Mobilizing Assets for Community-driven development

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St. Francis Xavier University

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Participant Manual MOBILIZING ASSETS FOR COMMUNITY-DRIVEN DEVELOPMENT

Facilitated by: Gord Cunningham & Alison Mathie

Certificate Program 2009

Table of Contents Section 1: Needs, Assets, and Citizens..................................................................................... 1 Introduction ............................................................................................................................1 ABCD as a Development Approach...................................................................................1 Associations, Institutions and Citizens................................................................................4 Definitions ........................................................................................................................7 Section 2: Community-Driven Development ...........................................................................8 Spontaneous “Community-Driven� Development...........................................................8 Definitions ........................................................................................................................9 The Community of Cullpe, Peru..........................................................................................9 GPSDO and the Sebat-bet Gurage ...................................................................................11 Community-Driven Development.....................................................................................13 Definitions ......................................................................................................................13 Section 3: Historical and Theoretical Influences on Asset-Based Approaches..................... 15 Introduction ..........................................................................................................................15 Community Experience of Spontaneous, Endogenous Development ........................16 Lessons from Social Activism ............................................................................................16 Lessons from Appreciative Inquiry ...................................................................................16 Integrated Development: Theory and Practice................................................................17 The sustainable livelihoods approach.........................................................................17 The importance of social capital..................................................................................18 Asset-building.................................................................................................................19 Community Economic Development: Theory and Practice..........................................20 Empowerment, Participation and Citizenship: Theory and Practice............................22 Self-Mobilization and Inclusion .........................................................................................25 Participation in Local Governance ....................................................................................25 Definitions ......................................................................................................................26 A Short History of Participatory Approaches..................................................................27 Section 4: Asset-Based Community Development: Tools and Methods ............................... 30 Overview................................................................................................................................30 Purposeful Relationship Building.......................................................................................31 Motivating Community Members......................................................................................32 Creating an organizing committee ..............................................................................34 Identifying Assets and Opportunities................................................................................35 The true value of asset mapping..................................................................................35 Identifying associations.................................................................................................35 The power of associations: not mapping but organizing.........................................39 Mapping social capital and social networks ...............................................................39 i

Mapping individual skills and capacities.....................................................................41 Mapping the assets of local institutions......................................................................43 Illustrating the links between associations and institutions.....................................44 Mapping physical assets and natural resources .........................................................45 Identifying Economic Opportunities ................................................................................48 Community economic analysis and the leaky bucket ...............................................48 Money coming in ...........................................................................................................49 Money going out............................................................................................................49 Money circulating within ..............................................................................................50 Mapping local economic flows ....................................................................................50 The community perspective.........................................................................................52 Additional readings........................................................................................................55 Linking and Mobilizing Assets ...........................................................................................56 Action Planning ....................................................................................................................57 Step 1: Assessing assets and opportunities ................................................................57 Step 2 : Developing a future vision.............................................................................58 Step 3: Identifying community assets to achieve the vision ....................................59 Step 4: Identifying partnerships...................................................................................59 Step 5: Matching community actions with opportunities ........................................60 Step 6: Examining institutional consequences ..........................................................60 Step 7: Assessment of potential changes in assets of all community members ...60 Step 8: Harnessing opportunities within the community ........................................60 Sustaining the Process .........................................................................................................62 Inclusiveness...................................................................................................................63 Section 5: The Role of Local Government, the Business Sector, and NGOs ........................ 65 The Changing Roles of Different Agents of Development...........................................65 The Changing Role of Government and NGOs.............................................................66 The Changing Role of the Private, For-Profit Sector .....................................................68 Recognition of the Central Role of Local Communities ................................................70 An Appropriate Role for NGOs........................................................................................71 Implications for NGO Practice..........................................................................................72 Section 6: Planning, Monitoring and Evaluation ................................................................... 79 An Overview .........................................................................................................................80 Planning, Monitoring and Evaluation for Planned Change ...........................................82 Monitoring and Evaluation of Unpredicted Outcomes and Unplanned Change.......84 Planning, Monitoring and Evaluation for Different Stakeholders................................84 Dealing with Complexity and Uncertainty .......................................................................85 Applying the Most Significant Change Technique to Evaluating Change...................86 Appendix A: From Clients To Citizens: Asset-Based Community Development As A Strategy For Community-Driven Development................................................................... 89

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Appendix B: Who Is Driving Development? Reflections On The Transformative Potential Of Asset-Based Community Development................................................................ 111 Appendix C: Does ABCD Deliver on Social Justice?.................................................................127 Course Resources..................................................................................................133 Asset-Based Community Development..........................................................................133 Appreciative Inquiry...........................................................................................................135 Social Capital .......................................................................................................................136 Linkages with Government and Private Sector Institutions........................................137 Participatory Development ...............................................................................................138 Sustainable Livelihoods and Asset-Building...................................................................139 Access to Assets: Issues of Power ...................................................................................141 NGO Practice .....................................................................................................................141 Community Economic Development .............................................................................142 Planning, Monitoring and Evaluation .............................................................................142 Further Resources on the Internet...................................................................................143 Organizations ...............................................................................................................143 Articles...........................................................................................................................145

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Table of Figures Figure 1: Is the glass half full or half empty? ............................................................................1 Figure 2: A needs map for the village of Jagna, Phillipines.....................................................3 Figure 3: An assets map for the village of Jagna, Phillipines ..................................................4 Figure 4: Geometry lesson: Contrast the institution and the association .............................6 Figure 5: The sustainable livelihoods framework ...................................................................17 Figure 6: ABCD and PRA compared.......................................................................................29 Figure 7: Social networks through associations ......................................................................36 Figure 8: Venn diagram illustrating the relative size and importance of different associations...................................................................................................................................37 Figure 9: Mapping social relationships within the village......................................................40 Figure 10: Mapping social networks and external linkages ...................................................41 Figure 11: Mapping your organization’s assets .......................................................................44 Figure 12: Using a Venn diagram to illustrate the relationship between associations and institutions ....................................................................................................................................45 Figure 13: A community map with transect line drawn across areas of maximum ecological variability ....................................................................................................................46 Figure 14: Transect......................................................................................................................47 Figure 15: The basic "leaky bucket": Economic inflows and outflows...............................48 Figure 16: The main economic actors: Households, firms, and the state...........................50 Figure 17: The leaky bucket: Locally oriented and export oriented economic activity.....52 Figure 18: Leaky Bucket of the Municipality of Cabangan, Zambales, Philippines (created

by Edwin Nerva) .........................................................................................................................55 Figure 19: Citizen-centred decision-making............................................................................56 Figure 20: Pulling it all together: Linking assets and opportunities .....................................58 Figure 21: Mobilizing the community's assets for economic development........................61 Figure 22: Gender analysis: The case of access to timber in Ndengelwa, Kenya ..............64 Figure 23: The changing role of different development actors............................................65 Figure 24: The role of the NGO in citizen-led development...............................................72 Figure 25: Development as a project or a process?................................................................81 Figure 26: From action to impact .............................................................................................82

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Table of Tables Table 1: Seeing the community through an asset lens .............................................................2 Table 2: Types of associations.....................................................................................................5 Table 3: Summary of asset-based analytical frameworks and their associated operational approaches....................................................................................................................................20 Table 4: Three development paradigms for community economic development.............22 Table 5: A typology of participation.........................................................................................24 Table 6: A short history of participatory approaches ............................................................28 Table 7: Some principles for mobilizing associations ............................................................38 Table 8: Skills inventories for two communities in Kenya....................................................42 Table 9: Action planning steps..................................................................................................57 Table 10: Types of decentralization..........................................................................................67 Table 11: Types of power ..........................................................................................................74

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Introduction to the Course To be hopeful in bad times is not just foolishly romantic. It is based on the fact that human history is a history not only of cruelty, but also of compassion, sacrifice, courage, kindness. What we choose to emphasize in this complex history will determine our lives. If we see only the worst, it destroys our capacity to do something. If we remember those times and places -- and there are so many -- where people have behaved magnificently, this gives us the energy to act, and at least the possibility of sending this spinning top of a world in a different direction. And if we do act, in however a small way, we don't have to wait for some grand utopian future. The future is an infinite succession of presents, and to live now as we think human beings should live, in defiance of all that is bad around us, is itself a marvellous victory.

Howard Zinn

During this course, we will be discussing how we can learn from, support, and stimulate citizen-led or genuinely community-driven development. Active citizens are those who participate in building community and who take action to create opportunity for better livelihoods for community members. Development is community-driven (as opposed to donor-driven) when communities take ownership and initiate their own activities, asking others to invest in their ideas and capacities.

You will be introduced to an approach called Asset-Based Community Development (ABCD). As part of this approach, you will explore the historical and theoretical influences on asset-based approaches and have in-class practice in applying ABCD as a methodology. We shall then discuss some of the principles and methods of planning, monitoring and evaluation and how to make sure these activities are useful for community members, NGO, local government and donor agencies.

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SECTION 1: NEEDS, ASSETS, AND CITIZENS Introduction Asset Based Community Development or “ABCD” is a term coined by John McKnight and Jody Kretzmann of the Institute for Policy Research at Northwestern University in Illinois, USA in their book Building Communities from the Inside Out: A path toward finding and mobilizing community assets.

In this section, we will outline how and why ABCD emerged, and what its main features are.

ABCD as a Development Approach Based on extensive inquiry into the characteristics of successful community initiatives in the U.S., McKnight and Kretzmann articulated ABCD as a way of counteracting what they describe as a predominantly “needs-based” approach to development. They describe two very distinct paths to address poverty.

The first focuses on a community’s needs, deficiencies and problems. This is the traditional path. It creates negative images that can be conceived as a mental “problems map” of the community. This is only part of the truth about the actual conditions, but unfortunately, this is often taken to be the whole truth. Which “truth” is selected depends on whether you see the glass half-full or half-empty:

Clients have deficiencies and needs.

Citizens have capacities and gifts.

Figure 1: Is the glass half full or half empty?

Coady International Institute: Mobilizing Assets for Community-Driven Development. 2009

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Contrast the problems in the community example below with the assets. If you were a member of this community what would be most effective in inspiring you to contribute to change in the community? Notice how the assets opposite each problem can be used to address that particular problem.

Community Problems

Community Assets

Preventable diseases

Examples of healthy families as positive role models

Poor housing

Construction skills, history of people working together, tradition of savings, vacant land

Fatalism/apathy/

History of community-building activities (without relying on outsiders)

dependency Low incomes/productivity

Entrepreneurial skills, artistic skills, Close to market, Active women’s group, Responsive local government, Positive relationship with local NGO

Youth leaving

Positive role models, economic opportunities (above), youth group

Table 1: Seeing the community through an asset lens

The “needs-based” approach to development is the product of the well-intentioned efforts of universities, donor agencies and governments. Using needs surveys to identify deficiencies, they develop solutions to meet the needs identified. In the process, however, this process inadvertently presents a one-sided negative view of community, which has often compromised, rather than contributed to, community capacity building.

Kretzmann and McKnight (1993) point out that if the problems map is the only guide to poor communities, the consequences can be devastating (p.4). One of the main effects is leadership that paints a negative picture of the community. This is because leaders find that the best way to attract institutional resources is to highlight the severity of problems.

Local leadership is judged on how many resources are attracted to the community, not on how self-reliant the community has become. Another consequence is that community members start to believe the negative images being put forth. They begin to see themselves as deficient and incapable of taking charge of their lives and of the community. Not surprisingly, community members no longer act like citizens; instead they begin to act like “clients” or consumers of services with no incentive to be producers.

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Coady International Institute: Mobilizing Assets for Community-Driven Development. 2009

Gibson-Graham (2005) have drawn similar conclusions based on their work in the Philippines. The figure below illustrates the typical “needs” map drawn when external agencies focus on what communities lack, rather than what they have:

Figure 2: A needs map for the village of Jagna, Phillipines Source: Gibson-Graham, J.K. Surplus possibilities: Post development and community economies.

Singapore Journal of Tropical Geography, 26 (1), 2005, 4-26

Yet another consequence of this way of characterizing communities is that local groups begin to deal more with external institutions than with groups in their own community.

This reinforces the notion that “only outside experts can provide real help” (Kretzmann and McKnight, 1993, p.4) and further weakens neighbour to neighbour links. Funding is made available on the basis of categories of needs (health, unemployed youth, water shortage, for example) rather than for integrated approaches. Regrettably, this leads to “the much lamented fragmentation of efforts to provide solutions…[This] denies the basic community wisdom which regards problems as tightly intertwined, as symptoms of the breakdown of the community’s own problem solving capacities" (ibid, p.4). To make matters worse, most of the funding tends to go to the institutions filling the needs.

Perversely, these institutions begin to develop a vested interest in maintaining this needsbased, problem solving approach.

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An alternative approach is one that recognizes that it is the capacities of local people and their associations that build powerful communities. Recognizing these capacities begins with the construction of a new lens through which communities can "begin to assemble their strengths into new combinations, new structures of opportunity, new sources of income and control, and new possibilities for production" (ibid, p. 6). The community of Jagna, characterised by its needs in Figure 2 above, now looks very different when it is characterised by its assets:

Figure 3: An assets map for the village of Jagna, Phillipines Source: Gibson-Graham, J.K. Surplus possibilities: Post development and community economies.

Singapore Journal of Tropical Geography, 26 (1), 2005, 4-26

Associations, Institutions and Citizens Another distinguishing feature of ABCD is its emphasis on the active role of community members as citizens. One of the ways in which individuals act as citizens is when they 4

Coady International Institute: Mobilizing Assets for Community-Driven Development. 2009

take responsibility for initiating community building activities, rather than leaving this function to government agencies. This process of citizen-driven development happens spontaneously when citizens form informal or formal associations to undertake community development activities. As vehicles for collaborative effort, many associations can also take on roles beyond their original purposes to become full contributors to the development process, linking with public and private sector institutions.

What do we mean by associations? An association is the basic community organization for empowering individuals and mobilizing their capacities. An association can be defined as a group of two or more citizens joined together around a common activity, often sharing a common vision or goal. Associations are voluntary organizations that operate based on consent. In principle, no one can tell members what to do - even to show up at meetings. They may be formal, with elected officers and members who pay dues, or very informal without a name, nor any officers or formal memberships. There are various types of associations. Some are churches created by people of common faith.

Some are organized around pressing social issues. Other associations are organized around athletics, gender, arts, culture, age, special skills or place of residence such as a neighbourhood or housing complex.

Traditional associations

Associations of people of the same ethnic, class or clan groups

Religious associations

Associations with a clear religious mandate, often involved in social service delivery

Social movements

Associations advocating for change, focusing on the interests, concerns and aspirations of particular people

Membership associations a. Representational

for example, peasant organizations, business and trader associations

b. Professional

for example, associations of lawyers, teachers, journalists

c. Social-cultural

for example, for sports and other recreational purposes

d. Self-help

for example, neighbourhood committees, community based organizations, rotating savings and credit associations (ROSCAs)

Table 2: Types of associations Adapted from Tandon, R. (2001).Civil society in India: An exercise in mapping. Innovations in Civil Society, 1(1).

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Associations have three main powers. First, members of associations decide for themselves what is an opportunity or a problem; they don't need to consult experts first.

Second, they share in developing a plan to exploit an opportunity or solve a problem; they do not leave it to experts to do it for them. And third, they take action to realize an opportunity, create an initiative or solve a problem. There is nothing new or revolutionary in this thinking. Associations are the basic tool for empowering individuals, building strong communities, creating effective citizens and making democracy work in many countries.

Institution

Association

Figure 4: Geometry lesson: Contrast the institution and the association

Institutions are the other main actors in the community development process; they include private businesses, public agencies and NGOs. Institutions are essentially systems. They are organized for the control of many by a few, and for mass production: “Putting the minds of a few into the hands of many”. As John McKnight points out, systems are very good at doing certain things, such as running an airline. You don’t want the pilot asking for the passengers’ input on where the plane should go, or who should perform the plane’s maintenance. On the other hand, systems are not very good at providing care. They cannot cater to individual differences. They create consumers and clients, not producers and citizens. When systems grow very large they often overwhelm or replace associations. Moreover they are not usually accountable to the local community but to some central authority or set of professional standards.

There are, however, many people within institutions that recognize this situation and are unhappy with it. McKnight and Kretzmann refer to these people as “gappers” - people that work in institutions but whose heart is in the communities. They help to bridge the gap between institutions and associations.

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Coady International Institute: Mobilizing Assets for Community-Driven Development. 2009

Definitions Asset-building: Strengthening existing assets and expanding asset base Asset-mobilising: Assembling, preparing and organizing assets, and putting them to use for long term livelihood security Asset-based (as an approach, a set of principles): Recognizing and developing the asset potential that exists within individuals and their communities

Coady International Institute: Mobilizing Assets for Community-Driven Development. 2009

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SECTION 2: COMMUNITY-DRIVEN DEVELOPMENT Spontaneous “Community-Driven” Development Everywhere we travel in the world we ask people to tell us stories about a time when people from that village or neighborhood mobilized their own assets and successfully undertook an initiative without any direction from outside individuals or agencies. Even in the poorest or most remote communities we always find lots of great stories. Often these stories are about efforts to build or rebuild local infrastructure, provide a new service to community members or create a new enterprise.

If you peel back a layer on these stories you will always find examples of local leadership that focused on opportunities rather than problems, and informal associations of people motivated by a sense of civic duty, at the center of the action. There is much that government and non-governmental organizations can learn from these experiences about how to “lead by stepping back”.

For example, just ten kilometres down the Trans Canada Highway from the Coady International Institute there is a rural farming community of 1,100 households called St. Andrews. Over the last 17 years people in this community have managed to build a community centre, a curling rink and seniors housing apartments, and they have done this almost entirely with their own savings, skills, labour and materials. Community members were very clear that the community centre and curling rink could and should be built without any government assistance. The seniors housing apartments on the other hand needed a 25% government investment to bring down the rents to a point where the units would be affordable for local seniors.

This stands in contrast to most rural communities in Nova Scotia today where the notion of initiating a development project usually means drawing up a proposal for government funding. St. Andrews serves as an excellent example of how communities can take a lead in rebalancing the rights and responsibilities of citizens, communities and the State (the full case study can be found in the Appendices of this manual).

Unfortunately we have also found that when we ask development practitioners (and we’ve asked hundreds who have attended the Coady Institute over the past 8 years) to tell us stories about citizen-led initiatives from their own experiences, very few of them can find even one example that is in any way related to their work. Instead, they usually have to think of the village where they grew up, or the neighbourhood where they are currently living to find such a story. Not surprisingly, their involvement in these stories is never as a “development practitioner” - it is always as a contributing “member” or “citizen”.

What stands out in these stories is the role of particular individuals who catalyze the process of community-driven development, and the strong base of social relationships (or social capital) that is mobilised in such a process. Sometimes these catalysts are traditional leaders, but often they are leaders that emerge because they have had some formal education, or they have traveled or worked elsewhere and returned with new ideas. All leaders – whether men, women, or youth – are able to stimulate a sense of 8

Coady International Institute: Mobilizing Assets for Community-Driven Development. 2009

pride and opportunity, recognizing the potential within the community, as well as the potential of “sons and daughters” living outside the community in larger centres, and opportunities available through external institutions.

The stories illustrate a wide variety of ways in which communities combine their assets and channel them towards realizing a community priority. Roads, bridges and schools were built; tracts of land were reforested to guarantee fuel and water supplies; land was irrigated for cooperative commercial cash crop production; new markets were found of existing crops and new crops planted (or agricultural methods used – i.e., organic) for emerging or shifting markets; campaigns against factory owners that were polluting the environment were organized; homes for AIDS orphans were found. The list is long.

Many of these initiatives started out very small, built some momentum, and then grew into more ambitious endeavours. Notably, external institutions only got involved after communities had already demonstrated their organizing and mobilizing capacity.

Definitions Exogenous: Derived or is developed outside the community Endogenous: Originates from within; derived or created from inside the community

Attached are two examples of community-driven development – one from Peru and one from Ethiopia

The Community of Cullpe, Peru Prior to the early 1980s, the farming and cattle raising capacity of Cullpe (located 92 km south of Peru’s capital, Lima) had been severely affected by changes in the hydrological cycle and consequent degradation of vegetation, soil erosion, and loss of soil fertility.

Service delivery in the form of education and health care were minimal. Although land reform measures permitted each family to own one hectare of land, this was insufficient to guarantee food security given the ecological conditions. For many young people, prospects for a future in Cullpe seemed unattractive, and many began to leave for the city.

Yet, by an astute use of community assets, Cullpe has been able to overcome many of these problems, and make the transformation from a subsistence economy without food security to a diversified cash economy with food surplus. These assets include indigenous knowledge of local ecology and effective farming methods, rich biodiversity, strong community organization, a cooperative work ethic, and access to urban markets.

The strong leadership and social organization of Cullpe have been a key factor in turning the local economy around. The community is made up of 30 families, all related, that are able to mobilize extended family membership. During the last 12 years, influenced by this leadership, the community has chosen not to put resources into the elaborate and Coady International Institute: Mobilizing Assets for Community-Driven Development. 2009

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expensive patron saint festivities, deciding instead to invest these resources in agricultural production. A culture of communal work has allowed bridges, roads, and reservoirs to be built, and reforestation and social conservation programmes to be put in place.

There are several stories that illustrate how Cullpe was transformed into a prosperous community. Some of the youth that had migrated to urban centres during the 1970s returned with technological knowledge gained from work and travel experience. One of them had gained experience of dam construction, and returned to Cullpe with ideas for damming rainwater. After convincing his family, a communal meeting was held to convince other families. Still doubtful, 6 community members were encouraged to travel to the north of the country to observe dam construction there. On their return, 16 families in total agreed to collaborate. During a 7 year period, from 1983 to 1990, through contributions of labour and money, which helped pay for contracting paid workers, these families built the dam.

As a result of this dam construction, it was possible to increase the area of cultivable land through irrigation. Without the resources to purchase advanced technologies, the community again showed its ingenuity. Some community leaders had heard about simple techniques for irrigation on the radio or seen examples of irrigation systems on programs shown on their battery-operated TV. The decision to try this in Cullpe required the mobilisation of community members in a labour-intensive system to: 1) collect hundreds of thousands of milk and sardine cans; then 2) attach each to a plant and keep it constantly filled with water, allowing the water to drain gently out of the hole at the bottom clogged with wool. At harvest, they calculated the rewards of their efforts: savings in water use, an increase in productivity, a reduction of disease, and an increase in revenues. After a few years, the increase in revenues meant that the handcrafted irrigation system could be replaced with sprinkler systems. They now have 20 hectares of irrigated land.

Starting in 1995, some NGOs, such as CIED and Instituto de desarrollo y medioambiente (IDMA), and state institutions collaborated and strengthened the development process that Cullpinos had started years before. By this time, the dam for the reservoir had been built and 10 hectares of land were being irrigated. The high selfesteem, and the high regard for their efforts in the region as a whole, allowed the people of Cullpe to interact with these agencies on an equal level. This collaborative relationship resulted in the construction of a second reservoir; the establishment of a micro credit system to allow farmers to invest in farming inputs and irrigation systems; and the ongoing training of community members in pest and disease management, soil and water management, livestock rearing, and promotion of aromatic and medicinal herbs.

Collaboration with outside agencies in the public and private sectors is essential for securing health and education services, improving market access, and maintaining sustainable growth in the face of a rapidly changing agriculture sector, much of which has been dominated by agro-industrial farming for export. As such, Cullpe stands out as an excellent example of a community that works collaboratively with multiple stakeholders to ensure continued development, but on its own terms. It also illustrates how success breeds success – external agencies are much more attracted to work with 10

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communities that have already proved they can mobilize themselves to drive their own development.

Source: Adapted from an internal document by Catherine Hirbour, Coady Youth Intern, and Eduardo Lopez Ayala, CIED, Peru, December, 2001

GPSDO and the Sebat-bet Gurage The Gurage Road Construction Organization (GRCO) was established in 1961 in Addis Ababa as a federation of seven community-based development associations representing the seven houses (territorially defined groups of related clans) of the western Gurage.

The urban elite, at the request of rural elders, founded the organization to mobilize communal resources for the purpose of constructing roads to connect Gurageland to the national highway system. The organization has since expanded its activities to encompass a wide range of rural development activities. In 1988, the organization changed its name to the Gurage People’s Self-help and Development Organization (GPSDO). GPSDO is the oldest and most successful indigenous development association in Ethiopia.

The achievements of GPSDO over the last 40 years have included the construction and maintenance of over 500 km of all weather roads, and the construction and maintenance of six high schools, adult literacy centres and many primary schools. The organization has also provided several towns and villages with access to drinking water, electricity and telephone services. In conjunction with international NGOs, GPSDO has built women’s literacy centres and kindergartens. In addition to providing this physical infrastructure, GPSDO has facilitated a process of transcription and “modernization” of the Gurage customary law and run programmes on awareness of AIDS, eliminating “harmful traditional practices” and improving farming techniques. This process of development has raised the profile and self-image of a once marginalized ethnic group. Perhaps the most striking aspect of these achievements is that, with the exception of the literacy centres and kindergartens, all these projects were funded exclusively by contributions from the urban and rural Sebat bet Gurage communities and investments made by GPSDO. Gurageland is located in the central Ethiopian plateau, approximately 150 - 250 km south of Addis Ababa. The estimated population of Gurageland is three to five million with around two million being Sebat Bet Gurages (Gabre 1997). In addition, it is estimated that the majority of Gurages now reside outside Gurageland (Alemayehu, 1999) with Gurages making up around 20% of the population of Addis Ababa. The Gurage zone is one of the most densely populated areas of Ethiopia, varying between 200-300 people per square kilometre. The rural economy is based on subsistence agriculture. However, in order to meet financial obligations, such as land tax and festivals, and to exist beyond a subsistence level, almost all Gurage men and boys migrate to other areas of Ethiopia to generate income, usually through petty trade.

Most GPSDO development interventions follow a similar process. Ideas for potential development projects are initiated in Addis in negotiation with the urban elite, comprising high-ranking civil servants, prominent businessmen and activists in associational life (all men). There have been variations; for instance, some projects have Coady International Institute: Mobilizing Assets for Community-Driven Development. 2009

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been initiated in the rural areas (again always by men). However, all attempts at large scale development without the support of urban Gurages and GPSDO have been unsuccessful.

In the past, GPSDO had formal rural sub-committees that worked in conjunction with the seven Addis based committees and the relevant government bodies. More recently, their rural organizational structures have become more varied. Permanent subcommittees exist in some areas and ad-hoc sub-committees activated for certain purposes in other areas. Sometimes, there is no rural organization although the urban sub-committees continue to maintain contacts with prominent elders. In Moher the rural development committee stands at the apex of rural resource mobilization and is composed of peasant association (PA) leaders and prominent elders. The committee has authority to ensure that each PA provides its share of resources and acts as a point of liaison between the rural community and the Addis based Moher sub-committee. The 14 PAs are responsible for resource mobilization. In the case of the high school construction, their role was to collect 30 Birr (about $7) from each rural household. If households did not contribute, the PA could take the case to the village, clan or house Shango and apply sanctions.

In many projects, rural Idirs (or burial societies) have been used by the rural development committees and PAs to mobilize their members’ resources and to organize communal labour. During the construction of the high school in Moher, some wealthy rural Idirs paid their members’ contributions directly from the Idir’s capital, whilst others lent money to their members to pay their contributions. The rural Idirs jointly paid for the high school opening ceremony and for the installation of a telephone service, and the Idir leaders organized their members’ labour into work groups for land clearance. In addition to making occasional special contributions to new initiatives, the Idirs, as permanent institutions, make ongoing contributions to ensure the sustainability of GPSDO projects. In Moher, the rural Idirs pay the salaries of a message taker at the telephone centre and a guard at the high school.

Urban participation is usually in the form of cash contributions. However, members of the community with other attributes, such as skills, contacts (with the government and more recently international NGOs) and organizational ability are also expected to contribute these resources to development. GPSDO contacts what it defines as the urban community through networks of friendship and employment and particularly Idirs. The clan and household-based Idirs form the urban backbone of GPSDO and many charge a 10% development levy on monthly fees which can be used to fund projects. One migrant commented, “part of our monthly Idir fee goes towards development and sometimes the [Idir] committee will ask us to pay a lump sum for a particular project.” GPSDO activists and elders use their knowledge of urban networks, urban associational linkages and rural kinship ties to access a large proportion of the urban Gurage population to mobilize urban resources.

Adapted from: Leroi Henry (2003). Participatory Development and the Construction of Civic Virtue in the Sebat bet Gurage Communities, prepared for the Conference “Participation: From Tyranny to Transformation?” Manchester, 27/28 February, 2003

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Coady International Institute: Mobilizing Assets for Community-Driven Development. 2009

Community-Driven Development A common thread that weaves through these case studies is that successful self mobilization by communities not only results in increased confidence and capacity to undertake more activity, it also often attracts the interest and resources of external agencies. But instead of driving the process, the external resources support the community’s own agenda.

