, organised a ground-breaking text-book on community development.
In the "Global South"
Community planning techniques drawing on the history of utopian movements became important in the 1920s and 1930s in
East Africa
East Africa, Eastern Africa, or East of Africa, is the eastern subregion of the African continent. In the United Nations Statistics Division scheme of geographic regions, 10-11-(16*) territories make up Eastern Africa:
Due to the historical ...
, where community development proposals were seen as a way of helping local people improve their own lives with indirect assistance from colonial authorities.
Mohandas K. Gandhi adopted African community development ideals as a basis of his South African Ashram, and then introduced it as a part of the Indian
Swaraj
Swarāj ( sa, स्वराज, translit=Svarāja '' sva-'' "self", '' raj'' "rule") can mean generally self-governance or "self-rule". It was first used by Chhatrapati Shivaji Maharaj to attain self rule from the Mughal Empire and the Adil ...
movement, aiming at establishing
economic interdependence
Economic interdependence is the mutual dependence of the participants in an economic system who trade in order to obtain the products they cannot produce efficiently for themselves. Such trading relationships require that the behavior of a partic ...
at village level throughout India. With
Indian independence, despite the continuing work of
Vinoba Bhave
Vinayak Narahari, also known as Vinoba Bhave (; 11 September 1895 – 15 November 1982), was an Indian advocate of nonviolence and human rights. Often called ''Acharya'' (Sanskrit teacher), he is best known for the Bhoodan Movement. He is con ...
in encouraging
grassroots
A grassroots movement is one that uses the people in a given district, region or community as the basis for a political or economic movement. Grassroots movements and organizations use collective action from the local level to effect change at t ...
land reform
Land reform is a form of agrarian reform involving the changing of laws, regulations, or customs regarding land ownership. Land reform may consist of a government-initiated or government-backed property redistribution, generally of agricultural ...
, India under its first Prime Minister
Jawaharlal Nehru
Pandit Jawaharlal Nehru (; ; ; 14 November 1889 – 27 May 1964) was an Indian anti-colonial nationalist, secular humanist, social democrat—
*
*
*
* and author who was a central figure in India during the middle of the 20t ...
adopted a mixed-economy approach, mixing elements of socialism and capitalism. During the fifties and sixties, India ran a massive community development programme with focus on rural development activities through government support. This was later expanded in scope and was called integrated rural development scheme
RDP A large number of initiatives that can come under the community development umbrella have come up in recent years.
The main objective of community development in India remains to develop the villages and to help the villagers help themselves to fight against poverty, illiteracy, malnutrition, etc. The beauty of Indian model of community development lies in the homogeneity of villagers and high level of participation.
Community development became a part of the
Ujamaa Villages established in
Tanzania
Tanzania (; ), officially the United Republic of Tanzania ( sw, Jamhuri ya Muungano wa Tanzania), is a country in East Africa within the African Great Lakes region. It borders Uganda to the north; Kenya to the northeast; Comoro Islands and ...
by
Julius Nyerere
Julius Kambarage Nyerere (; 13 April 1922 – 14 October 1999) was a Tanzanian anti-colonial activist, politician, and political theorist. He governed Tanganyika as prime minister from 1961 to 1962 and then as president from 1962 to 1964, af ...
, where it had some success in assisting with the delivery of education services throughout rural areas, but has elsewhere met with mixed success. In the 1970s and 1980s, community development became a part of "Integrated Rural Development", a strategy promoted by
United Nations
The United Nations (UN) is an intergovernmental organization whose stated purposes are to maintain international peace and international security, security, develop friendly relations among nations, achieve international cooperation, and be ...
Agencies and
the World Bank
The World Bank Group (WBG) is a family of five international organizations that make leveraged loans to developing countries. It is the largest and best-known development bank in the world and an observer at the United Nations Development Grou ...