A citizen-led or community-driven development approach has tremendous implications for organizations that act as intermediaries between communities and outside institutions. Promoting such an approach requires a commitment to "step back" and allow the community to lead. It requires a commitment to act as a facilitator rather than the "driver" of the community development process. This is not easy. It is difficult to predict or control the kinds of activities the community will undertake. This approach does not fit nicely into the notion of the "development project" that NGOs and donors are most familiar with. But the rewards are worth the effort—discovering ways to assist communities without creating dependency. At the Coady Institute, we are exploring how this works through partnering in “action research” with various organizations that are working in a different way with communities so that community assets are strengthened and linked.

It is important to note that a shift to a citizen-led or community-driven approach is taking place at a time when there is a global focus on strengthening governance, reflected in increased efforts to decentralize local government and build capacity of local communities to realize the rights of citizenship and find avenues of economic opportunity. A community-driven approach, with people acting as citizens rather than clients is therefore very timely. Nevertheless, we take these steps in full knowledge of the bumps and pot-holes along the way. We recognize that the notion of “community” needs to be handled carefully; that leadership, social capital, and local initiative have both positive and negative power dimensions; and that mobilizing assets (whether social, financial, natural or physical) must go hand in hand with building, replenishing and strengthening them. We also recognize that the role of external institutions needs redefinition so that they are able to see communities as partners in an investment. This may mean more flexible systems of accountability than donors have required in the past.

Definitions Community-driven Development: You will find the term “community-driven development” has different meanings depending on the organization using the term.

The World Bank, for example, uses the term to describe one of its programs. Worth almost $2 billion annually, this program is aimed at helping groups of urban and rural poor people identify priorities and then work with their local governments to:, for example, build and maintain water and sewage systems, rural access roads, schools and health posts; or manage nutrition or micro-enterprise support programs. Communities have some decision-making power and take on increasing responsibilities for maintaining or sustaining the infrastructure or services created under this program, but much of the design, money and expertise come from outside the community.

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In this course, however, what is meant by community-driven development is the process whereby a group of people (in a shared activity, organization, village or neighbourhood) motivated by an issue or opportunity, self-mobilize to undertake an activity without any direction from an external agency, using only their own resources (at least initially) and maintaining control even when external agencies do get involved. In these situations community members tend to act out of sense of civic duty. Whether they are selfemployed, unemployed or working in the private or public sectors, they take part as citizens of their community rather than in any other capacity. This is why the terms “citizen-led” and “community-driven” development” are used almost interchangeably in this manual.

Participation without ownership is just good theatre

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Anthony Scoggins

Coady International Institute: Mobilizing Assets for Community-Driven Development. 2009

SECTION 3: HISTORICAL AND THEORETICAL INFLUENCES ON ASSET-BASED APPROACHES Introduction Community development practice has been influenced by the dramatic changes experienced in an increasingly globalized world economy. Accompanying these changes are new ideas about how to approach community development.

In most countries, economic liberalization policies have resulted in a weakening of the role of government as a provider of solutions to community problems. At the same time, strengthening accountable forms of governance at the local level and promoting effective civil society have been key elements in democratization. A more liberalized economic environment and technological advances in global and local communications have provided opportunities for decentralized economic development for some communities. Other communities, meanwhile, struggle for survival, stretching their assets to unsustainable levels. In this period of change, there is a two-fold challenge at the community level: to create and seize opportunities for sustainable development, and to claim and retain the rights and entitlements of state and global citizenship. This means thinking about “assets” in very broad terms: rights, capacities, capabilities as well as access to natural, physical and financial resources to generate sustainable wealth.

Asset-based community development embraces several ideas and practices that have risen to the surface during this period of change. In this section of the course, we want to show how ABCD offers a way of tying these ideas and practices together. This approach to working at the community level is not only effective in stimulating development by active citizens; it also complements policy changes designed to create institutions that are responsive to community-driven initiatives.

The following are the major influences that are reflected in the ABCD approach.

•

Recognition of successful community driven initiatives that have taken place with limited outside intervention—“endogenous development”

•

Deeper understanding of what motivates communities to self-mobilize

•

Lessons learned from integrated approaches to community development

•

Community economic development theory

•

Lessons learned from theory and practice of empowerment, participation and citizenship

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Community Experience of Spontaneous, Endogenous Development An ABCD approach is inspired by those communities that have been able to mobilize their own resources for positive social and economic change. Sometimes this has taken generations. Often, however, inspired leaders are able to mobilize these efforts more rapidly. They achieve this by linking local communities with sources of social, technical or financial investment, and by building the local organizational base to keep the momentum of development going. These achievements have been noted in small rural communities, as well as large, urban communities.

Lessons from Social Activism John McKnight and Jody Kretzmann’s ideas for ABCD were influenced by a five year study of successful community initiatives where local communities with dedicated leadership had been able to transform the local economy. Their work was also influenced by their own experience as community organizers in Chicago during the 1960s, when the Civil Rights movement was at its peak. Their work has therefore always been fuelled by a strong sense of social justice, and a keen understanding of what inspires community action, and what (inadvertently) destroys it: “We both learned that the quickest way to disempower a neighbourhood is to introduce a whole lot of social workers and lawyers” (Jody Kretzmann, personal communication, April 2002).

Lessons from Appreciative Inquiry Effective community development work begins with building relationships at the community level. Appreciating the achievements and strengths of the community is an important aspect of this relationship building. To facilitate this, asset-based approaches have been influenced by the methodology of Appreciative Inquiry (AI). AI was initially developed at Case Western University as a way of transforming organizations that were “stuck”. More recently, it has been applied in communities around the world, notably by MYRADA in India, PACT in Nepal, World Vision in Tanzania, and the International Institute for Sustainable Development in Canada.

Appreciative Inquiry is a process that promotes positive change (in organizations or communities) by focusing on peak experiences and successes of the past. It relies on interviews and story telling that draw out these positive memories, and on a collective analysis of success. This analysis becomes the reference point for designing further organizational change or community action.

In a community setting, the appreciative approach rejects the problem focused, needsbased approach of conventional service delivery models. It attempts to transform community culture from one that sees itself in negative terms to one that appreciates its capacity to bring about positive change. Rejecting a focus on problems, AI adopts what Elliott (1999) calls the “heliotropic principle” (p.43). Just as plants grow towards their energy source, so also do communities and organizations move towards what gives them life and energy. AI generates such energy by helping communities see themselves in a positive light, emphasizing their strengths, and inspiring them to collaborate on

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community activities that contribute to their vision of the future. While problems are not denied, they are often not directly addressed. Ashford and Patkar (2001) illustrate this by quoting from the psycho-analyst Carl Jung: All the greatest and most important problems of life are fundamentally insoluble.

They can never be solved, but only outgrown. This “outgrowing” proves on further investigation to require a new level of consciousness. Some higher or wider interest appeared on the horizon and through this broadening of outlook the insoluble problem lost its urgency. It was not solved logically in its own terms but faded when confronted with a new and stronger life urge. (p. 86)

Integrated Development: Theory and Practice The sustainable livelihoods approach The concept of Sustainable Livelihoods evolved out of the work of Robert Chambers and others in the 1980s. It was developed into a specific approach to development in the late 1990's by the British Department for International Development, assisted to some degree by Institute for Development Studies (UK). Other organizations such as UNDP, CARE (USA), Oxfam (UK) and IISD in Canada have all been pioneers in operationalizing this approach.

The Sustainable Livelihoods Approach (SLA) grew out of a concern that poverty alleviation was being treated too narrowly with the promotion of income generating activities. Proponents of "sustainable livelihoods" saw the need to take into account many other factors: the vulnerability context in which the poor find themselves; the strategies that households and communities employ to deal with these shocks; all the human, financial, social, physical and natural assets of households and the community; and the larger structures and processes (institutions, organizations, policies and legislation) that shape people's livelihoods. All of these factors "influence people's livelihood strategies – ways of combining and using assets – that are open to people in pursuit of beneficial livelihood outcomes that meet their own livelihood objectives" (DFID, 2001).

ral

Policies, Institutions, Processes Levels of government CAPITAL Private sector LIVELIHOOD Laws STRATEGIES Culture Financial Policies Institutions Influence & Access

tu Na

ica ys Ph

Socia l

n ma Hu

l

Vulnerability Context Shocks Trends Seasonality LIVELIHOOD ASSETS

Livelihood Outcomes More income Increased well-being Reduced vulnerability Improved food security More sustainable use of NR base

Figure 5: The sustainable livelihoods framework

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Adapted from DFID. (2001). Sustainable livelihoods approach guidance sheets. Livelihoods Connect Website. Retrieved January 11, 2008 from: http://www.livelihoods.org/info/info_guidancesheets.html

As promoted by DFID and UNDP, the sustainable livelihoods approach has four essential features. Firstly, its starting point is that vulnerability to shocks and trends prevent people from having the security of a sustainable livelihood. Secondly, as a framework for analysis, it draws attention to the full range of assets that people draw upon to compose a livelihood (namely human, natural, financial, physical, and social and/or cultural assets) and examines these in the context of the larger economic, political, and institutional environment. Thirdly, as an instrument for policy and program design, it emphasizes an integrated approach to development in which an adequate asset mix can be created, sustained and transferred from one generation to the next. Finally, it puts people in the community at the centre as the principle agents of development acting through community based organizations and collaborating with various other agents such as local government, NGOs, and the private sector (DFID, 2001; UNDP, 1997).

The SLA provides analytical tools for building a comprehensive understanding of how people deal with crisis as well as opportunity. Its thorough treatment of the range of assets that people draw on enhances the ABCD approach. In turn the ABCD approach has much to offer in terms of operationalizing the Sustainable Livelihoods Approach at the community level.

The importance of social capital

Up against low income, poor education, few material assets, no insurance, and usurious credit, social networks may be the most important resource of the poor.

(Woolcock and Sweetser, 2002)

Of all the capitals in the Sustainable Livelihoods Framework, “social capital” has attracted most attention, because until now it has been an undervalued influence on livelihood. Robert Putnam, in his study of regional differences in economic prosperity in Northern Italy, was one of the first to identify a relationship between economic prosperity and membership of associations and social networks (which are representative of social capital in a community). In explaining this phenomenon, he shows how trust and cooperation, associated with social capital, facilitates the flow of information, enhances the potential of individual and collective effort, and stimulates local economic growth.

As a result of this “discovery” of the value of social capital, the importance of nurturing, strengthening, and building social capital in every human endeavour from enhancing food security to micro-finance programmes has been recognised. Most significantly, social capital is viewed as the asset that gives access to all other assets. This is because those who are socially connected in relationships of cooperation and trust have access to assets and opportunities that can enhance their livelihood, in ways that the socially isolated do not.

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It has also been shown that where there are higher levels of social capital there is a greater propensity for collective action, provided there are leadership and incentives for collective action (Krishna, 2002). Other writers (Woolcock and Narayan, 2000; Woolcock and Sweetser, 2002) have distinguished between bonding social capital (enabling us to survive) and bridging social capital (enabling us to link into networks that will improve our livelihood options).

Regardless of whether social capital is used to “bond” or to “bridge”, the value of social capital to local economic development is now widely recognised. Associations and social networks provide the connections and the experience of collaborative effort for the individual and collective good. This in turn spins-off in local economic growth. Dupar and Badenoch (2002) in a recent collection of case studies on decentralization in South East Asia show how high stocks of social capital result in more effective partnerships with local government and stronger partnerships in turn result in more effective local resource management. The synergy in these partnerships occurs because communities with stocks of social capital are able to demand greater responsiveness from local institutions; at the same time, local institutions are likely to view that stock of social capital as a reason to invest in the community. A particularly vivid example of this kind of synergy is in the attitude of the municipal authorities of Curitiba, Brazil (under the leadership of its dynamic mayor) towards the potential of community groups within municipal boundaries— communities were not seen as a burden draining local resources but as sources of human and social capacities to revitalize the local economy.

At the core of ABCD and asset-based approaches, are the associations and social networks that form the fabric of community life and collective effort. It is in associational life that communities demonstrate their capacities as citizens to bring about change and maintain social cohesion.

Asset-building Assets…are not simply resources that people use in building livelihoods: they…give them the capability to be and act. (Bebbington, 1999) The idea of “asset-building” has several origins. Amartya Sen promotes the idea of enhancing the freedom of individuals to be active agents of change, rather than passive recipients of services. Such freedom is not only political but occurs when people have capacities and capabilities to take action as a result of adequate education, health care, and protective security. Asset-building in a broad sense therefore has to do with creating an environment where such capacities can be generated and sustained. In this view, it is important to invest in health care and education as well as protecting natural resources and generating financial assets for investment. Thus, asset-building is reflected in programmes as varied as: micro-finance, such as the work of the Self Employed Women’s Association in India and Grameen Bank in Bangladesh; investment in Community Foundations managed by local communities; programmes designed to strengthen social capital; organizational capacity building; reproductive health care; and community-based resource management.

An essential point in this discussion of assets is that they are not simply a means to an end – a means of building a house, starting a business, or living free from illness, or Coady International Institute: Mobilizing Assets for Community-Driven Development. 2009

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sending a child to school – they also give meaning to our lives. Assets are therefore of psychological value, giving us the capability to act.

The following table (Moser, 2006) provides a summary of different asset-based analytical frameworks and how these have been operationalised in practice:

Table 3: Summary of asset-based analytical frameworks and their associated operational approaches Source: Moser, C.O.N. (2006) Asset-based approaches to poverty reduction in a globalised context.

Washington, DC: The Brookings Institution

Community Economic Development: Theory and Practice ABCD is a strategy for community-driven economic development. To date, the theorizing of community economic development (CED) relies more on community development theory than on economic theory. In fact, economic theory fails to recognize the concept of community at all. Classical economic theory demands the free 20

Coady International Institute: Mobilizing Assets for Community-Driven Development. 2009

mobility of both labour and capital, and the concept of community gets in the way of this free flow.

The evolution of CED theory represents a confluence of three different development paradigms: a) developing or improving economic systems and infrastructure; b) developing the economic capacities of individuals; and 3) developing the economic capacities of groups to undertake community economic development. In the figure on the next page, we show the focus of the development process for each paradigm.

The economic systems perspective sees the only difference between economic development and community economic development as one of scale. In other words CED is merely economic development at the community level. Economic development is equated with economic growth. The main participants are outside experts and the types of initiatives employed tend to involve technological improvements and infrastructure development largely in the hopes of attracting investment and industry.

From this perspective the development process is largely exogenous.

The individual capacity building perspective sees CED as the by-product of the economic success of individuals. "Community" tends to refer more to a "target group" of individuals (usually those economically marginalized) rather than to a geographic locality. According to Diochon (1997), economic development solutions are seen to rest with building the capacity of a community's human resources to exploit the potential of underutilized natural and institutional resources. Collective action may be employed, not as an end in itself but, rather, as a means to “create innovation and entrepreneurship, more/better jobs, increased wealth and incomes and increased opportunities for personal fulfillment" (Chapter 4, p. 12). From this perspective the development process can be either exogenous or endogenous. The main actors may be external NGOs or they may be local organizations established to promote individual capacity building.

In contrast, the group capacity building perspective sees collective action as an end in itself. Collective action enables individuals who lack the resources to independently improve their well-being to mutually achieve this end. This perspective defines CED as an endogenous process. The main participants are by definition the members of marginalized groups that form to undertake collective action. Examples of these types of initiatives include peasant organizations striving for land reform, producer/consumer cooperatives and credit unions, and the movement for community-based resource management. Community economic development from this perspective is therefore achieved by “independent community-based groups and agencies that can gain broadbased community participation and establish partnerships with public and private stakeholders from within and outside the community� (p.13). This is precisely the model that an Asset-Based Community Development approach seeks to achieve.

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Exogenous

Development Process

Endogenous

Reforming economic systems

Economic capacities of individuals

Economic capacities of groups

A means to economic growth

A means of enhancing the capacity of the poor to become more self-reliant

A means to foster individual and collective empowerment and control of local resources

Defined strictly in terms of administrative boundaries

Tends to have a demographic dimension focussing on those who are economically marginalized

Self-defined, a group that shares a common bond

Resource privatization

Extension services

Community based resource management

Financial system reform

Microfinance institutions

Village banks, credit unions, savings and credit cooperatives

Industry attraction

Entrepreneurship development

Coperatives, community enterprise

Asset-Based Community Development

Table 4: Three development paradigms for community economic development

Empowerment, Participation and Citizenship: Theory and Practice A central theme of ABCD is returning power to communities, power that has otherwise been held by external agencies such as government and non government organizations.

This issue of power and control has also been at the core of at least two decades of participatory development research and practice. Originally, “participatory” development arose as a reaction against mainstream approaches to development that marginalized the poor and powerless, or imposed programmes on them. Proponents of participatory development attempted to reverse this by insisting that people should be at the center of the decisions about their development, and by drawing attention to the social inequalities that prevented people from such participation. The idea behind participatory development is that well-being is closely linked to capacity to act.

In recent years, however, critics have argued that the terms ‘participation’ in development and ‘participatory approaches to development’ are now used so broadly that they have almost lost their meaning. Participatory techniques have been used because they are “efficient” in mobilizing communities, not because they result in any lasting social change. NGOs and government agencies have often set the terms of community engagement, sometimes limiting it to consultation rather than promoting

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community decision-making. In these situations we can say that the term "participation" has been co-opted. Michael Woost (1997) gives an example of this when he writes: The poor [are allowed to] participate in development, but only in so far as they do not attempt to change the rules of the game‌[It is like] riding a top-down vehicle of development whose wheels are greased with a vocabulary of bottomup discourse. (p. 249) Although some NGOs see their role as initiating a process that leads community decision-making and self-mobilization, experience suggests that NGO involvement can often, inadvertently, stifle that progression.

The table on the next page describes different types of participation. Reflecting on your own work, how would you characterize the type of participation in the project or programs in which you are involved?

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A typology of participation: How people participate in development programs and projects

Passive participation

People participate by being told what is going to happen or has already happened. They receive benefits (they are "beneficiaries"). They participate only as long as benefits are available. Project management does not consult them. Information sharing only takes place among development professionals.

Participation as contributors

People participate by contributing information, resources, or their labour to the project. The people have little role, if any, in designing the project.

Participation as consultants

People are consulted about problems and opportunities in the area, and about the project design. Development professionals make the decisions about the design.

Participation in implementation

People participate by forming groups to carry out the activities of the project or program. They are not involved in overall decision-making. The groups tend to be dependent on development professionals to initiate them or facilitate them; they are not self-sustaining in the long term.

Participation in decision-making

People are actively participating in analysis and planning along with development professionals. They are involved in local decision-making New institutions are formed, or existing ones are strengthened. People have a stake in maintaining these structures and practices.

Self-mobilization

People participate by undertaking initiatives independent of external institutions. They may enlist the assistance of development professionals, but they remain in control of the process.

Table 5: A typology of participation Source: Adapted from Amit, E. (1996) Course Manual, Coady International Institute and Pretty, J. (1994). Alternate systems of inquiry for sustainable agriculture. IDS Bulletin, 25(2), 37-49.

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Self-Mobilization and Inclusion The asset-based approach is designed to build on, or stimulate, a self-mobilized process of development.

Many questions can be asked about the quality of participation, even if it is selfmobilized by members of the community. How inclusive is the process, for example?

Oppressive political structures, class and caste distinctions, extreme poverty, authoritarian decision-making structures, a wide gap between the rich and poor, inadequate access to information and dependence on outsiders may all limit participation. Some people may simply not have time to participate. In some cases, people may have been brought up to think they are powerless to act. Women, for example, are often socialised to feel inferior and therefore unworthy of having a voice.

These issues are taken up in the paper provided in the Appendix:: Does ABCD deliver on social justice?

It also needs to be said, however, that people may not want to participate right away.

Often it is a few people who get excited by an idea and want to move it forward, while others wait to see what will happen before joining in. It takes good leadership to continue to encourage others to contribute their ideas, skills and effort to a community activity.

Participation in Local Governance Participatory approaches to development have typically focused on how people can be involved in decisions about the development that takes place in their community. This includes decisions made in the private sector, in NGOs, and at different levels of government.

With respect to participation in local governance, there are two questions to bear in mind as we explore community development further: 1. How can relationships between government and citizens be changed so that citizens participate more effectively and government engages with the people in a responsive and accountable manner?

2. When we think about mobilising assets for community development, what are the responsibilities of community members, and what assets should people be entitled to by virtue of citizenship? What can be done to advocate for those rights, while simultaneously moving forward with the assets already in hand?

ABCD and the legacy of participatory development intersect in helping to define where citizens can effectively participate in both representative democratic space (for example, through local government) as well as in participatory democratic space, created and defined by people themselves.

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To expand participatory democratic space, external agencies such as NGOs and local government agencies that use the ABCD approach are deliberate in “leading by stepping back”, strengthening the collective action that already takes place through a community’s “associational” base and encouraging ways and means to negotiate with external institutions – public and private, for-profit and not-for-profit – that provide the information and other resources necessary to sustain community development.

For further reading on this topic, check the following websites: Logolink: Learning Initiative on Citizenship and Local Governance http://www.ids.ac.uk/ids/particip/research/localgov.html Participation Toolkit http://www.toolkitparticipation.com/index2.htm John Gaventa (Institute of Development Studies, University of Sussex) Towards Participatory Local Governance: Assessing the Transformative Possibilities http://idpm.man.ac.uk/rsc/events/participation03/index.shtml

Definitions NGO: For ease of reading, the acronym “NGO” is used in this manual to denote the organizations external to the community that is engaged in some way in community development activities. This is because most of you reading this manual are working with the NGO sector.

However, NGOs are only one type of external organization acting as an intermediary between communities and the outside world. Local governments, multilateral agencies or even private businesses may also play this intermediary role.

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A Short History of Participatory Approaches Note: Dates indicate when these ideas started to be discussed in the literature. These are not distinct approaches. In fact, each builds on the others. Each continues to be influential – they are not fashions or fads.

When 1970s

PAR

Late 1970s

What

Basic idea

Tools and Methods

Participatory Action Research

Education for critical consciousness: Understanding oppression

Action Research to promote understanding of one’s situation as the basis for action

Agro-Ecosystem Analysis,

Farmers as researchers working in collaboration with agricultural research institutions

Research tools designed for non literate farmer researchers: maps, diagrams, charts etc.

Multidisciplinary research teams carrying out rapid local assessments with local communities. Usually carried out as a preliminary phase of planning by outsiders in consultation with local communities

A repertoire of rapid assessment tools was developed to measure local economy, land availability, productivity etc., then expanded to include ways of measuring access to water, nutritional status, income and expenditure patterns etc.

Farming Systems Research Early 1980s

RRA

Rapid Rural Appraisal

1985

International Conference on Rapid Rural Appraisal held at Khon Khaen, Thailand

1985

PRA

Participatory Rural Appraisal

1990s

PRA, PLA

To avoid rural bias, PRA becomes Participatory Learning and Action. The idea of PRA/PLA takes off in India, SE Asia, Sub-Saharan Africa. By 1996, PRA is used in 100 countries. RRA and PRA are seen as a continuum with outsider control of the process at one extreme and local control at the other.

Seen as a subset of RRA but with a focus on local community doing research and analysis and owning the knowledge.

Some NGOs packaged a set of tools for problem identification, analysis and prioritization, but this is not intrinsic to PRA.

More tools added to the repertoire: Mapping, ranking, scoring, and modeling. The guiding principle is that non literates can use and learn from the tools, analyse situation and plan strategies to solve problems. Tools also applied to M and E.

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When

What Basic idea Tools and Methods In the middle is a collaboration between local and outside agents.

Late 1990s

Critique of PRA

PRA promises empowerment but in practice PRA is often “done to” communities rather than done by them, reinforcing the position of the outside organisation that extracts information for its own planning purposes.

PRA often ignores and reinforces local power relations.

Late 1990s, 2000s

AI

Appreciative Inquiry

Originates as an organizational development strategy but soon seen as a way to energise and motivate communities

Interviewing and discussion techniques to focus on strengths and past “peak “ experiences as a motivator for people to take action

Late 1990s,

ABCD

Asset-Based Community Development

A focus on strengths and assets, rather than problems and needs (the “glass half full”).

Designed to stimulate community organizing, linking with and leveraging assistance from external institutions

Methods, behaviours, attitudes, and tools identify assets, strengths, and opportunities: “Not mapping but organizing”.

Less a research focus, more an action focus.

2000s

Table 6: A short history of participatory approaches

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Figure 6: ABCD and PRA compared Photo by Jerawat Kiatiwongse

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SECTION 4: ASSET-BASED COMMUNITY DEVELOPMENT:TOOLS AND METHODS Overview There is no “blueprint” for carrying out an ABCD approach, but the principle behind an ABCD methodology is that when communities recognize their assets and opportunities, they are more likely to be motivated to take initiative to mobilize and strengthen their asset base. Guided by this principle, the NGO has to decide which combination of tools and methods are appropriate for helping communities to organize themselves to identify, link, and mobilize their assets.

An ABCD methodology usually begins slowly. It takes time to build relationships with community members and conduct basic background research. Appreciative interviewing techniques can then be used to set the tone for an asset-based approach.

Through story-telling, appreciative interviewing highlights past successes in the community that people can build on. Usually, a group of interested people is motivated by this process to explore an asset-based approach further.

The NGO can then assist with planning a series of inventories or asset-mapping exercises that the group can conduct. This mapping process identifies: the various informal and formal associations in the community; the skills, talents and capacities of individuals; the assets of local institutions; and, the physical assets and natural resources the community can draw on.

The results of the inventories and mapping exercises are brought back to the larger community where some community economic analysis and visioning takes place. The NGO helps the community access external resources to consolidate the gains from the community’s own activities. Ideally the process results in the formation of a community foundation or structure (such as an association of associations) that can sustain this community-driven process.

Throughout the process, the NGO has to bear in mind that mapping assets is as much about organizing as it is about discovery.

Note: For ease of reading, the acronym “NGO” is used throughout this chapter. This is because most of you reading this manual are working with the NGO sector. However, NGOs are only one type of external organization acting as an intermediary between communities and the outside world. Local governments, multilateral agencies or even private businesses may also be involved in this work

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Purposeful Relationship Building Identifying communities interested in applying an ABCD approach Starting to build relationships with community members Completing background research NGOs that choose to apply an ABCD methodology must first decide which community to work with. In many cases, NGOs have a history of working with communities in a way that may be quite different from the ABCD approach. In fact, the NGO may have focused more on needs than assets. The NGO, while using participatory methodologies, may actually have been the driver, rather than the facilitator, of community development.

Adopting ABCD requires a ‘shift’ in approach as well as methodology.

It is often difficult to determine which communities are appropriate to work with using an ABCD methodology. The most common dilemma is whether to work in a community where it has worked before and try to shift to an ABCD approach, or start a fresh relationship with a new community. There are pros and cons to each choice. An advantage to working with an existing community is that field staff may have developed strong relationships with key leaders and community associations. A disadvantage to this strategy is the community may be used to a relationship based on needs and may have developed a relationship of dependence on the NGO that may be hard to break.

Whichever type of community the NGO decides to begin with, it is important to find a community where there is a high probability of success using an ABCD methodology, if this approach is to spread to other communities. This means doing some “purposeful reconnaissance” to find a community(ies) where, for example, there may be a history of endogenous community development, a high level of social capital, strong local leadership, a good relationship with local government, etc. Finding communities like this requires taking the time to talk to field staff, local government officials, other key informants, and, of course, members of the prospective communities.

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Motivating Community Members Appreciative interviewing to recognize existing strengths and assets Analyzing success An excellent “entry point” for NGOs that want to stimulate an asset-based and community-driven development process is to ask people to tell stories about past community successes where communities have taken the initiative without outside assistance. An effective strategy for learning about this kind of success includes interview techniques used in appreciative inquiry. This is done during an intensive period in the community talking to a wide range of community members, asking questions about past success and what can be learned from an analysis of this success. The idea is to instill a sense of pride and confidence and to help community members build an analysis of what is involved in designing an initiative that will be successful. The main focus of the inquiry, is on learning about the strengths of the community through questions about how people have mobilized in the past to overcome difficulties and create positive changes.

As one of the first activities by the NGO with the local community, it is important to establish a culture of positive thinking and of genuine learning on the part of both the NGO and the community members. NGOs need to cast themselves as “searchers” genuinely seeking community knowledge and experience rather than “planners” with their minds already made up about what the community should do. We suggest that interviews with the local community about past successes can start off very informally with individuals, and then become more systematic, as more people are interviewed in groups.

Interviews can generate considerable information about individual and community skills, strengths, and assets. It is also a way in which development workers can build new-found respect for the knowledge and the experience of community members. By asking questions rather than telling communities what to do, a genuine partnership is more likely to emerge. To make these interviews as productive as possible it is important to keep the discussion focused and to ask detailed questions.

For example, a discussion might begin with either of these: Tell me about a community initiative that you consider to have been successful, and that this community undertook with no direction or help from outsiders.

Tell me about an activity undertaken by community members that benefited the local economy and continues to benefit the local community.

To help the story-teller remember detailed information about strengths and assets, the interviewer needs to probe. The interviewer is trying to understand the reasons for success, learning with the person who is telling the story. S/he might ask questions like:

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What was the role of particular people in the community in making this a success? (Find out about group/community/individual/institutional strengths and capacities) What was it about the situation itself? (Find out about the environment, the weather, local economic opportunity, the legal situation, cultural values, government policy, people’s past experience etc.)

What was it about you that made it successful?(People may be unwilling or too shy to talk about their own individual strengths and capacities. If so, you may need to find out about their strengths by asking others.)

Other examples of appreciative interview questions: Personal Questions Recount an event where you demonstrated remarkable leadership abilities. What challenges did you face? How did you overcome them?

Internally-looking group questions Tell a story about a time when you felt the group was really at its best; when energy and enthusiasm were particularly high.

Externally looking community questions When you think of all the achievements that this community has made, which one has produced the most enduring benefits? What made it so sustainable?

Adequate documentation of the strengths, assets and enabling factors is important, as this information will be used for the mapping phase.

With encouragement, these questions will generate rich stories that reflect individual, group, and community achievements, values and aspirations. The role of the facilitator is to help the group draw common themes from the stories and to begin to understand why the process unfolded as it did and to see the connections between the various community assets.

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Creating an organizing committee The discussion during appreciative interviewing will usually excite a few people who want to see their community driving the development process in the present and future.

These people may be interested in forming an organizing committee to steer an ABCD approach forward to the next stage (documenting the community's assets and acting on the opportunities identified). Some of these individuals may agree to sit on such a committee and/or help to recruit other community-minded members.

How? Usually, during the discussions, leaders will emerge who are interested in taking part in understanding more about the community and then taking part in community-building activities. This initial group will grow as a wider group is invited to participate. In smaller communities this may be quite straightforward.

In larger communities or in more transient urban neighbourhoods, it may be necessary to seek out local leaders.

Who? A wide variety of leaders should be invited to participate based on who are the “movers and shakers” in different associational groups. Such leaders may not be known to all, especially if they are from more disadvantaged groups without public leadership roles. Nevertheless, even within a small group, local informal leaders are people with influence, with a network of relationships, a willingness to act, a willingness to ask others to act..

Effort needs to be made to identify such leaders and to encourage their participation.

Sometimes the NGO can be helpful in encouraging the group to be more representative (i.e., including more women or youth). The NGO can also provide helpful advice to the group in how to recruit other members of the community. For example to encourage someone to participate, think about: What is that person’s “individual interest” or “motivation to act” (concerns/fears, dreams/gifts to give). How is our work an opportunity for this person to act on his/her motivation (the overlap of individual interest with common interest)?

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Identifying Assets and Opportunities Asset maps, Skills inventories, Venn diagrams, Transects: – Associations (social capital) – Individual skills (human capital) – Institutions (physical capital, social capital, opportunities in the policy environment) – Natural resources (natural capital and land use/ownership policy environment)

The true value of asset mapping Asset mapping engages representatives from voluntary associations to come together for a journey of discovery. This discovery phase consists of local people ‘mapping’ all of the community’s assets. This process leads to new relationships forming between the individuals doing the mapping and the ‘subjects’ being mapped. A resident who has just had all her skills and capacities identified by someone in the community feels appreciated and affirmed. Individuals carrying out the mapping exercise begin to see ways in which individual skills can be combined with associational, institutional, and business assets to create new enterprises or opportunities.

Identifying associations

Identifying assets usually begins with an inventory of associations because of the work that has just been done in organizing a core group of people drawn from the “associational” part of community life. In fact, it is usually people drawn from this “associational” base that carry out the community asset mapping. Thus, the process of making an inventory of associations becomes less one of “mapping” than one of “organizing” or “recruiting” associations into the identification and mobilization of community assets. The best community organizers in the world know that community associations (no matter how informal) are indispensable vehicles for development, and that many of them can in fact be stretched beyond their original purposes and intentions to become full contributors to the development process.

Any inventory of associations should include all voluntary (not for pay) citizens’ associations (religious, cultural, athletic, recreational etc. – refer to “Types of Associations” – Section 2).

1. Start with the organizing committee. Ask them to list personal connections to associations. Describe the nature of the relationship. Put each person’s name by his or her association list. Write the leaders of these associations (in brackets below).

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Women’s group (Mariam)

Burial society (Ayelaw)

Belaynesh belong to 5 associations

Parents work group at school (Hannah)

Church choir (Woknesh)

Coffee cooperative (Berhanu)

Figure 7: Social networks through associations

2. Expand the list to other associations. Ask each of the organizing committee members to identify other associations that he or she knows about. If known, list the leaders and name the person among your group who is best connected to the leader.

Once you know what associations are present within the community, it might be useful to understand the relationships the associations have with the community and with each other. The following is a Venn diagram completed by community members in Tunyo, Lutaso, Chenjeni and Namawanga, Kenya. The Venn diagram represents the associations present within the four villages and their relative size and importance (the closer to the centre, the more important).

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Figure 8: Venn diagram illustrating the relative size and importance of different associations

3. Identify best prospects. Which associations are most likely to participate in working toward a common purpose?

The key to building relationships among local assets is in mobilizing associations to undertake action. This starts with association leaders.

Sample questions for association leaders: What is your group’s main purpose?

What else do you do now? (for your group? for the community?)

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What might you do in the future? (concerns to address/dreams to realize) Are you interested in working on “x”? (issue or activities from community plan) If yes, what are the next steps to involve your membership in our purpose?

What might your group want to contribute?

Will you personally come to a meeting with other associations interested in an “association of associations” working together in our community on “x”?

What other associations are you connected to? (Particularly those that are interested in issue “x”.)

Where do you get information from? What are your sources/lines of communication?

Some Principles for Mobilizing Associations Follow relationships: Engage associations through people meeting with leaders of groups they know.

Listen for interests: The key to engaging associations is listening for their group’s “motivation to act” – what will they actually do? What do they want to do? What might they consider doing?

Three ways to common ground: Associations can be brought together around similarity, geography or theme.

Work “inside-out”: Associations can best be engaged doing what they want to offer rather than be “volunteers” for what we want done. Ask the question - what do you want to do to address “x”? Don’t push an answer.

A good issue is one for which you can answer yes to the following: “Can we succeed?” and “Will this build our participation?”

Do the easy thing first: Associations can start to work together by doing what is a natural fit success builds participation.

Keep a focus: Do not try to do too many things at once - associations have only so much energy.

Tip the expectations: Expect people to be contributors. Speak about ‘us’. “We are the community.” “We need you!” Often people need to be ‘authorized’ to do important work.

Table 7: Some principles for mobilizing associations Source: Mike Green, Halifax workshop, 2001

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The power of associations: not mapping but organizing Adapted from an article by Mike Green, ABCD Institute There is a danger in starting out with a big project of association mapping. Data collection is not community building. A process to identify and map associations is only valuable if it leads to working relationships among associations…. The point is gradually to build a working relationship among a growing number of associations. Mapping your community to find 300 associations is only a potential for associations to work together.

Organizing 15 associations this year to work together on common issues is building real power. Association mapping is really identifying prospects for organizing. To be a good salesperson a prospect means nothing unless you make the sale! The sale for us is groups who work together as an “association of associations with a common purpose”.

A core principle of ABCD is to focus on the relationships within a community…Find out who is connected. Connect these networks for work in common for a strong community…Power is relationships. For example, if you find ten association groups, each with twenty people, they have the potential for 200 people to work together for something of importance. If you speak to an association leader you will find that they can usually tell you several things their group has considered doing in the future.

Associations have a present purpose within their stated mission, and usually some activities outside their present stated purpose. For example a youth group develops recreational programs for young people, but has also built a community hall (which includes a resource centre and training facilities) and is now starting a savings and credit cooperative.

Associations can come together for work in common by developing a “common interest”. Every association group, like every person, has various “individual interests”.

These are concerns (what they don't want), dreams for the future (what they do want), and present activities they are contributing to the community (action and projects). The key is to identify individual interests with strong “motivation for action”. Associations can be organized to work together by developing a common interest, which is like a tapestry weaving together the threads of several groups’ specific interests. This is the art of community organizing.

Mapping social capital and social networks It may be useful for the community to look at social networks more closely because they can be very revealing about relationships of trust. For example, using a community map drawn on the ground with households identified, a mapping exercise can quickly illustrate the different kinds of relationships each household has with other households..

Once the households have been identified, different colored string can be used to show the relationships that households have with others (for example, parent-child, siblings, blood relations, marriage relations). Once the community has an understanding of this approach, different kinds of relationships (friendships, associational links, etc.) can also be included. This kind of mapping exercise can also be used in urban areas, or in areas recently resettled. In these contexts, it is helpful for the community to see how social Coady International Institute: Mobilizing Assets for Community-Driven Development. 2009

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capital is built up over time as people get to know one another, begin to trust and cooperate with one another, and then begin to intermarry.

Another way of discovering important social relationships is to map the places people visit in a community and the reasons why they make these visits. In Khalde, Nepal, women mapped where they go to seek different forms of support (financial, social and health support). The map that resulted from this is shown below. It illustrates who the women go to for health advice (the local healer, in House No. 21), and who they go to for financial advice (key households, shaded grey). The networks are all within the village and none of the women have made linkages with external agencies.

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Health advice

Financial advice

Figure 9: Mapping social relationships within the village Adapted from Gibbon & Pokhrel. (1995). A trainer’s guide for participatory learning and action. SARL’s Methodology Series

In another community in Nepal, women’s groups (Khalde, Tallo Pansing, Pangsing groups in the diagram below) had much wider networks. They had links to various external institutions. Conducting this mapping exercise with the women of this community helped them to appreciate the potential they have to access services and influence others.

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Figure 10: Mapping social networks and external linkages Source: Gibbon & Pokhrel. (1999). Social network analysis, social capital and their policy implications.

PLA Notes, Issue 36, 29–33.

There are many ways of carrying out Social Network Analysis. An excellent source of information on this can be found at http://kstoolkit.wikis.cgiar.org/Social+Network+Analysis+software

Mapping individual skills and capacities

Mapping or making an inventory of the skills, gifts and capacities of community members can be done in different ways. The organizing committee may want to visit each household or they may prefer to gather a group of community members who collectively will know virtually everyone in the community. The decision about how to do an inventory will depend on the size and character of the community. For example, in small communities, each member of the committee could take responsibility for interviewing a portion of the total number of households. In larger communities, the mapping of skills could take place gradually, starting with a small group, then building the inventory over time.

Below is one possible way of building up the inventory: 1. Start with the skills, strengths and assets that emerged from the appreciative inquiry interviews. Make sure there is a sufficient representation of the community: elderly, middle aged, youth, artists, women, entrepreneurs, disabled, etc.

2. Organize these by categories such as: Coady International Institute: Mobilizing Assets for Community-Driven Development. 2009

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a) General skills and abilities: A skill can be anything from food preparation to cattle rearing to climbing trees. In some cultures people may be very modest about their talents and skills. They may or may not have experience in offering their skills to others either as a gift or as goods or services for sale. b) Civic skills: Community-building skills, such as organizing, communications, ability to work with youth or the elderly, leadership skills, etc. c) Entrepreneurial skills and experience: Business skills, such as the operation of a small business, book keeping, marketing, dealing with suppliers, etc. d) Cultural and artistic skills: Skills, such as craft making, dancing, theatre, story telling, music, etc.

3. Indicate levels of ‘interest’, ‘experience’ and ‘ability’.

4. Expand this capacity inventory to include everyone in the community.

This kind of mapping can be done with a few community members, and then can be expanded as required. A big chart in a community center can serve as the place where people’s skills and talents are recorded. A Community Member Profile can be kept and easily retrieved when these skills and expertise will be needed by the community.

The following example is a list of individual skills uncovered by community mapping exercises in the villages of Lutaso and Chenjeni, Kenya.

Skills Inventory ~ Lutaso, Kenya

Skills Inventory ~ Chenjeni, Kenya

Farming, leadership, sewing, house painting, masonry, house roofing, business, digging pit latrines, tree planting, singing, teaching, defense, basket making, tablecloth making, carpentry, radio/TV repair, bicycle repair, herbalist, public speaking, animal rearing, pottery, football, circumcising, beehive construction, rope/broom making, dancing, hair plaiting (braiding), crocheting, driving, running, preaching, embroidery, cooking, treasury, tailor, volleyball, knowledge of sports.

Farming, business skills, traditional birth attending, teacher, sports, carpentry, animal rearing, composting, tailoring, sewing, dressmaking, singing, bicycle repair, granary making, dancing, broom making, bicycle riding (boda boda), thatching and roofing, strength, hair plaiting (braiding), crocheting, spinning, dig boreholes and latrines, house construction, ploughing, masonry, radio/TV repair, key cutting, house painting, leadership, hairdressing, tablecloth making, traditional healing (toothaches).

Table 8: Skills inventories for two communities in Kenya

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Mapping the assets of local institutions Local institutions are often overlooked as sources of assets that community groups can draw upon to support community development activities. Time and time again, however, the stories of spontaneous community-driven development, documented by participants in the Coady Institute’s educational programs, highlight the importance of the role of local institutions. Examples include: an old church building made available for a group of local women to process food; access to a phone, fax or computer made possible by a local government official or NGO; and a local business offering to transport goods to market for a nascent community cooperative. Making a list of the assets of local institutions can often result in the discovery of assets the community had never previously considered as potentially assisting community development efforts.

1. Make a list of local institutions. These might be: Various government institutions (agricultural extension office, health care centre, schools, library) NGOs Churches Private sector institutions such as cooperatives, banks, market vendors and individually owned businesses 1. For each institution list its potential assets. When we talk about the assets of local institutions we generally mean the following kinds of resources: Personnel Space and facilities Materials and equipment Economic power (for example the power to purchase services or products from the community) Expertise Links to other networks You can try this out by mapping the assets of your own organization. On the following page there is an example.

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Figure 11: Mapping your organization’s assets

Illustrating the links between associations and institutions One way in which the relationships between associations and institutions can be illustrated is by using a Venn diagram (below). Associations and institutions are given different shapes (circles and rectangles). This type of diagram could help organizing committee members see which associations might be able to access the assets of certain local institutions. It could also highlight the need to recruit someone from a key association into the organizing committee.

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Figure 12: Using a Venn diagram to illustrate the relationship between associations and institutions Source: Freudenberger, K.S. (1994). Tree and land tenure: rapid appraisal tools. Community Forestry Field Manual No. 4. Rome: Food and Agricultural Organization (FAO).

Mapping physical assets and natural resources

There are many participatory methods for mapping physical assets and natural resources, such as community maps and transects.

A community map can be drawn by people in the community to show land use, land tenure, water sources, buildings and facilities, roads, boundaries etc. It is a good idea for a group of people to do this together so that they can discuss the various features and their location before agreeing what should go on the map and how it should be represented. Typically this activity would be done on the ground using a stick to draw lines and various sticks, soils, leaves, flowers and stones to represent the features on the map.

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Figure 13: A community map with transect line drawn across areas of maximum ecological variability

It is revealing to see the differences between maps drawn by men and maps drawn by women, because each group will emphasize the features that are important to them in their daily lives. Men and women should discuss these differences. Together, they will appreciate the contributions that different genders (and other social groups) make and the kinds of assets and resources they prioritize over others.

A transect (on the next page) is an effective way of documenting natural and physical assets in more detail. A transect is an imaginary line across an area to capture as much diversity as possible. By walking along that line and documenting observations, an assessment of the range of assets and opportunities can be made. For example, by walking from the top of a hill down to the river valley and up the other side, it will be possible to see the full range of natural vegetation, land use, soil types, crops, land tenure, etc. The following transect was completed by community members with the help of an NGO fieldworker in Senegal. (Adapted from Freudenberger, 1994).

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Zone Land Use

Trees & Plants

Animals

Soils

Resource Tenure

Upland Houses, huts, mosque, food drying and storage, animal pens Parkia biglobosa (antisnake venom properties), Combretum micranthum (various healing properties), Lophira lanceolata (oil extracts from seeds) Goats, sheep, cattle, poultry Gravel surface, Little soil development, except in enclosures Compounds and enclosures: private individual holdings Pastures: open access

Hillside Pasture

Parkia biglobosa, Acacias (timber, forage), Combretum micranthum, grasses

Goats, sheep, cattle, poultry, squirrel, hare, field rats Skeletal soils, over dolerite, gullying Open access

Riverine Fallow land, pasture, water sources, fields Erythrophleum suaveolens (antimicrobial properties)

River Water sources

Monkeys, domestic animals

Fish

Black soils (easily worked), increased clay content Fields/fallow land: private individual holdings and some communal management Water sources: open access, communal management Pasture: open access

Open access, communal management

Riverine Fields, fallow land, banana fields Bauhinia reticulata (rope from bark, medicinal properties), Pterocarpus erinaceus (timber, animal fodder), Parkia biglobosa Monkeys, field rats

Hillside Houses, huts, food drying and storage, fields, fallow land, pasture Fruit trees: mango, “bitter orange�, citrus, papaya, African fan palm, tamarind

Goats, sheep, cattle, poultry, hare

Ferrallitic soils, silty or sandy clays

Black soils (easily worked

Fields/fallow land: private individual holdings and some communal management Banana fields: private holdings

Compounds and enclosures: private individual holdings Outer fields: private holdings and some communal management

Opportunities Figure 14: Transect

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Identifying Economic Opportunities Community economic analysis and the leaky bucket One of the challenges of using the asset-based community development approach is how to engage community members in an ongoing process of identifying and mobilizing local assets for community economic development. One popular education technique, known as the Leaky Bucket, is a useful tool for demystifying community economics for people.

It also provides a useful framework for identifying the various categories of community assets and the possible economic opportunities for linking some of these assets together.

Inco me

One way to help community members better understand the dynamic of their local economy is through some basic community economic analysis. This process can begin by asking people to imagine the community economy as a leaky bucket with money and goods flowing into the top as well as spilling out the sides and bottom.

Exp ort

Inflows

Econonic Activity Level

es urc has er P

s fit

ase ch ur

Leakages

s

Co nsu m

o Pr

P ut

en

e si d ut

In p

stm ve In

tO

Figure 15: The basic "leaky bucket": Economic inflows and outflows

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The bucket analogy represents a number of key concepts (Shaffer, 1984): 1. The community is intimately linked with the rest of the world through the inflow and outflow of income, goods and services, raw materials, jobs, expenditures, investments, profits, ideas etc.; 2. The community uses resources to produce the output it sells. These resources can be available locally or purchased elsewhere; 3. The size of the bucket is determined by the inflow of outside income, the leakage of income and the volume of resources used to produce the community’s output; 4. The level of fluid in the bucket represents the overall level of economic activity.

Community economic analysis is essentially the systematic examination of the components of this bucket. This can be translated into some basic questions (Shaffer, 1984): 1. What are the linkages with the rest of the world?

2. What are some of the ways to increase the potential inflow of income?

3. How can the community reduce the loss of resources to improve its local income situation? (A community’s ability to sustain a level of economic activity depends however not only on the inflows but also on the leakages from the system.

Leakages occur when people in the community purchase goods and services from outside.)

4. How can the community better use its existing resources and businesses to produce more output and therefore more jobs and income?

One way for community members to begin answering these questions is to start thinking of their local economy in terms of three main economic flows: money coming into the community, money circulating within the community, and money flowing out of the community.

Money coming in The first economic flow, money coming into the community, can have many components. A few examples are: payments for goods or services sold outside the community; payments by tourists or visitors for goods or services purchased inside the community; wages or salaries for people living in the community who work outside the community; remittances from household members living outside the community; transfers from government or non-governmental organizations outside the community to branches or agencies located within the community, etc.

Money going out

The second economic flow, money “leaking” out of the community, often includes: household consumption (food, clothing, furnishings, etc.); household savings (to the extent that it is deposited in financial institutions outside the community) and investment Coady International Institute: Mobilizing Assets for Community-Driven Development. 2009

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(one could argue school fees for children are an investment); purchases of inputs to the production process by businesses in the community; purchases by government and nongovernmental agencies; private and public sector wages to people outside the community; profits of businesses owned by people outside the community, etc.

Money circulating within The third economic flow, money circulating within the community, can include: wages or salaries to people who provide labour to government agencies; non-governmental organizations; large, small or even micro-businesses in the community; purchases of goods and services from businesses within the community; sales and purchases by businesses from other businesses; household savings which may be mobilized through informal savings and credit groups or more formal savings and credit cooperatives, etc.

Mapping local economic flows

One way to help community members identify the main flows is to help them draw a simple diagram that identifies the main economic actors in the community. Community members can then try to identify the relative amounts of money that flow into, out of, and between each actor. The thickness of the arrow can be used to show the rough order of magnitude of the flows.

Figure 16: The main economic actors: Households, firms, and the state

In 1991, Fairbairn (see diagram on next page) improved the analytical potential of the “leaky bucket” model by dividing firms into two categories: “locally oriented” and “export oriented”. The earnings of export oriented (selling outside of the community)

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industries are viewed as inflows. From a community perspective the balance between export and local trade therefore became critical. Export oriented firms bring new money into the community while locally oriented firms tend to circulate money within the local economy and reduce leakage. Both types of firms are important and the potential for linkages between them are often overlooked.

An often overlooked community asset is the savings and spending power of households and local institutions (including larger businesses). In even the poorest communities people save and spend money. By examining community expenditure patterns, (asking households where, and on what, they spend their money) you will find that there is more local expenditure power than you think. Along with expenditure power, consumers have preferences: Preferences about which products to buy; Preferences about which businesses to patronize; Preferences about how far they will travel to make purchases; Preferences about what prices they will pay for their purchases; Preferences about what service they think is best.

In addition to households, institutions and businesses make decisions about where to purchase inputs, whom to hire and where to do their banking (or at least to place their savings).

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Figure 17: The leaky bucket: Locally oriented and export oriented economic activity Adapted from Fairbairn (1994)

The community perspective Many economic development efforts focus on “enterprise development”. There is an assumption that successful enterprises will benefit the community. Enterprise profitability often becomes a “proxy” for community economic development. But highly profitable businesses may not be that beneficial to the community as a whole. If businesses do not bring in new export income nor add value in any way, do not purchase inputs inside the community, or destroy or consume large amounts of non-renewable local resources, then the firm may not be of net benefit to the local economy.

In order to be able to assess the health of the local economy and the relative importance of various firms, it is helpful to know: 1. What amount of economic activity (and employment) is export oriented vs. locally oriented? If you know this you can get a sense of the employment multiplier, the degree to which locally oriented sector has been built around the export base. You can then compare how the export base of various sectors in your community compares with those of other similar communities to see where opportunities for export or value-added production may lie.

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2. What percentage of money coming into the community is likely to become income for local people (local wages/salaries/profits)? This can tell you how beneficial the export base is to the local economy.

3. What percentage of local people’s incomes is likely to be re-spent in the community? Knowing the income multiplier can help you assess the health of the locally oriented sector. It is critically important that informal sector activities are included.

4. Where is money leaking from the local economy? This can reveal many opportunities to re-capture money through the local production of goods and services currently purchased externally (forward and backward linkages).

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National Government Internal Revenue Allotment

Sales from Products & Services Overseas Worker Remittances

Nearby Employment

Inflow Internal Flow Outflow Non-Monetary

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Tourism Farming

Private Sector Quarrying Company Market Stores Rural Bank Rice & Animal Traders Resort & Vacation Houses Non Government Organization

Local Government Unit 0 Elementary School Municipal Government Day Care Centers Municipal Hospital Post Office Fire Station

High School & College Education

Fishing

Household Home-based Retail Stores Small Restaurants Local Rice Mills Small Entertainment Pubs & Videoke Carpenters Fishfolks Farmers Small Charcoal Makers Backyard Poultry & Livestock Raisers Small Beach-Front Owners & Cottages

Commercial & Government Banks

Entertainment

Brain Drain

Supplies Legal & Illegal Gambling

Taxes, Permits & Other Fees

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Figure 18: Leaky Bucket of the Municipality of Cabangan, Zambales, Philippines (created by Edwin Nerva)

Additional readings

Fairbairn, B. et al. (1991). Co-operatives and community development: Economics in social perspective. Chapter 3. Saskatoon, Canada: Centre for the Study of Co-operatives.

Kinsley, M. (1997). The economic renewal guide: A collaborative process for sustainable community development. Rocky Mountain Institute.

New Economics Foundation. Tools for economic renewal. Four excellent tools: Bizfizz, Im3, Plugging the Leaks, and Local Alchemy are available from: http://www.neweconomics.org/gen/tools_top.aspx Cunningham, G. (1990). The local economy and micro-enterprise sector of a native community: A case study of Wikwemikong (unceded) indian reserve #26. Paper submitted to the University School of Rural Planning and Development, University of Guelph.

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Linking and Mobilizing Assets Convening as broadly representative group as possible for the purposes of building a community vision and plan Action-planning with interested community members Convening as broadly representative a group as possible for the purposes of building a community vision and plan The process of systematically matching assets with opportunities often calls for some kind of community forum where the results of the mapping can be presented and analyzed. This usually involves the bringing together of a larger part of the community than just those who were involved in mapping the assets.

Who is at the community table for undertaking the analysis and the possible subsequent decisions to create an initiative? In an externally-driven community development process, it is usually representatives of outside institutions (NGOs and government agencies) that tend to dominate this process. In an ABCD approach, it is essential that citizens (either as individuals or as representatives of associations) are in the inner circle of decision making, while institutions are in the outer circle supporting rather than directing any initiative.

Figure 19: Citizen-centred decision-making

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Action Planning Several NGOs in Ethiopia have developed a process for helping communities undertake action planning by linking and mobilizing assets towards a common vision.

Action Planning can range from a simple exercise to plan a one day event (“What do we need to do to repair the Church roof?”) to a more detailed activity (“What do we have to do to restore forest cover over the hillside in ten years’ time?”). In both cases, decisions have to be made about What? Why? Who? How? Where? and When?

In asset-based community development, simple action planning may be catalyzed by the process of appreciative interviewing and asset mapping. Often this renews a community’s confidence that it can make positive changes without any external assistance and a simple community activity is planned that can build on this momentum.

Other communities may instead choose to move directly into something more ambitious, requiring a clear vision and systematic planning. The steps outlined below can be used to guide this process.

ACTION PLANNING STEPS 1.

2.

3.

4.

5.

6.

7.

8.

Assessing assets and opportunities Developing a future vision Identifying community assets to achieve the vision Identifying partnerships Examining institutional consequences Understanding services provided Matching community actions with opportunities Assessment of potential changes in asset base of all community members

Table 9: Action planning steps

Step 1: Assessing assets and opportunities

While carrying out “purposeful reconnaissance” and appreciative inquiry, formal and informal discussions have been held. During these discussions, memories of how people organized to improve their communities have surfaced. Reasons why people took action at that time are also discussed. Then, during the asset mapping phase, the resources, assets, skills and talents of the community are highlighted. Through community economic analysis, the community can begin to build an understanding of the local economy and where the opportunities lie for increasing the level of income earning economic activity.

The results of the inventory and mapping exercises are displayed so that everyone can assess the assets.

Social Assets: List of associations, collective experience

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Individual skills and talents: List of skills and talents and who is willing to share them Institutional assets: Lists of government, NGO and private sector institutions and their services Physical assets: Community map Natural assets: Community map, transect Community Economic Analysis/Economic opportunities: Leaky bucket diagram

Figure 20: Pulling it all together: Linking assets and opportunities Adapted from: Rohr-Rouendaal, P. (2001) Where there is no artist. London: Intermediate Technology Publications.

Step 2 : Developing a future vision This is when the community develops a vision of what they would like to see in their communities in 5 or 10 years’ time. A brainstorming session can be used to generate ideas, and this is often made easier by the fact that people have already started to think about their assets and may have thought about what the possibilities are. It may be a good idea for different groups (such as women, elders, youth) to discuss their different visions. These will then have to be integrated into a common vision. It is at this time that the facilitator can encourage people to think about how assets can be linked and mobilized towards that vision. The vision may include a number of different ideas. As consensus starts to build around a common vision, it can be mapped or drawn by community members.

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Step 3: Identifying community assets to achieve the vision At this point, the community members can begin to identify what specific assets they can use to achieve their vision. It may be helpful at this point to review the leaky bucket analysis as any economic opportunities identified may be helpful to the visioning process.

Future change

Steps required

Local assets that can contribute

Reforestation of hill slope

1 2 3 1 2 3

Relevant local assets

Sustainable intensive agriculture

Outside assistance required Seedlings for tree nursery Clear explanation of certification system

Step 4: Identifying partnerships

At this stage, people make suggestions about who will take part in the action. Sometimes people will volunteer themselves. Sometimes, based on the skills identified in Step 1, they will be invited to contribute because their particular skill or talent is valued and needed. If there is a need for an outside partner, the community will identify who that could be.

This step can be merged with Step 3 or carried out separately.

Future Change

Actions required

Local assets

Who will be asked to give?