. Central to these policies of community development were:
*
Adult literacy
Adult education, distinct from child education, is a practice in which adults engage in systematic and sustained self-educating activities in order to gain new forms of knowledge, skills, attitudes, or values. Merriam, Sharan B. & Brockett, Ralp ...
programs, drawing on the work of Brazilian educator
Paulo Freire
Paulo Reglus Neves Freire (19 September 1921 – 2 May 1997) was a Brazilian educator and philosopher who was a leading advocate of critical pedagogy. His influential work ''Pedagogy of the Oppressed'' is generally considered one of the foundat ...
and the "
Each One Teach One" adult literacy teaching method conceived by
Frank Laubach
Frank Charles Laubach (September 2, 1884 – June 11, 1970), from Benton, Pennsylvania was a Congregational Christian missionary educated at Union Theological Seminary and Columbia University, and a mystic known as "The Apostle to the Illite ...
.
* Youth and women's groups, following the work of the
Serowe Brigades
Serowe (population approximately 60,000) is an urban village in Botswana's Central District. A trade and commercial centre, it is Botswana's third largest village. Serowe has played an important role in Botswana's history, as capital for the Bama ...
of
Botswana
Botswana (, ), officially the Republic of Botswana ( tn, Lefatshe la Botswana, label=Setswana, ), is a landlocked country in Southern Africa. Botswana is topographically flat, with approximately 70 percent of its territory being the Kalahar ...
, o
Patrick van Rensburg
* Development of
community business ventures and particularly
cooperatives
A cooperative (also known as co-operative, co-op, or coop) is "an autonomous association of persons united voluntarily to meet their common economic, social and cultural needs and aspirations through a jointly owned and democratically-control ...
, in part drawn on the examples of
José María Arizmendiarrieta
Father José María Arizmendiarrieta Madariaga ( Marquina-Xemein, Bizkaia, Spain, April 22, 1915 - Mondragon, Gipuzkoa, Spain, November 29, 1976) was a Basque Catholic priest and promoter of the cooperative companies of the Mondragon Corporat ...
and the
Mondragon Cooperatives of the
Basque
Basque may refer to:
* Basques, an ethnic group of Spain and France
* Basque language, their language
Places
* Basque Country (greater region), the homeland of the Basque people with parts in both Spain and France
* Basque Country (autonomous co ...
region of Spain
*
Compensatory education Compensatory education offers supplementary programs or services designed to help children at risk of cognitive impairment and low educational achievement succeed.
Children at risk of disadvantages
Poor children do worse in school than their well ...
for those missing out in the
formal education
Education is a purposeful activity directed at achieving certain aims, such as transmitting knowledge or fostering skills and character traits. These aims may include the development of understanding, rationality, kindness, and honesty. Vari ...
system, drawing on the work of
Open Education
Open education is an educational movement founded on openness, with connections to other educational movements such as critical pedagogy, and with an educational stance which favours widening participation and inclusiveness in society. Open educa ...
as pioneered by
Michael Young.
* Dissemination of
alternative technologies, based upon the work of
E. F. Schumacher as advocated in his book ''
Small Is Beautiful: A Study of Economics As If People Mattered''
* Village nutrition programs and
permaculture
Permaculture is an approach to land management and settlement design that adopts arrangements observed in flourishing natural ecosystems. It includes a set of design principles derived using whole-systems thinking. It applies these principle ...
projects, based upon the work of Australians
Bill Mollison
Bruce Charles "Bill" Mollison (4 May 1928 – 24 September 2016) was an Australian researcher, author, scientist, teacher and biologist. In 1981, he was awarded the Right Livelihood Award "for developing and promoting the theory and practice o ...
and
David Holmgren
David Holmgren (born 1955) is an Australian environmental designer, ecological educator and writer. He is best known as one of the co-originators of the permaculture concept with Bill Mollison.
Early life
Holmgren was born in Fremantle, Weste ...
.