Outside assistance

Who will be asked?

(mention associations or individuals)

Reforestation Sustainable agriculture

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Step 5: Matching community actions with opportunities Events happening elsewhere may be seen as opportunities to bring positive change to the community. For example, a major highway may be built that is some distance from the community, but which helps the community by providing easier access to urban markets.

Elements of vision

Community actions required

Matching community assets

Matching services and opportunities available

How to address gaps

Reforestation Intensive agric.

Step 6: Examining institutional consequences With local service providers invited to attend a meeting with community members (the organizing committee), this step examines what changes each stakeholder – the community, local government, NGOs and the private sector – needs to make to better support the community vision.

Step 7: Assessment of potential changes in assets of all community members At this stage, community members check that the process and expected benefits are inclusive of all members of the community. Community members should expect to see their “asset portfolio” expand and diversify.

Step 8: Harnessing opportunities within the community

As the diagram on the next page illustrates, local associations are the vehicle by which the skills and capacities of individuals, the assets of institutions and businesses, and the physical and natural resources of the community can be identified and then mobilized in new combinations to help build or rebuild the local economy.

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Economic capacities of individuals All skills/Priority skills Enterprising interests and experience Artistic and cultural skills Ability to teach others Community-building interests and experience

Savings and expenditures of local residents Local savings Household spending patterns Consumer preferences for products and services not available locally

Physical assets and natural resources

Institutional and business assets Buildings and facilities Materials and equipment Local savings Local hiring Local purchasing Local investment Local involvement Training

Associations Formal and informal, including those associations with no economic development focus

Asset-based community economic development New businesses created (including micro-enterprises) New local hiring Increased local investment Increased local purchasing/sales Training and mentoring activities Local skills exchange New local savings and credit

Figure 21: Mobilizing the community's assets for economic development

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Building relationships among community assets An asset mapping exercise might well discover that even though a village does not possess a school, all the building skills, materials, and labour are present in the village.

Similarly, many micro-entrepreneurs may lack access to formal credit markets yet villagers’ savings are being hidden in people’s homes or kept with local moneylenders. A mapping exercise might also uncover that most women are skilled in a variety of handicrafts and that these women have organized themselves into local craft associations. These craft associations could be a vehicle by which women come together to bulk purchase materials. Eventually these associations might link with indigenous and northern NGOs that help with technical assistance in design and marketing for the urban-domestic, and international markets.

An asset-based approach also creates new relationships within and between associations.

Voluntary groups that have no experience or apparent interest in community economic development have been known to take on local economy building initiatives. In Gaindakot, Nepal a voluntary club that was formed to provide recreation facilities for youth expanded their focus to include economic development and over the past few years has helped create one of the largest rural credit unions (VCCU) in Nepal. This savings and credit cooperative has supported the creation of dozens of new income generating activities by matching local people’s skills and interest with capital (mobilized solely from local savings). The organization has also established a unique community resource centre as well as a training centre.

Sustaining the Process Demonstrating success as leverage for further investment Mobilizing additional resources through partnerships with outside agencies Help groups to work together – but let the most appropriate structures emerge gradually - Association of associations?

- Community Foundations?

This is perhaps the most critical part of the ABCD process. The following section addresses ways in which NGOs can assist communities to make the transition from undertaking small community-driven initiatives using their own resources, to undertaking larger initiatives in partnership with other stakeholders, while at the same time maintaining a community-driven process.

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Inclusiveness Now that you have walked through the basic tools that can be used to promote asset identification and moblising, have you thought about who is involved? The basic principle of an asset-based approach is that it assumes that everyone has a skill or an asset he or she can contribute. In facilitating this process, all kinds of undervalued personal strengths are discovered, and people who had once been ignored or undervalued should now be recognized and encouraged to participate. People who have been on the fringes – such as women, the elderly, youth, or the very poor – will earn more respect as a result of this process.

Nevertheless, maintaining a culture of inclusiveness may take work. Remember that the energy to take action may start off with only a few people. As their activity builds momentum, more will join and more will be invited to contribute what they have to offer. It may also be useful to conduct an analysis of who has access to and control over assets. A gender analysis, for example, often shows that women have a wealth skills and strengths, but have limited access to or control over financial assets and land. Without a change in their access to these resources they may not be able to optimize their skills as managers, entrepreneurs, petty traders, and farmers.

On the next page are the results of an exercise carried out by CREADIS, Kenya, with newly formed ABCD groups. The exercise heightened awareness of the differences in women’s access to, control of and benefit from timber resources, and led to discussion about distribution of resources in the household, and customary laws governing land and tree ownership.

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GENDER ANALYSIS OF ACCESS TO TIMBER ABCD groups: Ndengelwa, Kenya ACCESS 40-70 men 40-70 women 20-39 men 20-39 women

%Men 95 98 90 95

%Women 5 2 10 5

CONTROL 40-70 men 40-70 women 20-39 men 20-39 women

%Men 95 95 80 80

%Women 5 5 20 20

BENEFIT 40-70 men 40-70 women 20-39 men 20-39 women

%Men 50 50 70 70

%Women 50 50 30 30

•

Men and women aged 20-70 years agreed that men have the majority of access and control to timber found in the community because most of the trees are found on land that belongs to men.

•

Women’s access to timber is limited to that recovered during weeding of fields.

•

Men and women aged 40-70 agreed that they share the benefits from timber equally because men sell the timber and use the profits to provide for the basic needs of the family. Not all profits are distributed to the family however, as the men remain with a portion of the money for personal use.

Thus, men benefit a little more than women.

•

Men and women aged 20-39 disagreed and said that men provide a very limited percentage of the timber profits to the family. Only very basic family needs and family emergencies warrant the use of timber profits. As such men had majority of the control.

Source: CREADIS, 2004, internal document.

Figure 22: Gender analysis: The case of access to timber in Ndengelwa, Kenya

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SECTION 5:THE ROLE OF LOCAL GOVERNMENT, THE BUSINESS SECTOR, AND NGOS This section will look more closely at the role of intermediary organizations that position themselves between communities and external sources of support and the policy environment. The implications and challenges for these organizations in adopting an ABCD approach will be explored.

The Changing Roles of Different Agents of Development Central and local governments, non government organizations, and businesses are all involved in development as agents of The State, The Market, or Civil Society respectively. It is important to remember that people may be employed within institutions in any of these categories yet, as citizens in communities, they belong in a space that overlaps all these institutional boundaries. People who work in institutions but sympathize or act as citizens with a community initiative may be called “gappers” because they are an important link, filling the gap between communities and institutions.

Community Members Acting collectively and individually as citizens

ers

Ga pp

ers

The Market For-profit sector: corporations, local business pp Ga

The State Public sector institutions at central and local levels

Gappers

Civil Society Non-profit private sector such as NGOs

Figure 23: The changing role of different development actors

Over the years, the roles of these various development agents have changed. Thirty years ago the state was the major “driver” and funder of community development Coady International Institute: Mobilizing Assets for Community-Driven Development. 2009

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activities. Through the 1980s, as neo-liberal economic policies took hold on a global scale, the private sector was encouraged to expand, and the public sector was scaled back under fiscal and ideological pressure. In the interests of good governance, civil society has been encouraged to expand its role in some countries, while facing on going restrictions in others. Non Government Organizations (NGOs) have increased in number to fill the gap in service delivery left by the weakened state, while also taking on the role of advocate in civil society, providing an independent voice for citizen interests at the level of public policy and in the local media. In short, as The State has retreated, The Market has expanded its role, while Civil Society attempts to influence public policy and protect the interests of its constituents.

The Changing Role of Government and NGOs With global attention on effective governance and democracy, decentralization of national state functions and resources down to the local level has recently gathered momentum. Decentralization is one strategy to ensure governance at the local level where citizens can influence events and hold elected representatives to account. Also, by shifting power away from the centre, the hope is that the state will withstand the pressures of separatist and other identity groups.

Decentralization can take many forms, as outlined in the table below. In cases where decentralization of resources accompanies decentralization of power to local authorities, more genuine partnerships between communities and local government are emerging, as citizens become more actively involved in decisions about resource distribution.

Decentralization occurs when central government cedes powers to actors or institutions at lower levels.

Political or Democratic Decentralization

Powers and resources are transferred to authorities who are representative of (and accountable to) local populations.

Deconcentration or Administrative Decentralization

Powers and resources are transferred to local branches of the central state. The upwardly accountable bodies are local administrative extensions of the central state.

Fiscal decentralization of revenue and generating powers occurs in both decentralization and deconcentration.

Privatization

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Permanent transfer of powers to any non-state entity including individuals, corporations, or NGOs. Often carried out in the name of decentralization, but is not decentralization.

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Co-management

Rulemaking and natural resource management arrangements that combine deconcentration with privatization. This occurs when partially appointed, partially elected, local bodies are created.

Power sharing arrangements between upwardly accountable line ministries and downwardly accountable village or resource users’ representatives are described as co-management.

Table 10: Types of decentralization Adapted from Dupar, M., & Badenoch, N. (2002). Environment, livelihoods and local institutions: Decentralisation in Mainland South East Asia. Washington DC, USA: World Resources Institute.

The Municipality of Opol, Philippines – Example of a Local Government that Promotes and Supports Citizen-led Community Development

Zonal teams of citizens with each other to develop the best neighbourhood project

In 2001, Dixon Yasay was elected as Mayor of Opol, a seaside municipality of 50,000 people in northern Mindanao. When Mr. Yasay took office the town was considered the 2nd dirtiest municipality in the province and was known as a “salvage” area – a place where gangs from the nearby city of Cagayan de Oro would dump dead bodies.

Having observed 15 years of government decentralization in the Philippines Mr. Yasay felt this concept had failed to work its way down to the zonal, or neighbourhood, level.

The new Mayor vowed to get citizens involved in developing their own neighborhoods through a process he refers to as “demayoring” the Mayor. Mr. Yasay began this process by instituting regular zonal meetings every Thursday afternoon. The meetings were open to all citizens but a special effort was made to attract unemployed youth – those who had not already miigrated to larger cities to find work. At these meetings local government officials would report to citizens on what the government had been doing and ask people about their concerns and to share their ideas. To attract a wider range of people to these meetings the Mayor organized sporting events in which his employees would play against teams from local neighborhoods. After the zonal meetings everyone would be encouraged to volunteer some time working on small initiatives developed by Coady International Institute: Mobilizing Assets for Community-Driven Development. 2009

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the zone (such as community gardens or a decorative wharf for hosting weddings etc.).

To add some friendly competition to these zonal activities, the Mayor developed a point system whereby the municipality would award money to zones based on points. The points were based on how much the local citizens had accomplished with their own resources.

One idea that really took off was to divide the year into four periods, each with its own festival, designed and organized by one of the zones. And so, now each zone is responsible for hosting special events and decorating the entire municipality during this period. To celebrate these citizen accomplishments and to reward local government officials that provide support to these citizen-led activities the municipality names both a volunteer and employee of the week. The winners’ pictures are framed and posted in the town hall for a week and then presented to the individuals at a Monday convocation ceremony.

For his own efforts Mayor Dixon Yasay has also won several provincial and national awards for his role in stimulating and supporting active citizen engagement.

The decentralization trend has sometimes been accompanied by criticism of the legitimacy of the NGOs in their role as advocates for community interests, which has left their role ambiguous and tenuous in many countries. Yet NGOs strengthen civil society in many ways. Some NGOs continue to play the role of civil society advocate, while some continue in a service delivery role. Others play a brokering role, helping communities to make the links to sources of information, technical assistance, funding, markets and legal recourse, while ensuring that communities retain control. In fact, these roles that NGOs can play provide them with the experience and legitimacy to play an advocacy role in civil society.

The Changing Role of the Private, For-Profit Sector The expanding role of the formal private sector in community development is important for many reasons. Obviously, private firms impact community development; as employers, consumers, and contributors to the local tax base, they contribute to the local economy. In addition, however, private firms are impacting community development through their voice at the level of public policy (as an active voice in local chambers of commerce for example) and through “strategic philanthropy” carried out in the name of Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR). Philanthropic investments, while motivated by a desire to make a positive social contribution, may also serve to make a return on investment in the form of a positive public image. Philanthropic investment in communities is therefore part of its risk aversion strategy, as well as a means by which the local human resource potential can be enhanced and therefore be more productive.

According to Jane Nelson of the International Business Leaders Forum, the community investments of 50 US corporations amount to UNDP’s entire operating budget for one year. Considering this was only 50 corporations, the influence and potential impact of corporate investments in communities should not be underestimated (World Bank – Kenan Learning Forum, 2003, “Investing Communities”).

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Promotion of CSR has also led to a new generation of private enterprises that espouse a “triple bottom line” that reflects business, social and environmental priorities. In some cases a private enterprise has been the lead organization in a multi-stakeholder community development initiative. An example of one such business, Honey Care Africa, is provided below:

Honey Care Africa – Example of Private Sector Involvement in Community Development Established in 2000 by Kenyan entrepreneur Farouk Jiwa, Honey Care Africa is an example of a sustainable local business that has initiated partnerships with microentrepreneurs, NGOs, microfinance institutions, large grocery stores, multilateral agencies, private investors and government extension workers to promote a community economic development model.

Honey Care Africa’s mission is explicitly focused on creating social, environmental and economic value. Honey Care makes profits on the sale of high quality honey within Kenya and provides equipment, guaranteed fair prices and on-the-spot payments to 2,500 individual microenterprise honey producers in rural areas. Local and international NGOs organize microfinance loans to enable producers (mostly poor women) to buy hives and then collaborate with Honey Care and government extension workers to provide training. Honey Care’s unique “tripartite” relationship with microfinance NGOs and producers is a new business model that has improved the quality and supply of honey, increased the repayment of loans and allowed a greater number of poor households to diversify their incomes. Honey Care has also introduced innovative technologies to the honey industry in East Africa – effective modern hives as well as honey extraction units that take the “factory to the farmer”.

Apart from the obvious social and economic value created by the enterprise, ecological benefits include pollination of local plants and the discouragement of chemical pesticides which might harm the bees. Tree planting is encouraged through an incentive described as “Bees for Trees” where hives are given to communities that reforest areas of land.

In less than 3 years, Honey Care Africa had become the largest supplier of high quality honey in East Africa and is set to become one of the largest honey suppliers in Africa as a whole. By the summer of 2002, Honey Care had helped establish 12,000 hives across Kenya, providing income for 2,500 rural households, and producing 65 metric tones of honey per year. Start-up capital was provided by a small group of private Kenyan investors looking for a social and environmental as well as economic return on their investments.

The United Kingdom’s Department for International Development’s (DFID) Business Partnership Program and other international development agencies are providing Honey Care with funding to explore the feasibility of packaging and marketing honey in single serving sachets, thus making it affordable to the poorest. They are also providing funding for a feasibility study to sell honey to the Fair Trade market in Europe. In order Coady International Institute: Mobilizing Assets for Community-Driven Development. 2009

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to achieve even greater scale and sustainability, Honey Care is seeking to make the transition from microcredit at subsidized rates of interest to market rates.

For further information see www.honeycareafrica.com

Recognition of the Central Role of Local Communities The most important change has been recognizing the role of local communities as decision-makers. In Section 2 of this manual, we make the obvious (but often neglected) point that examples abound of communities that have driven their own development, leveraging resources for their activities while retaining control over the process.

Nevertheless, efforts to stimulate this process elsewhere by “participatory development” have often failed to result in sustained decision-making and control at the community level. This might be because the local asset base, including natural resources and social capital, have become so depleted that the prospects for survival and growth are jeopardized. Another reason, however, might be that relationships of dependency on an outside agency have stifled local initiative, or because the local institutional environment (agents of the state or the market) has not been conducive to sustained communitydriven development.

The term “Community-Driven Development” is now being used to characterize communities that are organized to initiate development activities and link with the appropriate institutions on a sustainable basis. The World Bank has now joined other institutions in supporting a development process that locates control of decisions and resources at the community level. Models for such a community-driven process include partnerships between communities on the one hand and local government and/or central government, NGOs, and businesses on the other. Thus, attention is directed to: Capacity building of local community based organizations (CBOs) and Creating a responsive institutional environment conducive to community-driven development.

In this changing agency environment, communities need to be able to negotiate directly with a range of outside agencies – NGOs, local government, and the private sector.

Community resources need to be locally managed, and access to resources for collective initiatives encouraged, as in the case of social funds and community foundations (see, for example, Dupree and Winder [2000] for the work of the Synergos Institute). These locally based funding sources – when matched by the demonstrated capacity of local communities to manage these funds in the best interests of the community – can be an important tool for sustained community-driven development.

Case Study: The Greater Rustenburg Foundation In the Northwestern province of South Africa, 1.2 million people rely on community foundations for their survival, according to Christina Delaport of the Greater Rustenburg Foundation. In South Africa as a whole, there are small pockets of wealth

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interspersed with high levels of illiteracy, weak infrastructure and high unemployment.

After the 1994 elections there was also a weakening of the NGO sector as more and more people were drawn into government employment. As a result, communities had to find other ways to ensure their continued viability.

During 1995 and 1996, Delaport and her colleagues visited the United States to find out about community foundations there. They devised a model for a community foundation that would work in the South African context. They wanted to ensure that the foundation they designed would not compete with the NGO sector but would draw in interested stakeholders from all walks of life – volunteers, corporate entities, government agencies, tribal leaders and “the man on the street.”

The main focus of their effort was to bring together people that were representative of the whole community. Over time they built up trust with local community members including local government, businesses and tribal leadership. They began to mobilize resources amongst themselves that could be used as leverage for additional resources.

Ford Foundation assisted with a donation which was then followed by donations from local mining companies. As a result of these combined efforts, the Greater Rustenburg Foundation now has an endowment of Rand 30 million (about US$ 4million).

Source: 2003 World Bank – Kenan Learning Forum, “Investing in Communities: CDD and the Private Sector.” www.worldbank.org/wbi/communityempowerment

An Appropriate Role for NGOs If community development is to be truly asset-based and community-driven, the role of NGOs is to respond to, rather than drive, the process. As Diagram A below illustrates, an NGO may play a bridging role, helping communities make the connections and linkages necessary for sustainable community-driven development. With a variety of external relationships, communities may decide to work at different times with different agencies or partner with all in a multi-stakeholder approach, as illustrated in Diagram B.

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a. NGOs can play a bridging role Local Government

Private Sector

NGOs/Civil Society Institutions

Community Group or CBO

b. NGOs may or may not be one of many sources of external assistance Local Government

NGOs/Civil Society Institutions

Private Sector

Community Group or CBO

Figure 24: The role of the NGO in citizen-led development

Implications for NGO Practice Promoting genuine community-driven development that builds on community assets, has several implications for the way in which NGOs interact with communities and design their own programs and procedures: 1. The promotion of process rather than projects According to Alan Fowler, “the one thing commonly standing in the way of authentic participation [meaning community-driven development] is the mechanism used to interact with communities: development projects�. Writers such as Fowler and Alan Kaplan have well articulated the conundrum in which NGOs often find themselves. On the one hand, these organizations often want to promote a community-driven

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development process. On the other hand, much of their donor funding is tied to “projects” with predetermined outputs and outcomes. At the end of the day, the NGO’s accountability to funders usually wins out. The NGO is forced to insert itself into the centre of the community development process in order to ensure the “deliverables” are completed – often at a tremendous cost to the notion of community-driven development. Ultimately, it is donors that will (or will not) allow a shift in balance toward “processes” rather than “products” and thus from externally-driven to community-driven development.

Development has no end; the effective development intervention opens things up, rather than closes them down. Equally, development does not begin when we decide to intervene; it has already begun.

The concept of the development project, then, with its beginning and end, its externally generated specifications, its notion of predictability and its lack of adaptability and mobility, has little to do with the effective development intervention, let alone with development itself. Indeed, the concept of the development project is anathema to the concept of development. It is a figment of an engineering mindset, at best a managerial tool used by a form of management inimical to development work, at worst a donor requirement to fulfill inappropriate financial control systems. Given its place at the very heart of the development system, it demonstrates both the misguidedness at the core of that system as well as the system’s intractability. It is the repository of all that is wrong with conventional development practice, and the greatest stumbling block to effective development interventions.

(It is ironic that so much that goes by the name of “capacity building” today entails training NGO management in what is called “project management”.)

Source: Kaplan, A. (1999) 2. Facilitating rather than driving the development process Facilitators connect people with each other and their existing resources; and help the community to affirm its real situation without illusions or false hopes. They may be provocateurs; in that they may ask challenging questions but they are ready to change, and expect to change, rather than staying static while others change (Bergdall, 2003).

Michael Edwards talks about a relationship of “critical friendship”, a relationship that “respects the self empowerment of others” where the one challenges the other to live up to social and moral obligations and helps that critical friend to connect personal beliefs to public action. Quoting Martin Luther King, this is “The love that does justice” (Edwards, M., 2003).

3. Encouraging inclusiveness in the face of power differences in the community Re-thinking the role of the NGO inevitably means thinking differently about the communities with which we work, recognizing the strengths and capacities that are

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already there, and the potential for genuine asset-based and community-driven development.

While it can be liberating and refreshing to make this shift in thinking, it can also be threatening. If the NGO is expected to play a facilitating role, it can no longer have the same degree of control and influence. Sometimes, this concern is expressed as a fear that without their influence, the development process will be driven by the more powerful in the community, excluding the poor and marginalized.

Does community-driven mean led by men/landowners/the rich and powerful? Who should drive this so-called “community” development?

In this workshop we will be discussing some of these challenges, using examples that you have had to deal with in your own work at the community level. We will discuss how the capacity or power to participate in asset based and community-driven development can be influenced by gender, class or caste, levels of education, wealth, ethnicity, political affiliations, and the constraints of time and place. Not everyone feels capable of engaging in the process. We’ll discuss how these power differences that exclude some members of the community can be modified, challenged, or even transformed by the process of ABCD. Types of power Power within

This type of power is our sense of self-confidence and selfworth. This is often influenced by how others treat us. We internalize feelings of power or powerlessness.

Power to

This is our capacity or capability to make things happen. It may include, talents, skills, strengths which are used voluntarily for action.

Power with

This is the power that results from collaborating with others.

Power over 1

This is the power that is used to dominate others, to make others do their will, or to deny others their rights.

Table 11: Types of power

An ABCD approach attempts to uncover the power to, and build on experience of power within the community. Communities do not necessarily function as a unit, but 1

There is a more subtle form of “power over” that is much more difficult to define or describe. It is the power that academics and senior private and public sector leaders have to create new paradigms. Today for example, polls tell us that most people have accepted the elite consensus that has formed around the importance (or inevitability) of market forces determining flows of investment, technology and jobs. This is not a natural law. In ten or twenty years we may no longer believe in this paradigm. But the ability to create a world view based on a set of beliefs confers a certain type of power to those who are able (or in a privileged position) to do it.

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initiative may take place that is community-based. Some or all members may be motivated to join the activity, depending on the initiative. Leadership (power within, power to and power with) is essential for mobilizing the capacities and assets of groups and individuals towards the opportunities that are available. This may not happen with all members of the community at once, but may happen incrementally, with more and more people drawn into the process.

There is often an ebb and flow of initiative at the community level. In the process, new social relationships are formed and reformed; class, gender, and ethnic divisions are modified in the process. Women, for example, who have been involved in an association (a peer savings group, for example) can no longer retreat to the same level of subordination. This is because the community now recognizes their capacities as financial managers and entrepreneurs, and this changes relations in the household, and women’s roles in other social networks and associations at the community level.

McKnight and Kretzmann describe an ABCD process as one that builds community from the inside out. The process is mirrored inside communities, the less powerful demonstrating ways in which they can, and should, gain access to resources and become drivers of development in the community. An example might be where land-poor members of the community have pooled their resources to purchase land at market rates from a landowner and have then continued to improve their own livelihoods and the economic development of the community as a whole.

Understanding power and empowerment …Much of the analytical and practical work on power centres on power as “agency” – power as held by some individuals or institutions, and as denied to others, in ways that are both visible and hidden. This is the very useful and important logic behind understandings of “power to, power over, power with, power within”, and of strategies for empowerment that are about direct advocacy and negotiation. Additional perspectives on power, worth considering in more detail, are concerned with the deeper ways in which power relations are embedded in social contexts and ideologies, referred to variously as “discourses” or “regimes of truth” (Foucault), as “hegemonies” (Gramsci), or as the “third face of power” (Lukes, Gaventa).

These views of power as relationally constructed and embedded within dominant paradigms or worldviews can provide a useful and complimentary approach to the more overt, “action-oriented” understandings of power as forms of “agency” which are intentionally held on to by various actors in society and denied to others. The implications for action and empowerment point toward the role of reflective and transformative education, awareness-raising, and participatory research and communication which can help people to construct and legitimate their own knowledge, as well as to question and challenge the assumptions behind dominant versions of truth and power…

Pettit, J. (2004)

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An ABCD approach recognizes that power differences within the community exist, and that there are risks of some groups excluding, manipulating and exploiting others. One way of addressing this is encouraging leadership that is sensitive to the situation of the disadvantaged. Such leadership recognizes their potential and the benefits to overall community development of their inclusion, but also recognizes the risks that the disadvantaged may face in agreeing to participate.

To participate or not to participate? Understanding the barriers to inclusion: Disadvantaged members of the community may be adept at devising the best strategy for empowerment. They also know what may jeopardize the power they already have. For example, in Oxfam’s work in Sudan, there was one project where every effort to involve women in decision-making was unsuccessful. Women chose not to participate in the community level decision-making body because they feared it would undermine the power they had earned at the household level. This poses a dilemma for the outside organization.

There is a very real tension between intervening on the behalf of others and enabling “beneficiaries” to design their own interventions. Seemingly benign intervention may undermine the strategies of those for whom “actual stakes” in current arrangements may involve more that initially meets the outsider’s eye. Inviting “the community” to design their own interventions runs the risk, however, of simply reinforcing other kinds of stakes: those that maintain the status quo, for which those who are more marginal have tactics to grapple with but no strategies to begin to change.

Source: Cornwall, A. (2003) 4. Balancing rights and responsibilities Often there is a tension between what citizens expect government to do and what citizens should expect to take responsibility for themselves. This tension plays out very differently in different contexts. As Pettit (2004) points out, the discourse of rights and the resultant “rights-based” approaches to development can be divided into two main categories: the first a focus on individual rights as they are enshrined (or not) in laws; and the second a focus on collective rights that are asserted by groups of people through their struggles to sustain livelihoods and the survival of their communities. An asset basted approach acknowledges these rights but recognizes the responsibilities of citizens to act and take initiative at the same time as claiming rights to which they are entitled.

The discourse of rights Although this is a gross over-simplification, it is useful in looking at rights-based approaches within the context of community-based development. While the donor discourses are concerned with a full range of rights, their tendency is to approach them from the first perspective (formal, legal and top-down) and to overlook what might be already happening within the second perspective (people-centred, bottom-up). “Rights” has traditionally been the domain of largely urban-based, professional and legal activists “reaching out” to the poor. One risk of the rights-based approach is that it will become

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a new form of service delivery. And a challenge for NGOs now adopting rights-based approaches, in an effort to shift their strategies from service delivery to rights, is to do so without losing the power of local initiative, knowledge and capacities; to keep advocacy grounded in local realities and voices; and to find the right balance of empowerment strategies both for “demanding” rights from the duty-bearers (usually the state) and for “fulfilling” these demands through locally generated assets and solutions…

(Pettit, J., 2004).

5. Supporting the emergence of local leadership While it is important to understand the reasons for inequalities and divisions in the community, it is also important to see where opportunities exist to begin to break down these divisions. For example, sometimes traditional power differences are modified by a new generation of political and social leaders. They have information and social, political and economic connections that can facilitate community access to economic opportunities because they have had some formal education, or work experience outside the community. For example, Anirudh Krishna, in his book on “Active Social Capital” in Rajasthan and Madya Pradesh in India, discussed the emergence of new leaders among so-called “backward” castes and women, largely as a result of deliberate government policy. Nevertheless, the continued power and influence of traditional leaders is also important because these leaders ensure that the social networks within the community are used for collective action and the maintenance of community harmony. In other words, in the inevitable tension that arises in times of change, both types of leadership are needed to balance “moving ahead” with maintaining supportive networks that enable people to survive and cope with change. It will be important to understand the role of leadership within traditional associations and extended family networks as compared to leadership in peasant associations and local government, and informal or entrepreneurial leadership. It will also be important to identify changes in gender relations at the household level and how this has affected leadership and participation of women in the more public sphere in the community.

6. Helping communities negotiate with multiple stakeholders If community development is to be asset-based, community-driven, and sustainable, community groups have to be able to negotiate with outside stakeholders. The basic premise of an ABCD approach is that by mobilizing local assets and initiating activity that requires little outside support, the community is in a better position to leverage activities, investments and resources from outside the community to support further asset-based, locally defined development. Just as there are risks of some people wielding power over others in the community, so also are there similar risks when community groups negotiate with outsiders. These risks include: Well intentioned NGOs taking control over activities that can and should be citizen-driven;

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Private stakeholders with an interest in co-managing or purchasing community assets (particularly natural assets such as land, trees, water resources etc.) who are able to manipulate opinion; Government stakeholders that are attempting to implement policies that are not in the best interest of local communities; Government officials that are acting in their own private interests rather than in the public interest.

The following are suggested strategies for communities to build selective alliances and be more politically informed: 1. Know who the stakeholders are. If there is a meeting of all stakeholders, know who the conveners and facilitators are and who they are accountable to.

2. Identify alliances with more powerful groups.

3. Recognize when the community is likely to risk too much by participating in a multiple stakeholder meeting.

4. Stand firm on topics that should be “non negotiable”.

5. Strive towards “consensus” that recognizes differences and divisions. It is better to confront those differences and ensure that each party recognizes these than to pretend they do not exist.

6. Assess the likelihood that external events will require revisions in agreements and be sure to be included in those revisions.

7. View negotiations as long term. Ensure that all parties recognize the community’s right to monitor impact and adjust development strategies accordingly.

8. If necessary, invite an NGO or intermediary organization to play a role in ensuring that the process safeguards the interests of the community, and the disadvantaged in the community.

Adapted from Edmunds, D. & Wollenburg, E. (2002). Disadvantaged groups in multistakeholder negotiations. Center for International Forestry Research (CIFOR) Programme Report.

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SECTION 6: PLANNING, MONITORING AND EVALUATION In this module we will be discussing many issues related to planning, monitoring and evaluation and how these apply to an asset-based approach to community development.

We will consider both (i) monitoring and evaluation of an asset-based approach to community development; and (ii) monitoring and evaluation by and for communities engaged in citizen-led or community-driven development.

And so, before proceeding any further, please consider the following questions:

(i) How will you monitor and evaluate an asset-based approach to community development?

What changes do you expect to see when you use an asset-based approach rather than another approach? How will you know that this approach has been successful?

(ii) How will you help community members monitor and evaluate the changes that take place in their community as a result of their efforts?

How will you ensure that the monitoring and evaluation methods used will help people make better decisions about future changes? How can you help them decide what information to gather?

In this module, we explore these questions in the context of community-driven development, and discuss how we can monitor and evaluate both planned and unplanned change. We take into consideration that community development is often messy, not straightforward, and that we need a very detailed knowledge of the community to fully understand and evaluate what is happening. We take into consideration the fact that the purpose of monitoring and evaluation is to help make better decisions. The community, the NGO, local government, or other “agents� of development all have different types of decisions to make, for which they may need different information. For some, it may be important to have very accurate and precise information. For others, the need for such accuracy is not so great.

The module is broken down into the following sections: An overview of planning, monitoring and evaluation and its application to community-driven development Planning, monitoring and evaluation for planned change Monitoring and evaluation of unpredicted and unplanned change Planning, monitoring, and evaluation for different stakeholders in a multi-stakeholder development process.

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Dealing with complexity and uncertainty Applying the Most Significant Change technique to evaluating change.

An Overview Planning, monitoring and evaluation are commonplace everyday activities. In our personal lives, we carry out these activities without any special effort: We plan a meal, gather or buy the ingredients, put them together according to a “recipe”, and then evaluate the result when we eat it. We may evaluate the meal for its taste (quality of the result), whether it was worth the time and money (its cost effectiveness), or simply whether it fulfilled the purpose of adequately feeding the family (successful achievement of objective). On the basis of our conclusions, we may decide that it is a success worth repeating, or that we need to change the recipe, use better ingredients, or prepare something else that is quicker or cheaper to make. In other words, monitoring and evaluation are essential to decision-making.

Planning, monitoring, and evaluation tend to become more formalized and systematic once an activity involves more people or becomes more complex, and has to be “managed”. A small spontaneous community level activity such as organizing a sporting event, or clearing bush for a garden may not need to be planned, monitored and evaluated in any formal sense. However, for activities such as starting a marketing cooperative or establishing a sustainable water supply, more systematic and formalized planning, monitoring and evaluation will probably be required.

There are several reasons for this: 1. Learning and decision-making: Routine planning, monitoring, and evaluation help community members make decisions in a continuous cycle of learning and action. On the basis of this learning, they can adjust their activities to improve their chances of success.

2. Accountability: Planning is a decision-making “event.” Decisions are made about who is going to do what, when and why. Monitoring is a way in which the process can be tracked and people can be held accountable for taking the action agreed to during the planning phase. Evaluation tells us whether the effort was worthwhile.

3. Affirmation: Through monitoring and evaluation, people can celebrate their achievements and build on their successes.

4. Capacity-building: Learning how to do basic planning, monitoring and evaluation helps to build local capacity in managing development activities.

In community-driven development, development is a process, not a project. While a community may initiate an activity or project that has a specific beginning and end point, this activity is part of a longer term process. For this reason, we make the distinction between the conventional project cycle (which begins with assessment, moves through

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planning, implementation and monitoring, and ends with evaluation) and the continuous overlapping cycles of a development process.

The project cycle

The development process

Figure 25: Development as a project or a process?

In this course, we recommend “appreciative interviewing” as a starting point of an assetbased approach. It is where “assessment and inspiration” takes place. People tell stories of what they are proud of in their communities. This allows the outsider to fully understand and appreciate achievement in the community and to work with the community with respect for their history. Developing a full understanding of the community in this way is an important qualitative base-line. Recording a summary and analysis of this inquiry will help set the work of the outsider (NGO, LG, etc) and the work of the community into their proper context.

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Planning, Monitoring and Evaluation for Planned Change In order to plan, and to monitor planned change, the first step is develop a “theory of change”. In other words, if the community goal is “for every child to go to school”, what has to happen in order to achieve this goal? What can the community control? What can be influenced by the community? What is beyond the community’s control? How will these be measured to see if improvements are being made?

Planning, monitoring and evaluation are usually based on the idea that we can understand cause and effect relationships well enough to predict and control these causes and effects and bring about the change we want to see.

What is your theory of change for: ensuring a sustainable livelihood for pastoralists? alleviating women’s workload? preventing hunger?

When we plan for change we have to narrow down the theory so that we can see our way forward clearly. When a theory of change is narrowed down for planning purposes it may look like this: If a tree nursery is established (Action) a plentiful supply of seedlings can be produced (Output). With a plentiful supply of seedlings, vulnerable areas can be planted with tree cover (Result or Outcome), preventing soil erosion and protecting soil quality (Impact).

Figure 26: From action to impact

While it is important to have a clear idea of expected and intended outcomes, the reality is often much more complex and therefore less predictable. For example, changes in weather patterns, changes in the local economy, or political events may all affect the 82

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appropriateness of the plans of each these stakeholders. Because of this, plans have to be flexible to take into account unpredicted events, changing circumstances, and changing ideas of the participants.

To monitor progress, we need to know how to measure these outputs, outcomes and impacts. This is why indicators of change are selected. Indicators are used to measure change. Once indicators have been selected, appropriate methods of collecting the data have to be considered. When increasing the decision-making capacity at the community level is a project objective, it is important to design methods that can be understood and used by community level decision-makers. At the very least, even if it is “extractive” for the purpose of other decision-makers, data collection should be transparent. There are many participatory techniques that can be used. Please refer to the Appendix for more information on these.

Indicators may have to be developed to measure progress towards objectives at the output, outcome, and impact level. The following table helps to explain the difference between an objective and an indicator for that objective.

OBJECTIVE What are we trying to achieve?

Outcome: Improvement in soil quality Impact: Food Security for BPL households

INDICATOR What can we measure to know if we have achieved it?

Change in depth of humus layer Change in crop yield/hectare ..and others, depending on the context Change in size of landholding Change in crop yields Change in income from off-farm enterprise Change in savings held in self help group ..and others, depending on the context

In order to measure planned change, accurate baseline information is needed. Select a few indicators of change and measure these accurately so that progress can be tracked over time.

To evaluate the project or community initiative, information gathered for monitoring purposes will be very important. But evaluation is more than monitoring. Monitoring essentially answers the question “Did we do what we said we would do?”, while evaluation asks us to make a judgment about our efforts, answering the question “Was our effort worthwhile?”

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Participatory (Community-driven) Monitoring and Evaluation: As we learnt in Module 1, the term “participation” has been used to mean different things. If development is truly participatory (and therefore community-driven) community members are making their own decisions about planning, monitoring and evaluation.

They decide what to monitor, they select the indicators, they own the information and they analyze the information. Of course, an NGO agency may help them to do this, but if the information is being gathered only for the NGO, this is what we call “extractive” information gathering. That may be useful for the NGO, but is NOT a participatory process.

Monitoring and Evaluation of Unpredicted Outcomes and Unplanned Change In an ABCD approach, the NGO is playing an “arm’s length” role. The community may start off with a clear vision, but its vision may change, or ideas for activities will evolve and change. The NGO may be unable to predict many of the changes that occur. To capture the effectiveness of what is happening during this process, some development agencies are now experimenting with monitoring and evaluation without predetermined indicators of change or outcome measures. The Most Significant Change Technique is an example of such “goal free” evaluation. This will be explained later in this module.

Planning, Monitoring and Evaluation for Different Stakeholders An ABCD approach should begin by communities organizing to mobilize existing local resources. To sustain the development process, however, communities need to be connected with various organizations and institutions to ensure continued access to economic opportunities and public services. Community-driven initiatives that arise from these relationships may therefore have several stakeholders. First, there may be a community group, or an organization representing the whole community. Then, there may be locally based institutions such as local government and local NGOs. There may also be other external agencies that are funding the initiative through a local NGO or local government. The private sector, in the form of a local business or a large corporation, might also be involved.

Each of these “agents” of development has an agenda. Each will plan, monitor and evaluate according to its own agenda, as well as plan collaboratively when necessary.

They collaborate with other stakeholders because they have interests in common and can see how their own particular interests can be met through working together.

For example: Members of a community-based organization may decide to establish a tree nursery with a view to replenishing fuel wood and building supplies, and preventing soil erosion on hill-side slopes.

A local NGO is interested in strengthening the capacity of local communities to analyze their situation, build on their strengths, 84

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collaborate together, and build the links necessary to sustain community initiatives.

Local government is interested in “investing” in this initiative because it fulfils their objective of promoting conservation practices over the district as a whole, so that conflict between local communities under land pressure can be prevented.

An international funder is interested in promoting community-driven development for sustainable livelihoods – building the capacity of local communities to protect, sustain and build on their local asset-base in the context of local government decentralization across an entire country A private fish farming business downstream is interested in preventing the siltation in the river caused by excess run-off from the denuded hillslopes upstream.

In an ABCD approach, it is important to be clear about these different agendas. An NGO that is promoting such an approach can facilitate the community’s own planning, monitoring and evaluation process. This will occur as members of the community begin to mobilize around an idea for collective activity, or more formally, when a communitybased organization is formed to coordinate community initiatives.

Combining agendas in a multi-stakeholder approach Although each of these “agents” has its own particular agenda, these can be combined into one plan with guidelines for monitoring and evaluation to satisfy everyone’s information needs. This kind of “multi-stakeholder” approach to planning, monitoring and evaluation encourages a collective sense of responsibility and reinforces the relationships so important for sustained community development. Remember, however, that the community remains at the center, driving the process, with outside agencies in a supportive role. Flexibility is key, if communities are to retain control of the process.

Dealing with Complexity and Uncertainty Flexibility also allows us to be open to unpredicted results. For example, women’s self help groups in India that organized themselves to pool savings achieved two results. One result was that women were able to invest in petty trade activities. But the more important result was that women built up a sense of solidarity with other women and joined with other self-help groups to launch a powerful advocacy campaign against domestic violence. This result was not planned or predicted.

In another case, an organization donated blankets to orphaned children so that they could sleep more comfortably at night. Instead of using the blankets to sleep under, the children or their guardians sold the blankets to buy other things that they needed. This result was not intended, yet an evaluation might show that this was in fact of more benefit to the children than blankets to sleep under.

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In many agricultural programs, loans are given to encourage cash crop production to increase household income. However, this assumes that prices for these cash crops will stay the same or increase. In many cases the price has dropped, causing increased indebtedness of the small farmers. Sometimes, farmers have used the loans to increase food production for their own consumption. Their incomes have not increased, but they have actually ended up better off than those who gave up land to cash crop production and saw the prices of those cash crops fall.

In sum, we need to be able to think “outside of the box� of what is planned and learn as we go.

Applying the Most Significant Change Technique to Evaluating Change Most Significant Change Technique Adapted from Jessica Dart and Rick Davies 2 This technique was developed because conventional approaches to evaluation were found to be inadequate with complex, participatory development programmes.

Conventional approaches tend to pay close attention to planned and predicted change, often using quantitative indicators. In this way, the design of monitoring and evaluation is shaped by what is supposed to happen. While this may be important for accountability purposes, as well as for learning, it may only provide a partial picture of what has actually happened.

A monitoring and evaluation approach that takes a retrospective look at what has happened and the significance of what has happened is a useful complement to approaches that simply track what was supposed to happen. It allows for uncertainty. It assumes that change evolves, a result of the interaction of many different factors, only some of which may be planned. Most importantly, it requires all stakeholders to think about why a certain change is significant. This is where real evaluation takes place. In this way, decisions that are made about how to move forward are informed by a sense of purpose rather than a bureaucratic requirement.

Dart, J. & Davies, R. (2003). A dialogical, story-based evaluation tool: the most significant change technique. American Journal of Evaluation, 24(2), 137-155.

2

Davies, R. (1998). An evolutionary approach to facilitating organisational learning: An experiment by the Christian Commission for Development in Bangladesh. In D. Mosse, J. Farrington, & A. Rew (Eds.), Development as process: Concepts and methods for working with complexity (pp. 68-83). London: Routledge Research and ODI Development Policy Studies. Retrieved August 22, 2006 from: http://www.mande.co.uk/docs/ccdb.htm

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Instead of using quantitative indicators that have been decided on at the beginning of the programme, the MSC technique involves the regular collection and participatory interpretation of “stories” about change.

In this way, communities can: describe what they consider to be the most important changes they have experienced since they started working on a particular community initiative explain why they think these changes are significant (or why they are of value) explain how those changes came about (including who was active in bringing about this change make decisions about how to continue with more activities that will be of value to this community Step 1: Selecting “domains” of change Discuss with community leadership what kind of changes they expect to see. These can be very broad such as “Changes in people’s income”, “Changes in agricultural practices” “changes in people’s attitudes”. From these suggestions, decide on 4-6 “domains” of change.

Step 2: Deciding on the reporting period Discuss with community leadership how often reporting should be done. This could be monthly, every two months – often enough that it is useful for ongoing decision-making by the community, but not so often that it becomes burdensome Step 3: Deciding who to involve It is often useful to include stories from outsiders who have been involved in this initiative such as NGO fieldworkers and local government officials. Discuss this with the community. Within the community, ensure that a diverse range of people are included: women, children, the elderly, the relatively well-off, the relatively poor.

Step 4: Collecting stories With the help of community members, ask different members of the community to tell stories about what was the most significant change they observed, and why this change was considered so significant: During the last month, in your opinion, what do you think was the most significant change that took place in the lives of people participating in this community inititiave?

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The first part of the story should be descriptive: what happened, who was involved, where did it happen, when did it happen?

The second part of the story should be explanatory. The respondent should explain why they thought the change was the most significant out of all the changes that took place in that month. What difference has it made already? What difference will it make in the future?

Record these stories, noting who told the story. It is important to collect stories from diverse members of the community. It may also be important to collect stories from outsiders such as local government officials and NGO fieldworkers.

Step 5: Review and organize the stories With a representative group of community members, review and organize these stories into the “domains� created in step 1. Additional domains may have to be created.

Step 6: Analysing and summarising the findings in a way that can be presented back to the community Try to draw out common themes, as well as differences in what people consider significant. Summarise the results. With community members, select a few stories that seem to capture the most significant change.

Step 7: Verifying the findings, and feeding it back to the community Give feedback to all members of the community for discussion and verification. This will be used to help them decide what to do next.

Step 8: Sharing the findings with a wider audience A synthesis and summary of the findings can be presented to other stakeholders such as government, donors etc Note: While this technique produces qualitative data, another step could be quantify the information. For example, let us suppose a significant change was the fact that a woman was able to get title to land. The next step would be to find out how many women had been able to do this. This information could be found in the government land registry office, or, if the community is small enough, by asking village elders, or community members. The important thing is that we do not waste time collecting quantitative information until we know what are considered the significant changes. The quantitative data may be important for informing local government or donors, and it may also be important for helping communities assess more precisely the effort required to get particular results.

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APPENDIX A: FROM CLIENTS TO CITIZENS: ASSETBASED COMMUNITY DEVELOPMENT AS A STRATEGY FOR COMMUNITY-DRIVEN DEVELOPMENT

Occasional Paper Series, No. 4

January, 2002

Alison Mathie, PhD Gord Cunningham, MA

Coady International Institute St. Francis Xavier University

PO Box 5000 Antigonish, Nova Scotia Canada B2G 2W5 Abstract Asset-based community development (ABCD) is presented as an alternative to needsbased approaches to development. Following an overview of the principles and practice of ABCD, five major elements of ABCD are examined in the light of current literature on relevant research and practice. This involves exploring: the theory and practice of appreciative inquiry; the concept of social capital as an asset for community development; the theory of community economic development, such as the sustainable livelihoods approach; lessons learned from two decades of international development in the participatory paradigm; and the theory and practice of building active citizenship engagement and a stronger civil society. How ABCD both reflects recent trends in these areas and stands to benefit from the insights generated from this work is outlined.

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FROM CLIENTS TO CITIZENS: ASSET-BASED COMMUNITY DEVELOPMENT AS A STRATEGY FOR COMMUNITY-DRIVEN DEVELOPMENT In recent years, Asset-Based Community Development (ABCD) has caught the attention of North American community development practitioners as an innovative strategy for community-driven development in urban neighborhoods and rural communities. It has attracted a small but dedicated following, particularly among those who are disenchanted with the needs-based approach to community development that is so entrenched in government and non-government service delivery. As an alternative approach, the appeal of ABCD lies in its premise that communities can drive the development process themselves by identifying and mobilizing existing (but often unrecognized) assets, and thereby responding to and creating local economic opportunity. In particular, ABCD draws attention to social assets: the gifts and talents of individuals, and the social relationships that fuel local associations and informal networks.

In considering its potential for international development practice, ABCD can also be viewed as a response to global changes in the social, political and economic landscape. In most countries, liberalization policies have resulted in a weakening of the social contract that gave government responsibility for providing program solutions to community problems. At the same time, stronger, accountable forms of governance at the local level, and the emergence of effective civil society, have been front and center in the process of democratization, particularly in countries of the global south. Technological advances in global and local communications provide opportunities for decentralized economic development for some communities. Other communities, meanwhile, struggle for survival, stretching their assets to unsustainable levels. In this period of flux, there is a two-fold challenge at the community level: to create and seize opportunities for sustainable development, and to claim and retain the rights and entitlements of state and global citizenship.

ABCD embraces several ideas and practices that have risen to the surface during this period of flux. The case we make in this paper is that ABCD offers a coherent strategy for tying together these various complementary strands of innovative development agency practice, in both local and international development contexts.

We first provide an overview of the principles and practice of ABCD. We then examine five major elements of ABCD in the light of current literature on relevant research and practice. This involves exploring: the theory and practice of appreciative inquiry; the concept of social capital as an asset for community development; the theory of community economic development; lessons learned from two decades of development in the participatory paradigm; and the theory and practice of building active citizenship engagement and a stronger civil society. We show how ABCD both reflects recent trends in these areas and stands to benefit from the insights generated from this work.

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An Overview of Asset-Based Community Development Based on extensive inquiry into the characteristics of successful community initiatives in the U.S., John McKnight and Jody Kretzmann at the Institute for Policy Research (IPR) at Northwestern University, articulated ABCD as a way of counteracting the predominant needs-based approach to development in urban America. In the needsbased approach, well-intentioned efforts of universities, donor agencies and governments, have generated needs surveys, analyzed problems, and identified solutions to meet those needs. In the process, however, they have inadvertently presented a onesided negative view, which has often compromised, rather than contributed to, community capacity building.

Kretzmann and McKnight (1993) point out that if the needs-based approach is the only guide to poor communities, the consequences can be "devastating" (p.4). One of the main effects is leadership that denigrates the community. Leaders find that the best way to attract institutional resources is to play up the severity of problems. Local leadership is judged on how many resources are attracted to the community, not on how self-reliant the community has become. Another consequence Kretzmann and McKnight point out is that people in the communities start to believe what their leaders are saying. They begin to see themselves as deficient and incapable of taking charge of their lives and of the community. Not surprisingly, community members no longer act like citizens; instead they begin to act like “clients” or consumers of services with no incentive to be producers.

Yet another consequence of this approach is that local groups begin to deal more with external institutions than with groups in their own community. This reinforces the notion that “only outside experts can provide real help” (p.4) and further weakens neighbour-to-neighbour links. Funding is made available on the basis of categories of needs rather than for integrated approaches which leads to “the much lamented fragmentation of efforts to provide solutions…[This] denies the basic community wisdom which regards problems as tightly intertwined, as symptoms in fact of the breakdown of the community’s own problem solving capacities" (p.4). To make matters worse, the bulk of any funding tends to go to the institutions filling the needs.

Perversely, these institutions begin to develop a vested interest in maintaining this approach.

In Building Communities from the Inside Out, Kretzmann and McKnight (1993) describe an alternative approach, one that recognizes that it is the capacities of local people and their associations that build powerful communities. The process of recognizing these capacities begins with the construction of a new lens through which communities can "begin to assemble their strengths into new combinations, new structures of opportunity, new sources of income and control, and new possibilities for production." (p. 6) Experience in the U.S. shows how several communities have mobilized to take action for their economic and social development. Sometimes, this ABCD approach has evolved over a long period of time. For example, in Savannah, Georgia, neighbourhood redevelopment had been going on for more than 25 years, initially through municipal agencies responding to problems identified in local neighborhoods. Over time, however, municipal agencies decided to “lead by stepping back”; communities shifted from being Coady International Institute: Mobilizing Assets for Community-Driven Development. 2009

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“consumers” of services to “designers” of community programs, and, finally “producers” of community (Kretzmann and McKnight, 1999). Lessons learned from experiences such as these spurred the IPR to lead by stepping back from the outset, and to encourage communities to take charge with confidence in their own capacities.

Communities are helped to build an inventory of their assets and are encouraged to see value in resources that would otherwise have been ignored, unrealized, or dismissed.

Such unrealized resources include not only personal attributes and skills, but also the relationships among people through social, kinship, or associational networks. By mobilizing these informal networks, formal institutional resources can be activated –such as local government, formal community-based organizations, and private enterprise. In fact, the key to ABCD is the power of local associations to drive the community development process and to leverage additional support and entitlements. These associations are the vehicles through which all the community's assets can be identified and then connected to one another in ways that multiply their power and effectiveness.

Based on the experiences documented by McKnight and Kretzmann, and on initiatives elsewhere that employ a similar approach, we propose that Asset-Based Community Development can be understood as an approach, as a set of methods for community mobilization, and as a strategy for community-based development.

As an approach to community-based development, it rests on the principle that the recognition of strengths, gifts, talents and assets of individuals and communities is more likely to inspire positive action for change than an exclusive focus on needs and problems. Seeing the glass half-full as well as half empty is not to deny the real problems that a community faces, but to focus energy on how each and every member has contributed, and can continue to contribute, in meaningful ways to community development. Focusing on uncovering the merits of all members encourages a spirit of egalitarianism, even in societies that are hierarchical in structure and differentiated by culture, educational background and gender. At its core are associations of community members, both formal and informal. As engines of community action, and as a source of power and leadership, these are considered assets of the community (Greene, 2000).

Accompanying this approach is a set of methods that have been used to inspire a community to mobilise around a common vision or plan. While rejecting any kind of blue-print for ABCD, McKnight and Kretzmann (1993, pp 345) propose a number of steps to facilitate the process, which we have modified slightly to capture the importance of storytelling in ABCD’s early phases:

• •

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Collecting stories about community successes and identifying the capacities of communities that contributed to success.

Organizing a core group to carry the process forward

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• • • • •

Mapping completely the capacities and assets of individuals, associations, and local institutions Building relationships among local assets for mutually beneficial problem-solving within the community.

Mobilizing the community’s assets fully for economic development and information sharing purposes Convening as broadly representative group as possible for the purposes of building a community vision and plan Leveraging activities, investments and resources from outside the community to support asset-based, locally defined development

Finally, ABCD is a strategy for sustainable community-driven development. Beyond the mobilization of a particular community, ABCD is concerned with how to link microassets to the macro environment. In other words, there is attention paid to the boundaries of community and how to position the community in relation to local institutions and the external economic environment on which its continued prosperity depends.

ABCD and other asset-based approaches The growing interest in ABCD as a strategy for community-based development is in keeping with a noticeable shift in international development agency practice to asset- or strength-based approaches. The sustainable livelihoods approach developed by the Department for International Development (DFID), U.K., (and to some degree by the United Nations Development Program [UNDP]), and the asset-building framework now employed by the Ford Foundation are examples of this. Both of these grew out of a concern that simply promoting income-generating activities was not synonymous with enhancing livelihoods of the poor. Proponents of the sustainable livelihoods approach saw the need to take into account many other factors: the vulnerability context in which the poor find themselves; the strategies that households employ to deal with economic shocks; all the human, financial, social, physical and natural assets of households and the community; and the larger structures and processes (institutions, organizations, policies, and legislation) that shape people's livelihoods.

Asset-building, in the Ford Foundation framework, places a similar emphasis on building an asset-base in households and communities that is transferable across generations.

Recognizing that many such assets already exist to some degree in the community, the emphasis is on promoting opportunities for building assets and eliminating structures that limit such opportunities.

While beyond the scope of this paper, a comparative analysis of these approaches, and their compatibility with ABCD, warrant further discussion.

Elements of ABCD

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In the following pages, we examine five elements of ABCD and review the literature on the research and practice associated with these different elements. These elements are listed in Table 1 along with a summary of the theoretical and practical contributions of this research and practice to ABCD, which is elaborated in the text. The order in which they are presented has the following logic:

•

ABCD is an asset-based approach that uses methods to draw out strengths and successes in a community’s shared history as its starting point for change (as in appreciative inquiry).

•

Among all the assets that exist in the community, ABCD pays particular attention to the assets inherent in social relationships, as evident in formal and informal associations and networks (recognized in the research on social capital)

•

ABCD’s community-driven approach is in keeping with the principles and practice of participatory approaches development where active participation and empowerment (and the prevention of disempowerment) are the basis of practice.

•

ABCD is a strategy directed towards sustainable economic development that is community-driven. Reference to community economic development theory is therefore relevant to the ABCD strategy.

•

ABCD, as a strategy for sustainable economic development, relies on linkages between community level actors and macro-level actors in public and private sectors.

In fostering these linkages, ABCD also fosters active citizenship engagement to ensure access to public goods and services, and to ensure the accountability of local government. It therefore contributes to, and benefits from, strengthened civil society.

Constructing shared meaning: Learning from the practice of appreciative inquiry In the initial phases of ABCD, the approach to mobilizing communities has much in common with appreciative inquiry. Appreciative inquiry is a process that promotes positive change (in organizations or communities) by focussing on peak experiences and successes of the past. It relies on interviews and story telling that draw out these positive memories, and on a collective analysis of the elements of success. This analysis becomes the reference point for further community action. As Elliott (1999) emphasizes in the title of his book, conducting Appreciative inquiry is all about Locating the Energy for Change.

Appreciative inquiry draws on theories of knowledge construction and communications, and from lessons learned from educational psychology about the sources of personal and collective motivation. This theoretical base is also an anchor for ABCD, particularly in the initial phases of working with the community.

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According to Elliott (1999), practitioners of appreciative inquiry assume that reality is socially constructed, and that language is a vehicle for reinforcing shared meaning attributed to that reality. Communities that have been defined by their problems (malnutrition, poverty, lack of education, corruption) internalize this negativity. Elliott explains: What the appreciative approach seeks to achieve is the transformation of a culture from one that sees itself in largely negative terms – and therefore is inclined to become locked in its own negative construction of itself – to one that sees itself as having within it the capacity to enrich and enhance the quality of life of all its stakeholders – and therefore move towards this appreciative construction of itself. (p.12) To achieve this transformation, appreciative inquiry adopts what Elliott (1999) calls the “heliotropic principle” (p.43). Just as plants grow towards their energy source, so do communities and organizations move towards what gives them life and energy. To the extent that memory and the construction of everyday reality offer hope and meaning, people tend to move in that direction. Parents and teachers are familiar with this principle; research demonstrates extensively that children’s performance is shaped by teachers’ and parents’ expectations more than it is by children’s own innate ability.

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Table 1. Contributions of different research and practice areas to ABCD

RESEARCH or PRACTICE AREA

THEORETICAL QUESTION ADDRESSED

Appreciative How is knowledge Inquiry constructed?