*
Village water supply programs
In the 1990s, following critiques of the mixed success of "top down" government programs, and drawing on the work of
Robert Putnam
Robert David Putnam (born 1941) is an American political scientist specializing in comparative politics. He is the Peter and Isabel Malkin Professor of Public Policy at the Harvard University John F. Kennedy School of Government. Putnam devel ...
, in the rediscovery of
social capital
Social capital is "the networks of relationships among people who live and work in a particular society, enabling that society to function effectively". It involves the effective functioning of social groups through interpersonal relationships ...
, community development internationally became concerned with social capital formation. In particular the outstanding success of the work of
Muhammad Yunus
Muhammad Yunus (born 28 June 1940) is a Bangladeshi social entrepreneur, banker, economist and civil society leader who was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize for founding the Grameen Bank and pioneering the concepts of microcredit and microfinance ...
in
Bangladesh
Bangladesh (}, ), officially the People's Republic of Bangladesh, is a country in South Asia. It is the eighth-most populous country in the world, with a population exceeding 165 million people in an area of . Bangladesh is among the mos ...
with the
Grameen Bank from its inception in 1976, has led to the attempts to spread
microenterprise credit schemes around the world. Yunus saw that social problems like poverty and disease were not being solved by the market system on its own. Thus, he established a banking system which lends to the poor with very little interest, allowing them access to entrepreneurship. This work was honoured by the 2006
Nobel Peace Prize
The Nobel Peace Prize is one of the five Nobel Prizes established by the will of Swedish industrialist, inventor and armaments (military weapons and equipment) manufacturer Alfred Nobel, along with the prizes in Nobel Prize in Chemistry, Chemi ...
.
Another alternative to "top down" government programs is the participatory government institution. Participatory governance institutions are organizations which aim to facilitate the participation of citizens within larger decision making and action implementing processes in society. A case study done on municipal councils and social housing programs in Brazil found that the presence of participatory governance institutions supports the implementation of poverty alleviation programs by local governments.
The "
human scale development" work of
Right Livelihood Award-winning Chilean economist
Manfred Max Neef
Artur Manfred Max Neef (; 26 October 1932 – 8 August 2019) was a Chilean economist of German descent. Max-Neef was born in Valparaíso, Chile. He started his career as a professor of economics at the University of California, Berkeley in the ea ...
promotes the idea of development based upon fundamental human needs, which are considered to be limited, universal and invariant to all human beings (being a part of our human condition). He considers that
poverty
Poverty is the state of having few material possessions or little income. Poverty can have diverse social, economic, and political causes and effects. When evaluating poverty in ...
results from the failure to satisfy a particular human need, it is not just an absence of money. Whilst human needs are limited, Max Neef shows that the ways of satisfying human needs is potentially unlimited. Satisfiers also have different characteristics: they can be violators or destroyers, pseudosatisfiers, inhibiting satisfiers, singular satisfiers, or synergic satisfiers. Max-Neef shows that certain satisfiers, promoted as satisfying a particular need, in fact inhibit or destroy the possibility of satisfying other needs: e.g., the
arms race
An arms race occurs when two or more groups compete in military superiority. It consists of a competition between two or more states to have superior armed forces; a competition concerning production of weapons, the growth of a military, and t ...
, while ostensibly satisfying the need for protection, in fact then destroys subsistence, participation, affection and freedom;
formal democracy, which is supposed to meet the need for participation often disempowers and
alienates; commercial
television
Television, sometimes shortened to TV, is a telecommunication medium for transmitting moving images and sound. The term can refer to a television set, or the medium of television transmission. Television is a mass medium for advertisin ...
, while used to satisfy the need for
recreation
Recreation is an activity of leisure, leisure being discretionary time. The "need to do something for recreation" is an essential element of human biology and psychology. Recreational activities are often done for enjoyment, amusement, or pleasur ...
, interferes with understanding, creativity and identity.