Social Capital

PRACTICAL CONTRIBUTIONS TO AN ABCD STRATEGY

How to construct shared meaning and a vision for change

What are the characteristics of effective communication?

How to facilitate a process that encourages pride in past success, minimizes power relations and results in community members’ engagement and commitment

What motivates individuals for change?

How to “locate the energy for change”, focusing on strengths rather than deficiencies

What different forms of social capital exist in associational life and how do they affect community prosperity?

Identifying social capital in associations and informal networks that can be mobilized for change

What are the conditions that strengthen and weaken social capital formation?

Identifying circumstances that are conducive to the application of ABCD

Participatory How is power, ownership and Approaches control of resources distributed within community, and between the community and outside agents?

What are the characteristics of, contributing factors for, and consequences of, empowerment?

Ensuring that the strengths of all individuals are valued and legitimated through their equal and active participation, irrespective of power imbalances Ensuring that the process is locally controlled, and community-driven How to avoid dependency on the outside agent by “Leading by Stepping Back”

Community What are the distinctive Economic features of endogenous v Development exogenous models for economic development?

How to stimulate endogenous, collaborative group capacity building for economic development

Civil Society How does civil society mediate between government and the power of capital?

How to optimize the “association of associations” to act in the interests of strengthening community which in turn contributes to further economic

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development How can capitalism be humanized ?

Creating a process by which communities are “Building conditions under which caring becomes rational� (Edwards, 1999)

What are the characteristics of effective governance?

Identifying external circumstances conducive to application of ABCD.

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In Elliott’s view, two instruments are central to appreciative inquiry: memory and imagination. While these are flawed from the perspective of conventional inquiry because they lack the hallmarks of objective empiricism, they are effective in constructing a shared history and a shared vision for the future in a community setting. This is then translated into a community action plan and immediate community activity to set the process in motion.

Both ABCD and AI struggle against the prevailing problem-focus to community development and its accompanying “deficit mind-set”. Schooled as most of us are in identifying, analyzing and providing solutions to problems, a neglect of this analysis may seem naive and misguided, especially if we work for agencies established for a problemsolving mission 3 . Yet such a problem-oriented focus, shared by external agencies and donors alike, may serve to set a negative dynamic in motion whereby communities are overwhelmed by a focus on needs and problems which, in turn, stifle initiative for recovery.

Without a doubt, some problems require urgent responses. Other problems, however, may lose their urgency, or be solved indirectly when an unrelated change in activity or circumstance takes place and the energy that was focused on the problem becomes refocused. Ashford and Patkar (2001.) challenge the problem-solver in all of us by quoting from the analyst Carl Jung: All the greatest and most important problems of life are fundamentally insoluble. They can never be solved, but only outgrown. This “outgrowing” proves on further investigation to require a new level of consciousness. Some higher or wider interest appeared on the horizon and through this broadening of outlook the insoluble problem lost its urgency. It was not solved logically in its own terms but faded when confronted with a new and stronger life urge (p. 86) Focusing on strengths and capacities is one way in which communities can outgrow a problem, or redefine its solution as a product of renewed collaborative action. It would be misleading to underestimate the challenges of accomplishing this, however. Power asymmetries, the intrusiveness of ideology, and varying levels of commitment to the process may all frustrate effective communication. Yet, Elliott (1999) argues that the process seems to offer community members a more-powerful opportunity to get involved on a more-equal basis. Role reversals take place in such settings, at least for the duration of the inquiry. Power asymmetries in the routine of everyday life may return, but “the object of the inquiry is to splice stakeholders so firmly in the process that when pre-inquiry hierarchies are re-established, they are in fact qualitatively different. The old ground is simply unavailable” (p.285).

In fact, the “mission” may be symptomatic of the underlying narrative that justifies our involvement: “the folktale, in which a crisis summons forth a hero, who battles against a series of obstacles, emerges triumphant, and everyone lives happily ever after” (Roe, 1991, cited in Brock, Cornwall, and Gaventa 2001, p.5).

3

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The potential of associations: Learning from the literature on social capital At the core of ABCD is its focus on social relationships. Formal and informal associations, networks, and extended families are treated as assets and also as the means to mobilize other assets of the community. By treating relationships as assets, ABCD is a practical application of the concept of social capital.

Despite concerns about the lack of conceptual clarity of social capital (see Frankenburger & Garrett, 1998; Woolcott & Narayan, 2000), there is agreement in the literature that social capital is present in the networks, norms and social trust inherent in associations whose members work together in concerted collaborative action. In a literal sense, social capital is the store of good-will and obligations generated by social relations. Looked at in this way, networks, norms, and social trust are all evidence of social relations in which social capital has been generated. Thus, as Woolcott and Narayan point out, in the adage “It is not what you know, but who you know”, people are talking about the potential support and assistance that stems from the social relationships they have cultivated or inherited through family or class membership. Like other forms of capital, social capital is a latent asset, and individuals can increase or deplete it depending on where they stand in the reciprocal exchange of social support and obligation.

Woolcott and Narayan differentiate between bonding and bridging social capital. In this categorization, bonding social capital enables people to “get by”; bridging social capital enables people to “get ahead” (see Gitell & Vidal, 1998; Putnam, 2000 on the origin of these terms). Bonding social capital is evident in the close knit relations of friends and families who can be depended on for basic survival in times of stress. It is bonding social capital, for example, that will be drawn upon by a family with insufficient food for survival, or by a woman whose husband is sick and unable to contribute his share of labour. Bridging social capital provides leverage in relationships beyond the confines of ones own affinity group, or even beyond the local community. Educated relatives in the town may, for example, guarantee a larger loan to accelerate the growth of a small enterprise run by extended family members. Relationships cultivated by a community with local authorities might influence the decision about the location of a road to facilitate marketing.

Applying these ideas to ABCD, attention needs to be paid to the potential of community associations to mobilize bonding social capital and to increase bridging social capital. In particular, bridging social capital that links the community to the external environment is crucial for sustained economic development and prosperity. Such diversification of social networks stimulates expanded economic activity, which in turn goes on to generate opportunities for increasing and diversifying stocks of social capital. The challenge is to provide opportunities for the poor – who tend to depend on bonding social capital – to access and increase their stock of bridging social capital and access institutions independently (Woolcott & Narayan, 2000). For social capital to be realized, however, transactional norms and social trust need to be established. In much the same way as material assets need a regulatory and legal environment in order to be realized as negotiable capital (see De Soto, 2000; IFAD, 2001), social assets can only be capitalized in an environment that shares similar expectations of trust and reciprocity. As Woolcott and Narayan (2000) note:

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Weak, hostile, or indifferent governments have a profoundly different effect on community life and development projects, for example, than do governments that respect civil liberties, uphold the rule of law, honor contracts, and resist corruption (p.227).

Because it is a type of “capital”, the stocks of social capital will inevitably fluctuate in different circumstances. For example, Putnam (2000) has documented these fluctuations and trends for the U.S. in Bowling Alone: The Collapse and Revival of American Community. For an industrial community in Brazil, Bazan and Schmitz (1997) trace the changes in social capital formation over a 50 year period, and show how some social capital stocks are replenished while others are depleted during particular periods. Social capital through kinship, ethnicity, and localness was important when the community was characterized as a small handcraft economy in the 1950s. By the 1990s, however, the economy was characterized by large-scale specialized production integrated into various export sectors.

Consequently, deliberate investment in social capital was taking place along class lines, and within integrated sectors of the economy, rather than according to kinship and ethnicity.

Even within a very short time frame, however, the presence of social capital cannot be taken for granted. Moser’s (1998) study of four poor urban communities in Zambia, Ecuador, Philippines, and Hungary documents how, under extreme conditions, some households were pushed beyond the limit of sustaining reciprocity networks; women were reluctant to borrow from neighbours for fear of not being able to repay; and informal credit schemes floundered. Ultimately, increased levels of violence, linked to the economic crisis, further eroded social capital. The perceived increased risk to personal safety led to reduced levels of community activity and increased levels of isolationism. These in turn reduced participation in the community-based organizations that had been the focus of community collaborative action.

The literature on social capital often makes reference to Putnam’s landmark study of social capital and associational life, and their relationship to economic prosperity in Italy, and his more recent work on community life in the US (1993; 2000). Of importance here are the questions about “The Dark Side of Social Capital” (2000, p.350-367) that he addresses. Given that social capital, like any form of capital, can be directed towards anti-social ends, or towards the promotion of special interests over community interests, what are the circumstances under which social capital can be channeled towards community benefit? Putnam suggests that the full potential of social capital as a community economic engine and as a social and economic equalizer can be realized when bridging social capital links people of different family, ethnic, class, or gender affiliations. When associational life creates such bridges and runs its affairs in horizontal, non-hierarchical fashion, there is the greatest chance of success.

The lessons here for ABCD are once again important. It remains to be seen how effectively associational assets can be mobilized for community interests in situations of extreme poverty and depletion of social capital, or in situations where hierarchical relationships are so entrenched within associational and community life that the motivation to pursue the community’s interest is outweighed by the interests of class or caste. Putnam’s (1993; 2000) findings that social capital is correlated with economic

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prosperity and with relative social equality is encouraging, but the direction of this correlation now needs to be examined in a variety of social and economic contexts.

Recognizing and Developing Economic Capacity: Lessons learned from Community Economic Development Theory ABCD is a strategy for community-driven economic development. To date, the theorizing of community economic development (CED) relies more on the theoretical contributions of community development than on that of economics. In fact, economic theory fails to recognize the concept of community at all. Classical economic theory demands the free mobility of both labour and capital, and the concept of community gets in the way of this free flow.

The evolution of CED theory represents a confluence of three different development paradigms: a) developing or improving economic systems and infrastructure; b) developing the economic capacities of individuals; and 3) developing the economic capacities of groups to undertake community economic development. In Figure 1, we show the focus of the development process for each paradigm.

The economic systems perspective sees the only difference between economic development and community economic development as one of scale. In other words CED is merely economic development at the community level. Economic development is equated with economic growth. The main participants are outside experts and the types of initiatives employed tend to involve technological improvements and infrastructure development largely in the hopes of attracting investment and industry.

From this perspective the development process is largely exogenous.

The individual capacity building perspective sees CED as the byproduct of the economic success of individuals. "Community" tends to refer more to a "target group" of individuals (usually those economically marginalized) rather than to a geographic locality.

According to Diochon (1999), economic development solutions are seen to rest with building the capacity of a community's human resources to exploit the potential of underutilized natural and institutional resources. Collective action may be employed, not as an end in itself but, rather, as a "vehicle though which the institutional base identifies the problems and develops solutions that create innovation and entrepreneurship, more/better jobs, increased wealth and incomes and increased opportunities for personal fulfillment" (Chapter 4, p12). From this perspective the development process can be either exogenous or endogenous. The main actors may be external NGOs or they may be local organizations established to promote individual capacity building.

In contrast, the group capacity building perspective sees collective action as an end in itself. Collective action enables individuals who lack the resources to independently improve their wellbeing to mutually achieve this end. This perspective defines CED as an endogenous process. The main participants are by definition the members of marginalized groups that form to undertake collective action. Examples of these types of initiatives include peasant organizations striving for land reform, producer/consumer cooperatives and credit unions, and the movement for community-based resource management. “However, because it is believed that community economic development will not emerge spontaneously, advocacy is considered essential. This role is seen to be best filled by independent community-based groups and agencies who can gain broadCoady International Institute: Mobilizing Assets for Community-Driven Development. 2009

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based community participation and establish partnerships with public and private stakeholders from within and outside the community� (Chapter 4, p.13).

In many initiatives for economic development, all three perspectives are represented.

Take the field of microfinance for instance. At one end of the development spectrum is the financial systems approach where the emphasis is on reforming existing financial systems (regulation and supervision, the role of central banks, overhauling the mandates and practices of rural development banks etc.). The bulk of microfinance interventions however fall into the individual capacity building category. The main expression of this is the 8,000 or so microfinance institutions that provides financial services to 'clients' either as individuals or in small groups. And at the other end of the spectrum are the small savings-led microfinance organizations such as Self Help Groups, village banks, savings and credit cooperatives and credit unions that focus on developing the capacity of member-based associations.

Similarly, the enterprise development field includes interventions that range from the industry attraction strategies of the economic systems perspective to the focus on entrepreneurship development and business development services of the individual capacity building approach, to the cooperative and community enterprise models of the group capacity building approach.

As illustrated in Figure 1, ABCD fits most comfortably in the group capacity building camp. In the U.S., one of the most notable examples of an ABCD approach to community economic development is the Dudley Street Neighborhood Initiative (DSNI) in Roxbury, Massachusetts (see www.dsni.org). Group capacity building has been at the center of this strategy: a community land trust that has provided hundreds of affordable housing units; a local merchants’ organization that encourages a diverse economic landscape dominated by locally, independently and cooperatively owned businesses; a group of 50 young people trained in urban agriculture; and the Resident Development Institute (which hosts community economic literacy workshops).

This is not to say that ABCD initiatives never involve individual capacity building nor advocate for reform of economic systems. The DSNI has been involved in activities ranging from the training of young entrepreneurs to the lobbying of governments for the power of eminent domain to expropriate vacant land for affordable housing. It is just that the ABCD approach has at its core the notion that communities (in particular local associations within those communities) must drive the development process. The role of outside agencies therefore becomes one of group capacity building to ensure that local associations are defining the community vision and mapping and mobilizing local assets and resources to this end.

Learning about the distribution of power: Lessons from participatory approaches to development A central theme of ABCD is the relocation of power to communities, power that has otherwise been held by external agencies. Attention to power and control has also been at the core of at least two decades of participatory development research and practice, particularly through the NGO sector. Arising as a reaction against mainstream approaches to development that marginalized the poor and powerless, participatory development work has pushed for change that transforms inequitable social relations, whether these are within a community or inherent in the relations the community has

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with external agencies. The challenge of Chambers (Putting the First Last, 1997), for example, is to ensure that people on the margins are prioritized, and to ensure that participation is genuine and equitable, rather than passive, co-opted or restricted to the relatively powerful (see also the critiques of Pretty, 1994; Woost, 1997; Cooke and Kothari, 2001). In other words, power dynamics within the community and the household (between social groups and between genders, for example) are as much a part of the agenda of participatory approaches as power relations between the community and external institutions.

In recent years, critics have argued that participatory development has become increasingly part of the mainstream of international development practice, largely because of the assumptions about the efficiency benefits of participation rather than for the potential of a participatory approach to result in social transformation. The results of so-called “participatory� initiatives have therefore been mixed. In regards to the relations between the community and external institutions, NGOs and government agencies have often set the terms of community engagement, limiting it sometimes to consultation rather than community decision-making. Although there is often an assumption of evolutionary stages towards decision-making and self-mobilization, experience suggests that NGO involvement can often, inadvertently, stifle that progression; less direct involvement from the outside might have greater chance of success.

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Figure 1. The focus the three development paradigms bring to community economic development, and the nature of the development process under each paradigm

Development Process

Exogenous

Endogenous

___________________ Focus is on reforming economic systems ___________________

____________________ ______________________ Focus is on the economic Focus is on the economic capacities of individuals capacities of groups ____________________ _______________________

CED as a means to economic growth.

CED as a means of enhancing the capacity of the poor to become more self-reliant.

Community is defined strictly in terms of administrative boundaries

Community tends to have Community is self-defined - a a demographic dimension group that shares a 'common - focussing on those who are bond' economically marginalized

CED as a means to foster individual and collective empowerment and control of local resources.

Asset Based Community Development resource privatization

financial system reform

Industry attraction

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extension services

microfinance institutions

entrepreneurship development

community-based resource management village banks, credit unions, savings and credit cooperatives cooperatives, community enterprise

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Where ABCD and the legacy of participatory development intersect is in helping to identify a legitmate role for external agencies in community development so that control over development stays within the communities themselves, but in a climate where inclusive participation is encouraged. Users of the ABCD approach are deliberate in their intentions to lead by stepping back. Existing associations and networks (whether formal or informal) are assumed to be the source of constructive energy in the community.

Some NGOs might argue, however, that capacity building in the participatory paradigm is more effective if people are not constrained by cultural norms and practices that are undemocratic or inegalitarian. For this reason they might advocate that new community based organizations should be formed rather than building on existing associational forms that might prejudice the interests of less powerful members. The challenge of encouraging inclusive participation, which may at times be at odds with “leading by stepping back,” is therefore one with which practitioners of ABCD will have to wrestle as community-driven development unfolds.

ABCD stands to gain from the rich resource of tools and methods generated by participatory development practice for community-based research, analysis, planning, and for organizational capacity building. A wealth of literature on women’s empowerment and the transformation of gender relations for participatory development is particularly noteworthy. The literature also records extensive experience of scaling-up participatory approaches at the local level to regional and national decision-making systems which can inform the strategy that ABCD uses to create linkages between associations at the community level and local institutions.

By way of exchange, ABCD also has fresh insights to offer NGOs involved in participatory development practice. For example, rather than applying participatory rural appraisal (PRA) tools in the needs-based, problem-solving paradigm, packaged for the convenience of NGO planners, applications of these tools within a strength-based paradigm could be further explored: for example, for the identification and mobilization of community strengths and capacities, and for research and analysis of the community development process.

The importance of civic engagement: Learning from the experience of building civil society In the past 20 years, with a gradual weakening of the state and a corresponding strengthening of global capitalism, there has been a surge of interest in the development of civil society as a mediating force between the responsibilities of government and the power of capital at local, national, and international levels (see Salamon, Anheier & Associates, 1999).

Civil society has a wide spread. Voluntaristic at its roots, it includes development NGOs, churches, people’s movements, unions, village organizations, advocacy groups and many other actors. In its activities, civil society embraces a wide range of social and economic roles including service delivery, cooperative social and economic activity, advocacy, protection of the public interest, and public education. Civil society is thus the vehicle for active citizenship or strong democracy (Barber, 1984). If it is to flourish, it requires the acceptance of basic rights of freedom of association and information, and of the rule of law (see Serageldin, 1995). Efforts to strengthen civil society are therefore inextricably linked to the promotion of accountable governance at local, national, and international levels, and on stimulating participatory decision-making for development. At the local Coady International Institute: Mobilizing Assets for Community-Driven Development. 2009

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level, participatory decision-making depends on both enhancing the capacities of people who previously have been excluded from decision-making, and on creating the institutional mechanisms for their voice to be heard. For this reason, the strengthening of civil society has often been complementary to government decentralization and participatory governance.

Edwards (1999) argues that civil society plays an essential role in “humanizing capitalism.” Two important functions are integrated in this humanizing role: the first is the nurturing of social and economic assets that exist in even the poorest communities; the second is advocating for, and holding governments accountable for, the redistribution of more concrete assets through redistribution of land, employment opportunities, public facilities and services to which the “one billion absolute poor” are entitled. In addition, through humanizing capitalism, civil society can generate “the less tangible assets that enable people to bargain, negotiate and advance their interests”(p.

147) that ultimately leads to “self-belief, human ingenuity, and independence of thought” (p. 148).

This reading of the civil society literature finds resonance with Asset-Based Community Development. Practitioners of ABCD wrestle with both the opportunities and the constraints for economic development, relying on social assets to release community potential. As such, ABCD occupies “the middle ground where the logic of competition meets, and mixes with, the logic of co-operation” (Edwards, 1999, p. 162).

Challenges for ABCD A number of questions and challenges need further exploration and monitoring as new initiatives of ABCD unfold. These can be summarized as follows: •

Fostering an endogenous process: One of the cardinal principles of ABCD is that it should be a community-driven process. What then should be the role of the external agency? Clearly the role in the initial stages is as facilitator of a process, and as a node in a widening network of connections the community may have with other actors. The challenge is to avoid the level of involvement that can induce dependency.

•

Fostering inclusive participation: While ABCD is, in principle, an inclusive process in which the contributions of all are valued and appreciated, this may be more challenging in communities where social hierarchy excludes or marginalizes some groups. Of particular concern are the opportunities for women and the opportunities for lower caste or class groups. Neither ABCD nor appreciative inquiry directly confronts the issue of unequal power and its attendant oppressions; instead it tends to appeal to the higher motive of using power to act in the shared interests of the common good, and to uncover the strengths of those who might otherwise be less valued. How ABCD unfolds in different settings will therefore depend on how compatible existing norms and cultural practices are with the principles and values of ABCD.

•

Fostering community leadership: Because ABCD is community-driven, and the role of the external agency is at arm’s length, leadership to sustain a strength-based approach like ABCD becomes a central issue. As it unfolds in different settings, it will be

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important to learn about the qualities of essential leadership both in terms of the particular individuals involved and the nature of leadership itself. Is it, for example, an individual or a group of individuals? Is leadership formalized, or is it a function of individual or group initiative at particular times? What kind of associations nurtures the best community leaders?

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Selecting enabling environments: The external environment will influence the capacity of communities to realize their potential. The degree to which regulatory environments and local institutions are fair and responsive, and the degree to which norms of trust and reciprocity extend beyond the associational level are important considerations for the introduction of ABCD. However, in the absence of a conducive environment, it is important to explore whether an ABCD approach may provide the best option for identifying and creating openings in an otherwise hindering environment.

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Handling the fluidity of associations: Over time, and dependent on changes in social and economic circumstances, the form and function of associations and informal networks will change. Users of an ABCD strategy need to understand how these patterns have evolved historically, and the effect of the ABCD process on social relationships and patterns of associations and networks. In particular, the implications of associations becoming institutionalized in an ABCD strategy needs to be considered. Will such institutionalization stifle ABCD, or will new associational forms emerge?

Conclusion: Next Steps

By outlining ABCD and unpacking its various elements, this paper has served to position ABCD as a promising strategy for community development while highlighting questions to consider when it is applied in different international settings. At the time of writing, several initiatives are underway, some of which are ABCD, and some of which are “ABCD-like” in their approach. These include the application of ABCD in rural communities in Southern Ethiopia, the Philippines, and in Kenya by non-government organizations that have learned about ABCD in the last year or so and are interested in exploring its potential. These NGOs are collaborating with the Coady Institute in documenting the ABCD process as it unfolds. In addition, the application of ABCD in Curitiba, Brazil by a collaborative partnership between United Way Canada, Curitiba’s City Hall, and Pastoral da Crianca offers the opportunity to document the process in an urban setting.

Finally, it is important to remember that ABCD is not done to communities by ABCD experts. Kretzmann and McKnight’s work on ABCD evolved from initiatives that occurred spontaneously in communities and municipalities experimenting with different strategies for change. It is therefore equally important to document cases that are not called ABCD but illustrate similar principles, practices, and outcomes. A case in point is a small rural community in Nova Scotia – once a thriving fishing and farming community - that has marshalled its associational links and individual capacities to recreate itself as a going concern in the local tourist industry (Foster and Mathie, 2001).

Without this recognition of spontaneous initiatives, and if the practice of ABCD is coopted by the NGO sector and delivered to communities, there is a real danger that the Coady International Institute: Mobilizing Assets for Community-Driven Development. 2009

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strategy will be discredited as a self-serving initiative for external agencies. An important challenge to government and non-government agencies is therefore to avoid this irony by genuinely stepping back, while fulfilling social obligations that are inherent in a government/citizen relationship. This may require radical changes in the culture and practice of these agencies, the institutions to which they are accountable, and the public they serve.

Notes The authors wish to thank John McKnight, Jody Kretzman, Montasser Kamal, and Roger Wehrell for their comments on an earlier draft of this paper.

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References Ashford, G. and Patkar, S. (2001) “The appreciative inquiry approach� in Graham Ashford & and Saleela Parker (2001). Enhancing Ownership and Sustainability: A Resource Book on Participation (pp 86-93). International Fund for Agricultural Development (IFAD), Asian NGO Coalition for Agrarian Reform and Rural Development (ANGOC), and International Institute for Rural Construction (IIRR) Barber, B. (1984). Strong Democracy: Participatory Politics for a New Age. Los Angeles, Ca.: University of California Press.

Bazan, L. & Schmitz, H. (1997).Social capital and export growth: An industrial community in southern Brazil. Discussion Paper 361. Brighton, Sussex: Institute of Development Studies.

Chambers, R. (1997). Whose reality counts? Putting the first last. London: Intermediate Technology Publications.

Cooke, B. & Kothari, U. (2001). Participation: The new tyranny? New York: Zed Press Democracy: New Yardsticks for Grassroots Development.

DFID Sustainable Livelihoods Approach Guidance Sheets. Livelihoods Connect http://www.livelihoods.org/info/info_guidancesheets.html Diochon, M. (1997). Entrepreneurship and community economic development: Exploring the link.

Edwards, M. (1999). Future positive: International co-operation in the 21st century.

London, U.K.: Earthscan Publications.

Elliott, C. (1999). Locating the energy for change: An introduction to appreciative inquiry. Winnipeg, MB: International Institute for Sustainable Development Foster, M. and Mathie, A. (2001) Situating asset-based community development in the international development context. Available from http://www.stfx.ca/institutes/coady/ Frankenberger, T. & Garrett, J. (1998). Getting connected: Reducing livelihood insecurity by investing in social capital. Unpublished paper. Available from Care International, Atlanta, GA. Gittell, R. and Vidal, A. (1998) Community Organizing: Building Social Capital as a Development Strategy. Thousand Oaks, Ca.: Sage Publications Greene, M. (2000). The power of associations: Not mapping but organizing.

Unpublished paper. Available from ABCD Neighborhood Circle Initiative, ABCD Institute, Evanston, IL. International Fund for Agricultural Development. (2001). Rural poverty report, 2001. The challenge of ending rural poverty. Rome: IFAD Kretzmann, J. & McKnight, J. (1993). Building communities from the inside out. Chicago, IL: ACTA Publications.

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Kretzmann, J. & McKnight, J. (1999). Leading By Stepping Back: A Guide for City Officials on Building Neighborhood Capacity. Chicago, IL: ACTA Publications.

Moser, C. (1998). The asset vulnerability framework: Reassessing urban poverty reduction strategies. World Development, 28, 1-49.

Putnam, R. (1993). Making Democracy Work: Civic Traditions in Modern Italy. New Jersey: Princeton University Press.

Putnam, R. (2000). Bowling alone: The collapse and revival of American community. New York: Simon and Schuster.

Robinson, M. (1995). Towards a new paradigm of community development.

Community Development Journal, 30(1), 21-30.

Salamon, L. M., Anheier, H. K. & Associates. (1999). The emerging sector revisited. A summary–Revised estimates. Baltimore, MD: John Hopkins University.

Serageldin, I. (1995). Nurturing development: Aid and cooperation in today's changing world. Washington, DC: The World Bank.

De Soto, H. (2000). The mystery of capital: Why capitalism triumphs in the West and fails everywhere else. New York: Basic Books.

Woolcott, M., and Narayan, D. (2000). Social capital: Implications for development theory, research, and policy. The World Bank Research Observer, 15 (2), 225-249.

Woost, Michael D. (1997). “Alternative Vocabularies of Development? 'Community' and 'Participation' in Development Discourse in Sri Lanka.” R.D. Grillo and R.L. Stirrat (Eds.), Discourses of development - anthropological perspectives. New York: Berg.

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APPENDIX B: WHO IS DRIVING DEVELOPMENT? REFLECTIONS ON THE TRANSFORMATIVE POTENTIAL OF ASSET-BASED COMMUNITY DEVELOPMENT

Occasional Paper Series, No. 5

October 2003

Alison Mathie, PhD Gord Cunningham, MA Coady International Institute St. Francis Xavier University P.O. Box 5000 Antigonish, NS Canada B2G 2W5

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Abstract Arising out of a critique of needs-based approaches to development, Asset-Based Community Development (ABCD) offers a set of principles and practices to mobilize and sustain community economic development. This paper draws attention to the connections between these principles and practices and (i) current interest in sustainable livelihoods as a conceptual framework, (ii) the concept of social capital, (iii) the social psychology of mobilization, (iv) the enhancement of capacity and agency to engage as citizens with the entitlements of citizenship, (v) the role of multiple stakeholders; and (vi) the issue of control over the development process. Finally the paper, points to the challenges for NGOs employing an asset-based, community-driven approach given the needs-based, problem-solving paradigm in which they operate.

WHO IS DRIVING DEVELOPMENT? REFLECTIONS ON THE TRANSFORMATIVE POTENTIAL OF ASSETBASED COMMUNITY DEVELOPMENT In order to be involved in, or be a guide to, the transforming of the present into a future state — the essence of our work — one must have the skill to do this in such a way that the object with which one is working is not violated, but is transformed according to its own laws.

Kaplan (2002, p.140) The Coady International Institute runs a five month educational program in Community-Based Development, in Antigonish, Nova Scotia, Canada. The majority of our participants are from the global South, typically working in mid to senior level management positions in the NGO sector. In 2002, we posed our participants a challenge: Write a “story” about a community development initiative that was initiated and driven by members of the community, drawing on the community’s own resources, with little or no outside assistance from external institutions.

At first, the participants struggled with this challenge. Despite espousing participatory rhetoric, they had been used to thinking about community development as something their organizations planned and implemented. They were the change agents. However, once they started to think about genuine community-driven development — often drawing on examples from communities in which they lived — it was difficult to stop

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them. We collected 52 stories about communities all over the world where citizens had linked and mobilized various community assets to bring about positive change.

What stands out in these stories is the role of particular individuals who catalyze the process of development in their communities, and the strong base of associations or social networks that are mobilized in such a process. These catalysts may be traditional leaders, or they may be leaders who emerge because they have had some formal education or they may have travelled or worked elsewhere and returned with new ideas.

Such leaders (whether men, women, or youth) are able to stimulate a sense of pride and possibility. They recognize the potential within the community, as well as in “sons or daughters� living elsewhere. They recognize opportunities available through making connections and linkages with agencies interested in investing in communities that can demonstrate that potential.

The stories illustrate a wide variety of ways in which the assets of communities were combined and channelled towards realizing a community priority. Roads, bridges, and schools were built; tracts of land were reforested to guarantee fuel and water supplies; land was secured for co-operative commercial cash crop production; campaigns against factory owners that were polluting the environment were organized; homes for HIVAIDS orphans were found. The list is long. Many of these initiatives started out very small, built some momentum, then grew into more ambitious endeavours. Notably, external institutions only got involved after communities had already demonstrated their organizing and mobilizing capacity.

The purpose of this exercise was to recognize and learn from spontaneous, endogenous community-driven development. This is turn can help us answer the question: What can be done to stimulate such a process where it is not taking place? Turning to the principles and practical suggestions of Asset-Based Community Development, we began to consider its applicability to community-level realities and its complementarity with current theoretical frameworks.

Asset-Based Community Development The work of Jody Kretzmann and John McKnight of the Institute of Policy Research at Northwestern University grew out of two years of seeking, discovering, and analyzing similar kinds of stories of endogenous community development in low income urban neighbourhoods in the United States, culminating in their 1993 book Building Communities from the Inside Out: Asset-Based Community Development. The premise of this book is that communities can drive the development process themselves by identifying and mobilizing existing (but often unrecognized) assets, thereby responding to and creating local economic opportunity. Such unrealized resources include not only personal attributes and skills, but also the relationships among people that fuel local associations and informal networks. Mobilizing such social assets can activate more formal institutional resources such as local government, formal community-based organizations, and private enterprise. In this way, the community development process is sustained and Coady International Institute: Mobilizing Assets for Community-Driven Development. 2009

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scaled up, while continuing to recognize local associations as the driving force — the vehicles through which all the community’s assets can be identified and then connected to one another in ways that multiply their power and effectiveness.

The reasons for successful community-driven development shed light on the paralysis of other community development efforts. Kretzmann and McKnight (1993) challenge the well-intentioned efforts of a number of actors — universities, donor agencies, governments, and the mass media — that have focused on the needs, problems, and deficiencies of low-income communities, and the emergence of a layer of agencies with a problem-solving mission (see also Brock, Cornwall, & Gaventa, 2001, p. 5). Kretzmann and McKnight argue that the consequences of a needs-based, problem-solving approach can be devastating: leadership that denigrates the community by emphasizing the severity of problems in order to attract resources; and people in these communities internalizing a view of themselves as incapable of initiating positive change, leading to a pervasive feeling of hopelessness. Communities become further weakened by a reliance on outside institutions to solve their problems, and perversely those institutions develop a vested interest in maintaining this dependency (see also Fowler, 2000). Finally, Kretzmann and McKnight argue, viewing a community as a list of problems and needs leads to a fragmentation of efforts to provide solutions. This denies the breadth and depth of community wisdom which regards problems — and the community’s own problemsolving capacities — as tightly intertwined.

As an approach to development, Asset-Based Community Development takes as its starting point the existing assets and strengths of community, particularly the strengths inherent in community-based associations and other social networks. As a strategy, it is shaped by a distinctive set of principles and these, in turn, inform field-based methods and practices. Although no blueprint exists, these methods might include: interviews to elicit examples of successful community initiatives and to identify hidden and unrecognized assets; “asset-mapping” when the full range of assets on which the community can draw are comprehensively recorded and documented; mobilization of a core group of community organizers; initiation of a community activity that requires no outside assistance; and a progressive scaling up of such activities, as linkages to external institutions are called upon to invest in community-driven development initiatives.

Our own work over the last two years has involved making the shift from a problembased focus to an asset-based approach in our thinking, in our practice, and in our educational courses at the Coady Institute. To some degree this has meant reasserting our heritage in the Antigonish Movement and the teachings of Moses Coady, who emphasized the inherent capabilities of people who needed to be “remotivated” to take control over their livelihoods, not “remade” (Alexander, 1997, p.156). We have also found that it strikes a chord with the experience of development practitioners who attend our educational programs. This is partly because they have witnessed the disempowering effects of problem-focused development agency practice, but also because an asset-based approach appears to be more consistent with the dynamism, fluidity, and differentiation of the diverse communities with which they work.

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We have also found that this approach integrates much of the innovative practice occupying centre stage in development literature, such as that on sustainable livelihoods, the role of social capital, democratization via decentralization, governance and civil society, and psycho-social strategies for community mobilization (see Mathie & Cunningham, 2002).

In this paper, we elaborate further on two aspects: the fit between an asset-based approach to community development practice and the analytical framework provided in the literature on sustainable livelihoods; and the implications of an asset-based approach for the role of the external agency. The central message is that the transformation of the external agency is essential for the transformative potential of an asset-based approach to be realized.

From Analytical Framework to a Mode of Practice: Assets, Capitals and Capacities As promoted by the British Department of International Development (DFID) and the United Nations Development Program (UNDP), the sustainable livelihoods approach has three essential features. Firstly, as a framework for analysis, it draws attention to the full range of assets that people draw upon to compose a livelihood, namely human, natural, financial, physical, and social and/or cultural assets. Secondly, as an instrument for policy and program design to reduce vulnerability, it emphasizes a holistic understanding of development so that an adequate asset mix can be created, sustained, and transferred from one generation to the next, a feature which has now translated into policies and programs dedicated to asset-building for sustainable livelihood outcomes.

Thirdly, it puts people in the community squarely at the centre as the principle agents of development, acting through community based organizations to collaborate with various other agents such as local government, NGOs, and the private sector (DFID, 2001; UNDP, 1997). We will explore each of these in turn before demonstrating how an assetbased approach provides a means of operationalizing the sustainable livelihoods framework at the community level.

Illustrating the use of the sustainable livelihoods approach as an analytical frame, Bebbington (1999) shows how agrarian Andean communities that had been narrowly viewed as “non viable� (i.e. deficient in the natural assets necessary for peasant agricultural production) were in fact able to sustain themselves. They did so by an astute use of their social, cultural, financial, human, physical, and natural assets that allowed them to combine an agrarian livelihood base with remittances from family members working in towns; some household members hiring themselves out as seasonal labour; family farm amalgamation and capitalization; and rural industrial development and Coady International Institute: Mobilizing Assets for Community-Driven Development. 2009

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commerce. In other words, the asset-base is in a constant state of flux as some assets are used, some replenished, and some created anew in the process of creating and sustaining livelihood strategies.

Bebbington (1999) goes on to argue that assets are more than just resources with instrumental value for economic purposes. Drawing on the work of Amartya Sen, Anthony Giddens, and Jurgen Habermas, he makes the case that assets also give people the capacity or potential to act, and thus are a source of meaningful engagement with the world. In other words, people’s sense of identity and purpose is bound up in the various assets or capacities that they have. In a related sense, assets are also the basis on which people take action; they can empower people to challenge the structures that determine the way in which resources are allocated. However, these assets cannot be activated without access to them. Social capital is therefore a particularly important asset because it provides access to other assets, and it is access that is the most critical resource of all (p.

2002).

As the key to a people-centred approach, the critical role played by social capital has been well documented in a large and growing literature that attempts to both define and operationalize it. There is broad agreement that social capital is present in the networks, norms, and social trust inherent in associations whose members work together in concerted collaborative action (Frankenburger & Garrett, 1998; Woolcock & Narayan, 2000). More specifically, social capital is the store of goodwill and obligations generated by social relations. Looked at in this way, networks, norms, and social trust are all evidence of social relations in which social capital has been generated. Thus, as Woolcock and Narayan point out, the adage “It is not what you know, but who you know,� refers to the potential support that arises from social relationships that have been created through collaborative activity, or have been inherited through family or class membership. Like other forms of capital, social capital is a latent asset, and individuals can increase or deplete it depending on where they stand in the reciprocal exchange of social support and obligation.

Woolcock and Narayan (2000) provide the useful distinction between bonding and bridging social capital. Bonding social capital is evident in the close knit relations of friends and families who can be depended on for basic survival in times of stress. It is bonding social capital, for example, that will be drawn upon by a family with insufficient food for survival, or by a woman whose husband is sick and unable to contribute his share of labour (see also Haddad & Maluccio, 2002). By contrast, bridging social capital provides leverage in relationships beyond the confines of ones own affinity group, or even beyond the local community. Educated relatives in the town may, for example, guarantee a larger loan to accelerate the growth of a small enterprise run by extended family members.

Relationships cultivated by a community with local authorities might influence the decision about the location of a road to facilitate marketing.

Regardless of whether social capital is used to bond or to bridge, the aggregate value of social capital to local economic development is now widely recognized. Putnam (1993), for example, demonstrated the relationship between regional variations in economic 116

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performance in Northern Italy and the degree to which people were involved in voluntary civic associations. These associations provided the connections and the experience of collaborative effort for the individual and collective good, which spun-off in local economic growth. More recent studies point to the way in which collective activity contributes to social capital — for example, peer group micro-finance schemes create co-operation and trust that contribute to social and economic benefits beyond the loan access itself (Szabo, 1999). Dupar and Badenoch (2002), in a recent collection of case studies on decentralization in South East Asia, show how high stocks of social capital result in more effective partnerships with local government, and stronger partnerships in turn result in more effective local resource management. The synergy in these partnerships occurs because communities with stocks of social capital (and therefore stronger interpersonal levels and expectations of trust) are able to demand greater responsiveness from local institutions; at the same time, local institutions are likely to view that stock of social capital as a reason to invest in the community. A particularly vivid example of this kind of synergy is evident in the attitude of the municipal authorities of Curitiba, Brazil (under the leadership of its dynamic mayor) towards the potential and initiative of community groups within municipal boundaries — communities were not seen as a burden draining local resources, but as sources of human and social capacities to revitalize the local economy.

This synergistic relationship between social capital and mediating agency is of particular relevance to the discussion that follows later in this paper on the implications of an asset-based approach on the role of the external agency. Krishna (2002), in his recent study on social capital in Madhya Pradesh and Rajasthan, provides insights into this relationship. He points out that social capital by itself only represents a “propensity for collective action,” whereas various institutions of the state and the market provide “incentives or disincentives for collective action” (p.170). For social capital to be activated a mediating agency is required (parties, unions, interest groups, trade associations, etc.) to help citizens make the necessary connections with state and market organizations. Without these mediating agencies, and without the leadership to make these connections, “social capital and institutional incentives remain disconnected, and societal performance suffers” (p. 171). Associational life therefore requires the catalyzing influence of leadership in many guises — traditional leadership making social capital productive for the purpose of community peace, and “new non-caste-based political entrepreneurs [to] activate the stock of social capital for achieving benefits related to economic development and participation in democracy” (p. xi). The question then remains how external agents can provide the “minimal external stimulus” (Bergdall, 2003, p. 2) for internal leadership to emerge and to activate social capital where this does not occur spontaneously.

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In their assessment of “community development in sustainable livelihood approaches,” Brockleby and Fisher (2003) lament the absence of discussions about community development practices that could translate the sustainable livelihoods approach to action on the ground. Explaining this absence, they argue: The normative frameworks of analysis that sustainable livelihoods embody, which are so obviously embedded in northern technocratic discourses, tend to focus on the technical nature of development (Moser and Norton, 2001, p.7), ignoring or rejecting the transformative aspirations, values, and principles underpinning much current community level development practice. (p. 194) Against the background of the analytical framework provided in the sustainable livelihoods approach, and the concerns about on the ground practice raised by Brocklesby and Fisher, Asset-Based Community Development (ABCD) appears to offer (i) a practical means of operationalizing the approach at the community level, while (ii) challenging the technocratic decision-making process that critics have associated with the sustainable livelihoods approach (SLA). This claim is based on the following four complementarities of ABCD and the SLA approach.

First, the ABCD approach takes as its starting point the position that people have strengths and capacities, and that uncovering these is a key motivator for taking action proactively. This does not mean to say that proponents of ABCD and other strengthbased approaches deny the existence of problems, or the need to solve some problems urgently. However, they argue that other problems may lose their urgency, or be solved indirectly when an unrelated change in activity takes place that galvanizes people’s interest and effort. In this way, the energy that was focused on the problem becomes refocused on, for example, renewed collaborative action based on existing strengths and capacities (Ashford & Patkar, 2001).

This uncovering of assets occurs inductively — stories are told of successful community endeavours (which might include coping strategies in times of crisis). They are analyzed collectively, building up an inventory of assets that range from the personal/individual (incorporating elements of human capital), though associational (incorporating social capital), to assets in the local economy (physical, natural, financial capital). Affirmation of those assets plays a key role, as Bebbington (1999) notes, in giving each and every person a sense of capacity and purpose. While structural inequalities and differences in power and status are recognized, they are not necessarily presented as obstacles. The ABCD approach is designed to recognize the attributes and potential contributions of all — irrespective of age, gender, or class — and to show where opportunities for collaboration exist for mutual gain. As the examples drawn from participants in the Coady Institute’s educational programs illustrate, the emergence of a new cadre of social entrepreneurs mobilizing community effort, the demonstration of capacity, and the capacity building that is experienced in the process may all contribute to reshaping these power asymmetries.

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Second, ABCD stresses the key role played by formal and informal associations, networks, and extended families at the community level, and by the social relationships that connect local initiatives to external windows of opportunity. In this way, while all types of assets are taken into consideration in the ABCD approach, particular importance is attached to identifying, strengthening, and mobilizing social capital located in this associational base, precisely because, as Bebbington (1999) points out, this is the key to accessing the other assets needed for community economic development. An ABCD approach highlights how and why associations in the community have been able to mobilize people for change in the past, pointing to the voluntary nature of (non kinbased) associations, the trust and reciprocity that characterizes relationships among members, and the characteristics of leadership in essentially horizontal (rather than hierarchical) organizations. If each and every individual participates in several associations and social networks for different purposes, the traffic of social connections inside and beyond the community is potentially huge.

Third, the ABCD approach provides practical tools and methods that can be used by community members to identify and link assets. These include tools for mapping assets and analyzing the local economy, illustrating the potential linkages among assets to optimize local economic opportunity for both exporting out of the community and plugging the leaks that lead to unnecessary draining of resources. Mapping techniques also provide the means for putting value on skills, talents, and capacities that might otherwise be taken for granted in conventional economic analysis, ensuring (for example) that natural, social, and cultural assets are also taken into consideration. It is thus necessarily holistic in its orientation. Just as the sustainable livelihoods approach encourages practitioners to “think holistically, act sectorally,” an ABCD approach encourages community-level activity that optimizes that community’s asset-base, while conscious of that activity’s interconnections with other aspects of community life.

Fourth, the ABCD approach is not only people-centred (as in the sustainable livelihoods approach), but is a citizen-driven approach. The logical consequence of focusing on assets, capacities, and capabilities is to encourage a proactive role for the citizen, replacing the passive, dependent role of client in the welfare service delivery model of community development practice. The active citizen mobilizes (or is mobilized) at the associational level. As associational life gains momentum, it builds up the capacity over time to leverage external resources, and to claim rights and access to services to which community members are entitled by virtue of state or global citizenship. For example, a group of artisans may need to draw on local resources to ensure a sustained product line.

It will also need linkages with external agencies that can help in the design and marketing of its product. ABCD can be an effective mechanism for establishing those internal linkages and mobilizing social capital within the community (sources of raw materials, credit, traditional designs, child care provisioning, an effective water supply) while identifying external resources that can be tapped, such as a producer cooperative, a transportation network, or a source of credit on which the group can draw for marketing purposes. At the same time, the capacity of this artisanal group may be strengthened as Coady International Institute: Mobilizing Assets for Community-Driven Development. 2009

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an advocate for the community as a whole. For example, it may lead the effort to draw on local government support for a more accessible water supply, serving both domestic and artisanal needs. In sum, external resources are accessed to serve the community’s agenda.

Serving a community-driven agenda, although consistent with the rhetoric of an SLA approach, may prove challenging to the technocratic decision-making that pervades the institutions that communities have to negotiate with. In the next section, we argue that the transformation of clients to citizens requires the transformation of the role of these institutions.

A Question of Agency: Transformation in the Role of NGOs The dramatic changes in the political, economic, and institutional context over the last two decades have reshaped the roles of various development actors in community development worldwide. This in turn has influenced the degree to which people in marginalized communities have the capacity to act. Thirty years ago the state was the major "driver" and funder of community development activities. Through the 1980s, under a global neo-liberal economic regime, the public sector was scaled back under fiscal and ideological pressure, and private sector agencies and civil society organizations (such as NGOs) became the main intermediaries between communities and both public and private funders. In the last few years there has been a shift in sources of funding, including the emergence of local foundations seeking to invest in local communities (e.g., see Dupree & Winder, 2000), as well as direct assistance by private corporations, and the decentralization of national state functions down to the local level. The niche for NGOs is now less in direct intervention and more in strengthening civil society to mediate between market and state.

Examples are legion of the disastrous consequences of economic globalization and liberalization in communities struggling for survival and stretching their assets to unsustainable levels. Yet there are also examples of communities that are able to take advantage of new opportunities provided in the new economic and technological climate, and to claim and retain the rights and entitlements of state and global citizenship threatened by unchecked market forces. Edwards (1999) argues that civil society can play an important role here — that of “humanizing capitalism.” Two important functions are integrated in this humanizing role: the first is the nurturing of social and economic assets that exist in even the poorest communities; the second is advocating for, and holding governments accountable for, the redistribution of more concrete assets through redistribution of land, employment opportunities, public facilities and services to which the poor are entitled. In addition, through humanizing capitalism, civil society can generate “the less tangible assets that enable people to bargain, negotiate and advance their interests”(p. 147) that ultimately leads to “self-belief, human ingenuity, and independence of thought” (p. 148).

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An ABCD approach at the community level can therefore be seen as the actualization of this role for civil society in general. In a sense, ABCD occupies “the middle ground where the logic of competition meets, and mixes with, the logic of co-operation” (Edwards, 1999, p. 162); this in turn activates the social capital required for community driven initiative, for collaborative partnerships with external institutions, and for claiming the rights and entitlements of citizenship. For the NGO, this means a retreat to a much more responsive, brokering role at the local level, helping local communities navigate their way through a myriad of possible “investors.” As Kaplan (1999) points out, this “plays havoc with bureaucratic organizational styles,” because it requires a flexibility of approach “which is simultaneously very ‘hands on’ and ‘hands off’. Rigorously ‘present’, although with a very light touch” (p.23) This is very different from the conventional style of operation with its tidy logical frames and results-based planning and management. It requires an institutional ability to deal with uncertainty, and to plan inductively. As Uphoff (1998) discovered, “We had to alter many of our … assumptions about the nature of reality; human nature; and how we can best learn, plan and act. We had to appreciate that things exist not in their essence but in their contingence” (p. 456).

Learning from an Asset-Based Community Development Approach The Coady Institute is currently exploring asset-based approaches to community development in two related areas of inquiry.

First, in collaboration with partners overseas, examples of ABCD-like citizen-driven development are being explored to find out the mix of various assets and the role of different actors in mobilizing these in particular contexts. Continuing a solid tradition in documenting best practice (e.g. Hirschman,1984; Krishna, Uphoff, & Esman, 1997), this research seeks to draw out lessons on how policy can create the enabling environment for such citizen-driven development, and how practice may be modeled on these endogenous initiatives.

Second, agencies wishing to shift their practice to an asset-based approach have been invited to be partners in an action research initiative (e.g., ongoing in The Philippines and about to start in Ethiopia and Kenya). Less “research,” more “learning through ongoing monitoring and evaluation,” the process of implementing an ABCD approach is being documented as it unfolds, paying attention to: (i) local adaptations of the approach that maximize its effectiveness in stimulating community-driven development; (ii) the key enabling and constraining conditions at macro- and micro-levels that affect the application of this approach; and (iii) lessons learned about the optimal role for the NGO in the community, and its relationship to other external actors, particularly local government, when introducing this approach at the community level. The overarching research goal of the action research is to discover the extent to which a sustainable improvement in livelihood can be realized when people cease being clients of NGOs and government agencies and instead act as citizens. It will identify the policy environment Coady International Institute: Mobilizing Assets for Community-Driven Development. 2009

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conducive to community development opportunities being created from “the outside in,” while identifying critical elements of an asset-based strategy that can build linkages from the inside out (Bebbington, 1999; Kretzmann & McKnight, 1993), strengthening civil society while stimulating sustainable community economic development.

Conclusion In courses that we have conducted at the Coady Institute and overseas in Asset-Based Community Development and its variants, there is often an “Aha!” moment, when “the shift” takes place. This is when participants, locked into a problem-solving, rationaldeductive mode of reasoning, suddenly allow themselves to think differently about the communities with which they work. Although it can be liberating and refreshing to make this shift, it can also be disorienting and threatening, as they begin to realize the implications of an asset-based, citizen-driven approach. Sometimes the concern arises from a sense of vulnerability if the NGO sector is indeed expected to retreat.

Sometimes, this concern about relinquishing control is voiced as skepticism: Does citizen-driven mean led by men/landowners/the-rich-and-powerful? Who should drive this so-called “community” development?

We recognize that any community, regardless of its coherence and sense of identity, is characterized by different interests and aspirations, or even “plagued by endogenous sources of incivility” (Keane, 1998). As an introduced process, an asset-based approach attempts to counteract this by uncovering the strengths that exist in the shadow of the obviously powerful within the community, and bring them into view. It assumes there is an ebb and flow of initiative and leadership with social relationships formed and reformed; class, gender, and ethnic divisions modified in the process. Power “to” and power “with” are encouraged, while power “over” is challenged. Women, for example, who have been involved in an association (such as a peer group savings group) can no longer retreat to the same level of subordination; the recognition of their capacities as financial managers and entrepreneurs changes household relations and their role in other social networks and associations at the community level. Community-driven development may not necessarily be the collective action of all in a geographically circumscribed area, but it is activity that is based at the community level and is conducive to building active participation in, and a sense of responsibility for, the prosperity of the larger community. This could include the development of infrastructure (such as roads) to enhance economic potential, the establishment of a community foundation, or a community mechanism for storage and marketing of local produce. Or it may be, as women’s self help groups in India so amply illustrate, the emergence of networks of women’s groups across their respective communities, each of which contributes to community level prosperity.

Who is driving development has implications for who is held accountable for results.

Many development practitioners work in hierarchically structured environments where development practice is not only NGO driven, but driven also by a donor agenda.

Planning, monitoring, and evaluation are consumed by the need to be accountable “upwards.” We understand this — our own work is similarly influenced by the 122

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requirements of our principal donor and its preoccupation with results-based management.

In an arms-length role the NGO requires a different kind of practice: a shift away from the controlled “development project” towards a relationship that is flexible, sensitive to community level interests. Consequently a different kind of reporting is required — description and analysis of what is taking place at the community level, the process of community-driven development as it unfolds, the interactions with other actors, as well as specific ways in which the NGO has facilitated the linkages for communities to sustain their own development. The shift in NGO practice is a necessary one — vacating the space for stronger relationships between citizens and other actors at the local level including government and the private sector — while continuing to fill the gaps in a civil society that mediates between state and market.

References Alexander, A. (1997). The Antigonish Movement: Moses Coady and adult education today. Toronto: Thompson Educational Publishing.

Ashford, G., & Patkar, S. (2001). The appreciative inquiry approach. In G. Ashford & S. Parker, Enhancing ownership and sustainability: A resource book on participation (pp. 8693). International Fund for Agricultural Development (IFAD), Asian NGO Coalition for Agrarian Reform and Rural Development (ANGOC), and International Institute for Rural Construction (IIRR).

Bebbington, A. (1999). Capitals and capabilities: A framework for analysing peasant viability, rural livelihoods and poverty. World Development, 27(12), 2021-2044.

Bergdall, T. (2003). Reflections in the catalytic role of an outsider. Unpublished paper.

Brock, K., Cornwall, A., & Gaventa, J. (2001). Power, knowledge and political spaces in the framing of poverty policy (IDS Working Paper, No.143). Brighton, Sussex: Institute of Development Studies.

Brocklesby, M. A., & Fisher, E. (2003). Community development in sustainable livelihoods approaches — An introduction. Community Development Journal, 38(3), 185-197.

DFID. (2001). Sustainable livelihoods approach guidance sheets. Livelihoods Connect Website. Retrieved from: (http://www.livelihoods.org/info/info_guidancesheets.html).

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Dupar, M., & Badenoch, N. (2002). Environment, livelihoods and local institutions: Decentralisation in Mainland South East Asia. Washington DC, USA: World Resources Institute.

Dupree, A. S., & Winder, D. (2000). Foundation building sourcebook. New York: The Synergos Institute.

Edwards, M. (1999). Future positive: International co-operation in the 21st century.

London: Earthscan.

Fowler, A. (2000). Civil society, NGDOs and social development: Changing the rules of the game (Occasional paper No. 1). Geneva: UNRISD. Frankenberger, T., & Garrett, J. (1998). Getting connected: Reducing livelihood insecurity by investing in social capital. Unpublished paper. Available from Care International, Atlanta, GA. Haddad, L., & Maluccio (2002). Trust, membership in groups, and household welfare: Evidence from Kwazulu-Natal, South Africa. Washington, DC: International Food Policy Research Institute.

Hirschman, A. O. (1984). Getting ahead collectively: Grassroots experiences in Latin America.

New York: Pergamon Press.

Kaplan, A. (2002). Development practitioners and social process — Artists of the invisible. London: Pluto Press.

Kaplan, A. (1999). The development of capacity UN-NGLS Development Dossier. Retrieved: (http://www.unsystem.org/ngls/documents/publications.en/develop.dossier/d d.05/dc.synthesis.htm) Keane, J. (1998). Civil society. Cambridge, UK: Polity Press.

Kretzmann, J., & McKnight, J. (1993). Building communities from the inside out: A path toward finding and mobilizing a community’s assets. Chicago, IL: ACTA Publications.

Krishna, A. (2002). Active social capital: Tracing the roots of development and democracy. New York: Columbia University Press.

Krishna, A., Uphoff, N., & M.J. Esman (Eds.). ( 1997). Reasons for hope: Instructive experiences in rural development. West Hartford, CT: Kumarian Press.

Mathie, A., & Cunningham, G. (2002). From clients to citizens: Asset-Based Community Development as a strategy for community driven development (Occasional Paper No. 3).

Antigonish, NS: The Coady International Institute. (www.stfx.ca/institutes/coady) Putnam, R. (1993). Making democracy work: Civic traditions in modern Italy. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.

Szabo, S. (1999) Social intermediation study: field research guide: exploring the relationship between social capital and microfinance CIDA and the Aga Khan Foundation. Retrieved from http://www.microfinancegateway.org/impact/guide4.htm UNDP. (1997). Participatory local governance: LIFE’s method and experience 1992–1997 (Technical Advisory Paper 1). Local Initiative Facility for Urban Environment,

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Management and governance Division, UNDP. Retrieved from: (www.undp.org/sl).

Uphoff, N. (1998). Learning about and for participation: From theoretical and empirical studies to practical experience, and back to theory. Canadian Journal of Development Studies, 19(3), 439-460.

Woolcock, M., & Narayan, D. (2000). Social capital: Implications for development theory, research, and policy. The World Bank Research Observer, 15(2), 225-249.

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NOTES Defining Community-Based Development From the experience of the Coady International Institute, community-based development works towards social and economic justice by strengthening the collective power of the disadvantaged and drawing on the strengths of the larger community of which they are a part. Community-based development is therefore grounded in the belief that the common good is best served by opportunities for all to live well and responsibly, within the bounds of environmental sustainability.

Fundamental to a community-based approach is people organizing for change in their communities. Today, the possibilities for the combined efforts of local organizing to have a global reach are growing exponentially. A program for action for communitybased development is therefore one that: (i) addresses the economic and social conditions of people’s lives; (ii) initiates and strengthens the various institutional forms of people organizing at a local level for effective control over their livelihood; (iii) links local initiatives to regional, national, and global institutions that further local level interests; and (iv) leads to a restructuring of economic and political systems that prejudice those interests.

Communities are acknowledged to be fluid, dynamic, and differentiated, rather than static and homogenous. However, within any spatially or administratively circumscribed community, voluntary associations and social networks are relatively homogenous.

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APPENDIX C: DOES ABCD DELIVER ON SOCIAL JUSTICE? Alison Mathie, Coady International Institute Panel Discussion for the International Association of Community Development CIVICUS conference, Glasgow, June 2006.