Synergic
Synergy is an interaction or cooperation giving rise to a whole that is greater than the simple sum of its parts. The term ''synergy'' comes from the Attic Greek word συνεργία ' from ', , meaning "working together".
History
In Christian ...
satisfiers, on the other hand, not only satisfy one particular need, but also lead to satisfaction in other areas: some examples are
breastfeeding
Breastfeeding, or nursing, is the process by which human breast milk is fed to a child. Breast milk may be from the breast, or may be expressed by hand or pumped and fed to the infant. The World Health Organization (WHO) recommends that br ...
; self-managed production;
popular education
Popular education is a concept grounded in notions of class, political struggle, and social transformation. The term is a translation from the Spanish educación popular or the Portuguese educação popular and rather than the English usage ...
; democratic
community organizations;
preventative medicine
Preventive healthcare, or prophylaxis, consists of measures taken for the purposes of disease prevention.Hugh R. Leavell and E. Gurney Clark as "the science and art of preventing disease, prolonging life, and promoting physical and mental hea ...
; meditation; educational games.
India
Community development in India was initiated by Government of India through Community Development Programme (
CDP) in 1952. The focus of CDP was on rural communities. But, professionally trained social workers concentrated their practice in urban areas. Thus, although the focus of community organization was rural, the major thrust of Social Work gave an urban character which gave a balance in service for the program.
[Siddiqui, H.Y. (1997). Working with communities: An introduction to community work. New Delhi: Hira Publications.]
Vietnam
International organizations apply the term community in Vietnam to the local administrative unit, each with a traditional identity based on traditional, cultural, and kinship relations.
Community development strategies in Vietnam aim to organize communities in ways that increase their capacities to partner with institutions, the participation of local people, transparency and equality, and unity within local communities.
Social and economic development planning (SDEP) in Vietnam uses top-down centralized planning methods and decision-making processes which do not consider local context and local participation. The plans created by SDEP are ineffective and serve mainly for administrative purposes. Local people are not informed of these development plans.
The
participatory rural appraisal (PRA) approach, a research methodology that allows local people to share and evaluate their own life conditions, was introduced to Vietnam in the early 1990s to help reform the way that government approaches local communities and development.
PRA was used as a tool for mostly outsiders to learn about the local community, which did not effect substantial change.
The village/
commune
A commune is an alternative term for an intentional community. Commune or comună or comune or other derivations may also refer to:
Administrative-territorial entities
* Commune (administrative division), a municipality or township
** Communes of ...
development (VDP/CDP) approach was developed as a more fitting approach than
PRA to analyze local context and address the needs of rural communities.
VDP/CDP participatory planning is centered around Ho Chi Minh's saying that "People know, people discuss and people supervise."
VDP/CDP is often useful in Vietnam for shifting centralized management to more decentralization, helping develop local governance at the grassroots level.
Local people use their knowledge to solve local issues.
They create mid-term and yearly plans that help improve existing community development plans with the support of government organizations.
Although VDP/CDP has been tested in many regions in Vietnam, it has not been fully implemented for a couple reasons.
The methods applied in VDP/CDP are human resource and capacity building intensive, especially at the early stages. It also requires the local people to have an "initiative-taking" attitude. People in the remote areas where VDP/CDP has been tested have mostly passive attitudes because they already receive assistance from outsiders.
There also are no sufficient monitoring practices to ensure effective plan implementation. Integrating VDP/CDP into the governmental system is difficult because the Communist Party and Central government's policies on decentralization are not enforced in reality.
Non-governmental organization
A non-governmental organization (NGO) or non-governmental organisation (see spelling differences) is an organization that generally is formed independent from government. They are typically nonprofit entities, and many of them are active in h ...
s (NGO) in Vietnam, legalized in 1991, have claimed goals to develop
civil society
Civil society can be understood as the "third sector" of society, distinct from government and business, and including the family and the private sphere.[Đổi Mới
(, ; ) is the name given to the economic reforms initiated in Vietnam in 1986 with the goal of creating a " socialist-oriented market economy". The term itself is a general term with wide use in the Vietnamese language meaning "innovate" or ...]
economic reforms.
NGO operations in Vietnam do not exactly live up to their claimed goals to expand civil society.
This is mainly due to the fact that NGOs in Vietnam are mostly donor-driven, urban, and elite-based organizations that employ staff with ties to the Communist Party and Central government.
NGOs are also overlooked by the
Vietnam Fatherland Front, an umbrella organization that reports observations directly to the Party and Central government.
Since NGOs in Vietnam are not entirely non-governmental, they have been coined instead as 'VNGOs.'
Most VNGOs have originated from either the state, hospital or university groups, or individuals not previously associated with any groups.
VNGOs have not yet reached those most in need, such as the rural poor, due to the entrenched power networks' opposition to lobbying for issues such the rural poor's land rights.
Authoritarianism
Authoritarianism is a political system characterized by the rejection of political plurality, the use of strong central power to preserve the political '' status quo'', and reductions in the rule of law, separation of powers, and democratic vot ...
is prevalent in nearly all Vietnamese civic organizations.
Authoritarian practices are more present in inner-organizational functions than in organization leaders' worldviews.
These leaders often reveal both authoritarian and libertarian values in contradiction.
Representatives of Vietnam's NGO's stated that disagreements are normal, but conflicts within an organization should be avoided, demonstrating the one-party "sameness" mentality of authoritarian rule.
See also
*
Community building
Community building is a field of practices directed toward the creation or enhancement of community among individuals within a regional area (such as a neighborhood) or with a common need or interest. It is often encompassed under the fields of c ...
*
Complete communities
Complete communities is an urban and rural planning concept that aims to meet the basic needs of all residents in a community, regardless of income, culture, or political ideologies through integrated land use planning, transportation planning, and ...
*
Community education
*
Community engagement
*
Community practice Community practice also known as macro practice or community work is a branch of social work in the United States that focuses on larger social systems and social change, and is tied to the historical roots of United States social work.Gibelman, M. ...
*
Organization workshop
*
Rural community development
*
Urbanism
Urbanism is the study of how inhabitants of urban areas, such as towns and cities, interact with the built environment. It is a direct component of disciplines such as urban planning, which is the profession focusing on the physical design and ...
References
Further reading
* Briggs, Xavier de Souza, and Elizabeth Mueller and Mercer Sullivan, From Neighborhood to Community: Evidence on the Social Effects of Community Development Corporation. Community Development Research Center, 1997.
*
Ferguson, Ronald F. and William T. Dickens, eds., Urban Problems and Community Development.
Brookings Institution
The Brookings Institution, often stylized as simply Brookings, is an American research group founded in 1916. Located on Think Tank Row in Washington, D.C., the organization conducts research and education in the social sciences, primarily in ec ...
Press, 1999. ,
* Grogan, Paul and Tony Proscio, Comeback Cities: A Blueprint for Urban Neighborhood Revival. Westview Press, 2002. ,
* von Hoffman, Alexander, House by House, Block by Block: The Rebirth of America's Urban Neighborhoods.
Oxford University Press
Oxford University Press (OUP) is the university press of the University of Oxford. It is the largest university press in the world, and its printing history dates back to the 1480s. Having been officially granted the legal right to print books ...
, 2003, Ppbck. ed., 2004. ,
*
*
*
* McConnell, Charlie, Community Learning and Development: The Making of an Empowering Profession. Community Learning Scotland/PAULO, 2002,
*
*
* Towards Shared International Standards for Community Development Practice. IACD. 2018
External links
The Citizens' Handbook– A large collection practices and activities for citizens' groups
National Civic League– US organization that promotes partnerships between government and citizens' groups
Shelterforcenbsp;– A nonprofit magazine on community development, affordable housing, and neighborhood stabilization.
{{Authority control
Community building
Citizen science models
de:Stadtentwicklung