Asset Based and Community Driven Development Asset Based Community Development (ABCD) is an approach to working with communities that emphasizes people’s assets, rather than their deficiencies, and encourages the mobilizing of community assets to meet opportunities for genuine community-driven or citizen-driven development. By focusing on “the glass half full”, it diverges from conventional development agency practice that defines communities by their problems and deficiencies. This shift is intended to correct the inadvertent outcome of well intentioned community development efforts: communities that are hobbled by a self perception of their inadequacy and by a dependence on outside institutions for solutions to problems.

While there are tools and methods for identifying assets and opportunities, it is important to stress that ABCD is neither a prescribed set of practices nor a new way of community organizing. To the contrary, ABCD has been coined as a term to describe ways in which communities have successfully organized themselves in the past, usually without external agencies, such as NGOs or government extension services, showing them the way. Our own work is constantly informed and revised by the lessons learned from such communities. Promoting ABCD as a deliberate approach is designed to stimulate similar processes where they do not so far exist.

Does ABCD deliver on social justice?

This is a question we are regularly asked which I believe reflects some ambiguity in how we have been promoting asset-based/citizen driven approaches to community development thus far. In particular, skeptics rightly see the danger of interpreting ABCD as an excuse to “let the poor pull themselves up by their own bootstraps”. Far from it.

In this presentation, I hope to demonstrate that in fundamental yet unexpected ways, an ABCD approach does indeed address social justice issues, usually (but not always) in conjunction with a focus on economic development. I support this position with some theoretical discussion together with practical examples and observations based on our work with partners around the world. The argument being presented is that ABCD (or successful community-driven development in general) has a transformative effect on the individual, on the social relations between and among individuals, and on the relations citizen groups have with external agencies. This transformative effect lays down some of the conditions required for the structural changes that will allow a more equitable distribution of, or access to, resources.

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To put this discussion in some context, I should briefly describe the scenarios in which we have been collaborating with partners adopting an ABCD approach. Each of these scenarios offers its own particular brand of social injustice. First there is Ethiopia where optimism for transition to a fully fledged democracy has been dashed by a spurious election and subsequent political repression, where women’s rights are accorded very little serious attention, and where shifting political fortunes of different groups under different regimes – feudalism, marxist military dictatorship, and “democracy” – have resulted in deep levels of mutual suspicion and mistrust. Then there is Kenya, still reeling from the effects of a particularly corrupt regime under President Moi, where signs in government offices exhort public officials to “Stop Being Corrupt” ( “Don’t be Corrupt” might give more people the benefit of the doubt), and where rural communities have little faith in government or the NGO sector. Next is India where injustices induced by sharp social and economic divisions – economic and caste divisions and women’s position in society – threaten access to the opportunities afforded by economic growth. Finally the Philippines, where social movements have in the past routed out some of the worst injustices, but where uneven distribution of wealth and opportunity has left many in the twilight zone, and political leadership has again been tainted by charges of large scale corruption and cronyism.

ABCD’s social justice heritage The essential spirit and practice of ABCD, as described by McKnight and Kretzmann, draws inspiration from the Civil Rights Movement. For example, recognition of the strengths and assets of the so-called marginalized, and recognition of the debilitating effects of systemic paternalism by “professionals”, both formed the basis of Saul Alinsky’s brand of community organizing in Chicago in the 1960s. He would say: “Never do for people what they can do for themselves”. Martin Luther King, while never shrinking from confrontation, believed that lasting change came from civic engagement through the “The love that does justice” 4 , heralding the positive character of McKnight and Kretzmann’s work.

Such sentiments neither started nor ended in the American Civil Rights movement. For example, prompting the Antigonish Movement in the Maritime provinces in Canada in the 1930s, Moses Coady would declare “You are poor enough to want it, and smart enough to do it!” and “Use what you have to secure what you have not!”. Gandhi’s work in India and Nyrere’s in Tanzania are better known examples of leaders of movements that achieved social justice, partly through transforming the self-perception of those who had internalized the inferiority conferred upon them by colonialism. A villager I met in the 1970s in Papua New Guinea just when “empowerment” was coming on stream in development jargon said to me: “Empowerment? We don’t need empowerment, we need to prevent our disempowerment – that’s the greatest danger” 4

Michael Edwards recent paper discussed “The Love that does Justice” at length. He quotes Simon Greer of Jobs with Justice in New York: “As a front line organizer, I and many others were fighting out of hate for the other side, not out of love for where we could go as a community. I was proud because we were winning, but it wasn’t sustainable. We needed to work from what we were in favour of rather than what we were against.”

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Perception and reality: ABCD identifies “capacity to act” The essence of ABCD is its departure from a “the glass half empty” world-view (needsbased, problem-solving approaches) in favor of a focus on “the glass half full” (assetbased, opportunity focused approaches). While it would be facile to argue that development practitioners have never noticed or promoted community strengths and assets, it is nevertheless a fact that most development agency practice is rooted in, and justified by, the existence of poverty, disadvantage, and deficit. The more explicit these characterizations are, the more damaging the implications for the self-perception of the community members concerned; they will characterize themselves as casualties of forces beyond their control. If, however, community members or citizens are able to identify, recognize and mobilize their own strengths and assets they implicitly demonstrate their “capacity to act”; in doing so, they perceive themselves as having the power to exercise some control over their lives. The corollary of this is when “outsiders” recognize the assets and strengths of others and witness their “capacity to act”, it has a profound effect on them. They ask different questions and look for ways to collaborate or to invest, rather than delivering professionalized solutions to expectant clients or passive beneficiaries, or shying away from communities whose problems seem insurmountable.

What does this have to do with social justice? Belief in one’s own capacity to act inspires the confidence to bring about change and to seek out opportunity. Confidence in one’s capacity to act is also the basis for people to claim the rights to which they are entitled by virtue of citizenship, or to exercise influence through the political process. Social justice is therefore achieved through judicious mobilizing of assets: the two sides of the coin Moses Coady tossed at farmers and fishermen in the Maritime Provinces of Canada in the1930s when he said “Use what you have to secure what you have not”.

By way of example, self help affinity groups in India have mobilized their own savings and accessed group bank loans to invest in land and small scale enterprise. National bank lending policy, tilted towards wealthier individuals, changed in response to the proven savings and loan management capacity of these groups. In addition, many of these groups have gone beyond their initial mandate to advocate in local government for services that were otherwise neglected yet directly affect their well being. For example, in the villages where Myrada has been working in Southern India, self help affinity groups have successfully lobbied the local panchayat for water supply and sanitation and the promotion of girls’ education.

The following diagram helps to illustrate this relationship between internal mobilizing and external investing. The left hand assets pentagon represents assets that can be mobilized through or by the associational base of communities. The right hand assets pentagon represents the assets that can be mobilized by institutions to invest in community development. The more effectively the community can mobilize its own assets the more leverage it has to attract investment from other sources, and the more confidence it has to find the space to claim the assets (or rights) to which it is entitled.

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Asset-Based Community Driven Development Livelihood Assets + Agency

INTERNAL

EXTERNAL

Leverage

S/P

S/P voice

H

N

obligations

H

N

A* A

II*

I

T1

mobilizing doing

T2 T3

P

F

informing responding

*Associations or any “community” social groupings that can access and mobilize assets

P

F *Institutions

Investment

and their policies and programs that provide access to assets or asset-building services

Notes: 1. Points on the assets pentagon indicate the following types of assets (in a clockwise direction): Social/ Political, Natural, Financial, Physical, and Human 2. Over time, one should expect asset-building going on, with the internal pentagon expanding in size. Dotted lines indicate building of assets over time (T1, T2, T3).

Individual and social transformation: ABCD expands relationships of trust.

One of the distinguishing characteristics of ABCD is its focus on associations as building blocks for renewed community or group action whether it is a marketing cooperative, a group managing a rural electrification scheme, a savings group in a micro-savings scheme, a water users association, or a church group. Of course, associations can be exclusionary and can be the expression of divisive “negative social capital”. However, when associational life as whole connects and extends social networks, it can build relationships of trust that are the basis of reformed or transformed social relations.

Among the issues we are currently exploring is how successful community-driven initiatives result from the activities of leaders who are able to help identify “win-win” situations between people with apparently conflicting interests. Meeting opportunities often requires new alliances and the building of trust through partnerships between relatively privileged and underprivileged.

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In Kenya, for example, an ABCD approach has been the catalyst for farmers to shift from mono-cropping of low return cash crops to managing a diverse range of commercial and food crops, using improved, organic methods. Larger farmers have been approached by community groups to provide additional land and to collaborate with smaller farmers to access markets. Together, information essential to all farmers about markets and government programs have been accessed. Small businesses have emerged.

Funding for rural electrification from the Constituency Development Fund has been accomplished through extended social and institutional linkages and the information flows. The shift here, though gradual and slow, is from passive farmers complaining about the failure of government marketing systems to active manager farmers confident of their own power to secure resources for which they are eligible and entitled.

Extending social networks and building trust within the community has positive consequences for creating the demand for more effective governance and for building trust in the larger institutional system. Pro-active engagement by citizens in civil society at the community level puts pressure on the system to work, as much research on local government decentralization has already shown. 5 Those of you who are UK- based may remember Onora O’Neil’s discussions about Trust in the BBC Reith lectures of 2002.

Trust in one another and in the system at large is the basis of good governance and thus of greater social justice. It is important to strengthen activity along both directions of this two way street: Passive citizens, who wait for others to accord and respect their rights and mistakenly suppose that states alone can do so, are, I think, doomed to disappointment. Active citizens who meet their duties thereby secure one another's rights (O’Neil, 2002).

ABCD predisposes citizens to structural change for social justice.

Identifying the contributions of the “invisible” and engaging in a process of ABCD may be transformative in itself for the mind-set of development actors and therefore in their predisposition towards structural change for social justice. Much of the social injustice in the world was not invented by its perpetrators; it is simply “the way things are”; and it may even be prejudicial to those very persons who hold power over others.

The importance of deliberate attempts at mutual understanding is revealed in the attitude of Rosa, an indigenous Ecuadorian, towards her “oppressors”: We all have our personal journeys in life, where we mature – my personal journey has a lot of hard times-- but the challenge is not to be bitter. I gradually began to realize that the mestisos were being born into a system where they exploited the indigenous – this had been going on for centuries. I gradually developed the idea that we need to come together – Mestisos must have their problems too. [I realised there was a need for dialogue and for reconciliation],

a need to break the power of those who benefit by stoking the flames of difference (Rosa Guaman, quoted from Cunningham, 2004, field notes for Jambi Kiwa study) 5

See for example Dupar and Badenoch (2002) and Krishna (2002)

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As with class relations, so with gender relations. The experience of our partners overseas shows that when the value of the assets of women and the need for greater investment in their spheres of activity is clearly demonstrated, there is a greater receptivity to land reform in their favour, to the education of girls, and to the creation of space for their contribution to decision-making in the household and in the community as a whole.

While anger about injustice may be a motivating force, confrontational strategies often have their own set of dangers – women bear many of the physical and psychological scars of this – and even if the battle is won, wounds take a long time to heal. As an alternative strategy, shining the light on the strengths and capacities of women (and all groups hitherto dismissed as irrelevant), and the value of their contribution, can be a more effective way of justifying the changes needed to restore or establish social justice.

In a rural community in Ethiopia, water supply for agricultural as well as domestic purposes was achieved after an ABCD approach identified how the community had organized successfully for water supply in the past, prompting the community to mobilize to achieve an appropriate water supply for current conditions. Women’s knowledge, contributions, organizational capacity were incorporated into the activity and resulted in new respect and support for women’s leadership and management capacities.

Changing official attitudes towards indigenous communities in the Philippines offer a further example. Indigenous lumad communities were denigrated as “uncivilized”, “backward”, “lazy” by local government authorities. Following an ABCD process, this community organized itself to make full use of its available assets to establish a community managed horticulture enterprise. Mobilising their own assets first, they then leveraged assistance for an NGO for materials to construct a water tank. Recognising the success of these efforts has transformed local government attitudes towards the lumads. In the space of 3 years, local government is now interested in, respectful of and responsive to lumad concerns. They have not achieved the full rights and privileges they seek, but have begun to prepare the way for the recognition of these rights by the wider society.

Conclusion ABCD is all about exercising control over the assets you have and using the capacities that these assets confer to expand the asset base. An extension of that control is “communities/citizens driving their own development”. Social injustice has different arenas: within the household, within the community, within the country, within the world and “community”-driven activity can operate in anyone of these. The strategic question for people pursuing an ABCD approach is which citizens you work with and where the space is for effecting social and economic change.

Our experience suggests that an ABCD approach encourages a re-evaluation of the status quo, a point from which it is difficult to return to business as usual. Does it radically and immediately transform structures? No, but it prepares people for the changes that need to take place at all levels to ensure that people can function at their fullest capacity.

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COURSE RESOURCES The following list of resources includes articles, books and websites that you may find useful in learning more about asset-based and community-driven approaches to development. The resources range in style from academic literature to practical manuals for grassroots development workers.

Some resources have been included in their entirety in this manual. These are indicated with the (â˜ş) symbol. Most of the other resources can be found at the Marie Michael Library. These are indicated with the ( ) symbol. However, there are some resources listed that are not available on site. These are indicated with the (z) symbol and they can often be accessed on the internet or through interlibrary loans.

We have divided the list into the following nine themes: Asset-based community development Appreciative inquiry Social capital Linkages with government and private sector institutions Participatory development Sustainable Livelihoods and asset-building Access to assets: Issues of power NGO practice Community economic development Planning, monitoring and evaluation While we have taken great care in preparing this compilation of resources, the list is certainly not exhaustive. If there is an aspect of asset-based or community-driven development in which you are particularly interested, please inquire with the facilitators or librarians who may be able to point you toward further resources.

Asset-Based Community Development â˜ş Bergdall, T. (n.d.). Reflections on the Role of the Outsider. Unpublished manuscript.

Coady International Institute. (2006). An asset-based approach to community development: A manual for village organizers. Antigonish, NS, Canada: Author. Retrieved September 1, 2006, from http://www.coady.stfx.ca/resources/abcd/ SEWA%20ABCD%20Manual.pdf Coady International Institute: Mobilizing Assets for Community-Driven Development. 2009

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Coady International Institute & Centre for Development Services. (2005). Asset-based development: Success stories from Egyptian communities. Antigonish, NS, Canada and Cairo, Egypt: Author. Retrieved September 1, 2006, from http://www.coady.stfx.ca/resources/abcd/CDS_manual.pdf Coady International Institute. (2005). Asset-based approaches to community development: Participant manual. Antigonish, NS, Canada: Author. Retrieved September 1, 2006, from http://www.coady.stfx.ca/services/ABCD_manual/ index.cfm Cunningham, G. (2005). The Jambi Kiwa story: Mobilizing assets for community development.

Antigonish, NS, Canada: St. Francis Xavier University, Coady International Institute. Retrieved September 1, 2006, from http://www.coady. stfx.ca/resources/abcd/JAMBIenglihsfin1.pdf Diacon, D., & Guimarães, S. (2003). Agents rather than patients: Realising the potential for asset-based community development. Leicestershire, England: Building and Social Housing Foundation. Retrieved September 1, 2006, from http://www.northwestern.edu/ipr/abcd/pdf/Windsor_2003.pdf Green, M. with Henry Moore and John O’Brien (2009). When People Care Enough to Act. Toronto: Inclusion Press.

Koch, J. A. (2005). The efficacy of asset-based community development in the educational context. Unpublished master’s thesis, University of Calgary, Calgary, Alberta, Canada.

Kretzmann, J. P., & McKnight, J. L. (1993). Building communities from the inside out: A path toward finding and mobilizing a community’s assets. Chicago: ACTA. Kretzmann, J., & McKnight, J. (1999). Leading by stepping back: A guide for city officials on building neighborhood capacity. Chicago: ACTA. Titles of Other Publications from the ABCD Institute and ACTA: • A Guide to Mapping Consumer Expenditures and Mobilizing Consumer Expenditure Capacities • A Guide to Mapping Local Business Assets and Mobilizing Local Business Capacities • A Guide to Mapping and Mobilizing the Economic Capacities of Local Residents • A Guide to Capacity Inventories: Mobilizing the Community Skills of Local Residents, • A Guide to Creating a Neighborhood Information Exchange: Building Communities by Connecting Local Skills and Knowledge.

• A Guide to Evaluating Asset-Based Community Development: Lessons, Challenges and Opportunities.

• The Organization of Hope: A Workbook for Rural Asset-based Community Development • Community Transformation: Turning Threats into Opportunities • The Engaged Library: Chicago Stories of Community Building

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•

Discovering Community Power: A Guide to Mobilizing Local Assets and Your Organization’s Capacity

Mathie, A. and Cunningham, G. (eds.) (2009) From clients to citizens: Communities changing the course of their own development. Rugby, UK: Practical Action. ☺ Mathie, A., & Cunningham, G. (2003). From clients to citizens: Asset-based community development as a strategy for community-driven development.

Development in Practice, 13(5), 474-486. ☺ Mathie, A., & Cunningham, G. (2005). Who is driving development? Reflections on the transformative potential of asset-based community development. Canadian Journal of Development Studies, 26(1), 175-187.

Appreciative Inquiry Ashford, G., & Patkar, S. (2001). The appreciative inquiry approach. In G. Ashford & S. Parker (Eds.), Enhancing ownership and sustainability: A resource book on participation (pp. 86-93). Philippines and India: International Fund for Agricultural Development (IFAD), Asian NGO Coalition for Agrarian Reform and Rural Development (ANGOC) and International Institute for Rural Construction (IIRR).

Ashford, G., & Patkar, S. (2001). The positive path: Using appreciative inquiry in Northern Indian villages. Winnipeg, MB, Canada: International Institute for Sustainable Development/Myrada. Retrieved August 22, 2006, from http://appreciativeinquiry.case.edu/practice/tools TrainingDetail.cfm?coid=971 Ashford, G., & Patkar, S. (2002). Beyond problems analysis: Using appreciative inquiry to design and deliver environmental, gender equity and private sector development projects.

Winnipeg, MB, Canada: International Institute for Sustainable Development/Myrada. Retrieved August 21, 2006, from http://www.iisd.org/ai/myrada.htm Cooperrider, D. L., & Whitney, D. (2000). A positive revolution in change: Appreciative inquiry. San Francisco: Berrett-Kohler. Retrieved August 21, 2006, from http://appreciativeinquiry.case.edu/uploads/whatisai.pdf Elliott, C. (1999). Locating the energy for change: An introduction to appreciative inquiry.

Winnipeg, MB, Canada: International Institute for Sustainable Development. zMurrell, K. L. (1999). International and intellectual roots of appreciative inquiry.

Organization Development Journal, 17(3), 49-61.

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â˜ş Patkar, S., & Ashford, G. (2001). The appreciative inquiry approach. In IFAD, ANGOC, & IIRR (Eds.). Enhancing ownership and sustainability: A resource book on participation, pp. 86-93. Philippines and India: Author.

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Participatory Development Acharya, A., Lavalle, A. G., & Houtzager, P. P. (2004). Civil society representation in the participatory budget and deliberative councils of São Paulo, Brazil. IDS Bulletin 35(2), 40-48.

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Cornwall, A., & Gaventa, J. (2001). From users and choosers to makers and shapers: Repositioning participation in social policy. Brighton, England: Institute of Development Studies. (Working Paper No. 127). Retrieved September, 2006, from http://www.socialplatform.org/module/FileLib/participationinsocialpolicy. pdf Fernandez, A. (2000). Assessment of community based institutions: A theoretical framework and participatory methodology. MYRADA Rural Management Systems Series, Paper 33. Retrieved August 22, 2006 from, http://www. myrada.org/paper_rural_management.htm Freudenberger, K. S. (1994). Trees and land tenure. Rome: Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations.

Gaventa, J. (2003). Towards participatory local governance assessing the transformative possibilities. Conference Presentation at ‘Participation: From Tryanny to Transformation?’ Manchester, UK February, 2003. Retrieved August 22, 2006, from http://www.sed.manchester.ac.uk/idpm/research/events/ participation03/Gaventa.pdf Henry, L. (2004). Citizenship, morality and participatory development: The case of

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the Sebat Bet Gurage. In G. Mohan & S. Hickey (Eds.). Participation from tyranny to transformation. London: Zed. See also http://www.sed.manchester.ac. uk/idpm/research/events/participation03/Henry.pdf International Institute of Rural Reconstruction. (1998). Participatory methods in community-based coastal resource management. 3 vols. Silang, Cavite, Philippines: Author.

MacDonald, J. (n.d.). Reasons for success by Jeevika SEWA Mandals: An analysis of six village development organizations in India’s Patan, Kutch and Surendranagar districts.

Antigonish, NS, Canada: St. Francis Xavier University, Coady International Institute. (Occasional Paper No.6, forthcoming).

McNeely, J., Aiyetoro, S., & Bowsher, P. (1999). The paths to leadership in community change: A review of leadership development models in the rebuilding communities initiative. Baltimore, MD: The Annie E. Casey Foundation. Retrieved September 1, 2006, from http://www.aecf.org/publications/data/ leadership_paper.pdf z Thomas-Slayter, B. P. (1994). Structural change, power politics and community organizations in Africa: Challenging the patterns, puzzles and paradoxes. World Development, 22(10), 1479-1490.

Uphoff, N. (1998). Learning about and for participation: From theoretical and empirical studies to practical experience, and back to theory. Canadian Journal of Development Studies, 14(3), 439-460.

Sustainable Livelihoods and Asset-Building Bebbington, A. (1999). Capitals and capabilities: A framework for analysing peasant viability, rural livelihoods and poverty. World Development, 27(12), 2021-2044.

Retrieved September 1, 2006, from http://www.iied.org/pubs/pdf/full/ 6151IIED.pdf z Bebbington, A. (n.d.). Livelihoods and resource assessing in the Andes: Desencuentros in theory and practice. In I. Gough & J. A. McGregor (Eds.), Well-being in developing countries: New approaches and research strategies. Cambridge, England: Cambridge University Press.

Brocklesby, M. A., & Fisher, E. (2003). Community development in sustainable livelihoods approaches – an introduction. Community Development Journal, 38(3), 185-198. Retrieved September 1, 2006, from http://cdj.oxfordjournals. org/cgi/reprint/38/3/185 De Soto, H. (2000). The mystery of capital: Why capitalism triumphs in the West and fails everywhere else. New York: Basic Books.

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Department for International Development. (2001). Sustainable livelihoods guidance sheets. London: Author. Retrieved August 22, 2006, from http://www. livelihoods.org/info/info_guidancesheets.html Dupar, M., & Badenoch, N. (2002). Environment, livelihoods and local institutions: Decentralization in mainland Southeast Asia. Washington, DC: World Resources Institute. Retrieved September 1, 2006, from http://dlc.dlib.indiana.edu/archive/00000954/00/decentralization_msea.pdf Fowler, A. (1997). Striking a balance: A guide to enhancing the effectives of non-government organisations in international development. London: Earthscan.

Gervais, S. (2004). Local capacity building in title II food security projects: A framework.

Washington, DC: USAID Office of Food for Peace (Occasional Paper No. 3).

Retrieved September 1, 2006, from http://www.fantaproject.org /downloads/pdfs/ffpOP3.pdf z McCabe, M. (1998). Investing in community assets: Youth programs come of age.

Grassroots Development, 21(2), 20-27.

Moser, C. (1998). The asset vulnerability framework: Reassessing urban poverty reduction strategies. World Development, 28, 1-49. Retrieved September 1, 2006, from http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/B6VC6-3SX6Y971/2/75d03376c47ba8072334c6836a02481c Newland, K. (2004). Beyond remittances: The role of diaspora in poverty reduction in their countries of origin. Washington, DC: Migration Policy Institute. Retrieved August 24, 2006, from http://www.eldis.org/static/DOC17672.htm Porritt, J. (2005). Capitalism as if the world matters. London: Earthscan.

Pretty, J. (1994). Alternate systems of inquiry for sustainable agriculture. IDS Bulletin, 25(2), 37-49.

Robinson, M. (1995). Towards a new paradigm of community development.

Community Development Journal, 30(1), 21-30.

Tobias, T. N. (2000). Chief Kerry’s moose: A guidebook to land use and occupancy mapping, research design and data collection. Vancouver, BC, Canada: Union of BC Indian Chiefs and Ecotrust Canada. Retrieved August 24, 2006, from http://www.iapad.org/publications/ppgis/occupancy_mapping.pdf Wilkinson-Maposa, S., Fowler, A., Oliver-Evans, C., & Mulenga, C. F. N. (2006).

The poor philanthropist: How and why the poor help each other. Cape Town, South Africa: UCT Graduate School of Business. Retrieved August 24, 2006, from http://www.efc.be/ftp/public/CPI/Publications/Poor_philanthropist.pdf

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Access to Assets: Issues of Power Alexander, T. (2006). How does your garden grow? Community Development, civil society and democratic politics. Unpublished manuscript. London: The Scarman Trust.

Aubel, J. (2006). Grandmothers promote maternal and child health: The role of indigenous knowledge systems’ managers. IK Notes, 89, 1-4. Retrieved August 24, 2006, from http://www.worldbank.org/afr/ik/iknt89.pdf z Bebbington, A. J., & Perreault, T. (1999). Social capital, development and access to resources in highland Ecuador. Economic Geography, 75(4), 395-418.

Institute of Development Studies. (2001). Cutting edge pack, topical gender knowledge: Gender & participation. Brighton, England: Author. Retrieved September 1, 2006, from http://www.bridge.ids.ac.uk/reports_gend_CEP.html International Fund for Agricultural Development. (1999). Memory checks for programme and project design: Household food security and gender. Rome: Author.

Retrieved August 24, 2006, from http://www.ifad.org/gender/approach/ gender/mem.htm â˜ş Mathie, A. (2006). Does ABCD deliver on social justice? Conference Presentation at CIVICUS for the International Association for Community Development.

Glasgow: UK, June, 2006. Retrieved September 1, 2006, from http://www.coady.stfx.ca/work/ABCD/resources.cfm z Molyneux, M. (2002). Gender and the silence of social capital: Lessons from Latin America. Development and Change, 33, 167-187. The Hague: Institute of Social Sciences.

Nomos, E. (2001). Women in transition out of poverty: A guide to effective practice in promoting sustainable livelihoods through enterprise development. Toronto, ON, Canada: Women and Economic Development Consortium. Retrieved August 24, 2006, from http://www.cdnwomen.org/eng/pdfs/WIT.pract.gde.full.pdf

NGO Practice Fowler, A. (2000). Civil society, NGDOs and social development: Changing the rules of the game. Geneva, Switzerland: UNRISD. (Occasional Paper No. 1).

Retrieved September 1, 2006, from http://ngocentre.org.vn/file_lib/ ngosocialdev.pdf Fowler, A. (1997). Striking a balance: A guide to enhancing the effectives of non-government organisations in international development. London: Earthscan.

Hulme, D., & Edwards, M. (Eds.). (1997). NGOs, states and donors: Too close for comfort?

London: Macmillan Press.

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Kaplan, A. (1997). Capacity building: Shifting the paradigms of practice. Cape Town, South Africa: Community Development Resource Association. Retrieved August 22, 2006, from http://www.cdra.org.za/articles/ Capacity%20Building%20%20by%20Allan%20Kaplan.htm Schunk, J. (2003). The role of the external practitioner. Development in Practice, 13(4), 377-379. Retrieved September 1, 2006, from

Community Economic Development Burpee, G., & Wilson, K. (2004). The resilient family farm: Supporting agricultural development and rural economic growth. Warwickshire, UK: ITDG Publishing. â˜ş Cunningham, G. (2006). Community economic analysis: Course manual. Antigonish, NS, Canada: St. Francis Xavier University, Coady International Institute.

MacAulay, S. (2001). The community economic development tradition in Eastern Nova Scotia, Canada: Ideological continuities and discontinuities between the Antigonish Movement and the family of community development corporation. Oxford, England: Oxford University Press and Community Development Journal. Retrieved September 1, 2006, from http://cdj.oxfordjournals.org/ cgi/reprint/36/2/111 Marschke, M., & Nong, K. (2003). Adaptive co-management: Lessons from coastal Cambodia. Canadian Journal of Development Studies, 24(3), 369-384.

Matthews, R. (2003). Using a social capital perspective to understand social economic development. Horizons Policy Research Initiative, 6(3), 25-34. Retrieved September 1, 2006, from http://www.policyresearch.gc.ca/ page.asp?pagenm= v6n3_art_06 Sacks, J. (2002). The money trail: Measuring your impact on the local economy using LM3. New Economics Foundation. Retrieved August 22, 2006, from http://www.neweconomics.org/gen/z_sys_PublicationDetail.aspx?PID=128 Ward, B., & Lewis, J. (2002). Plugging the leaks. London: New Economics Foundation.

Retrieved August 22, 2006, from http://www.pluggingtheleaks.org

Planning, Monitoring and Evaluation Bergdall, T. (2005). Facilitating participatory evaluation through stories of change. In S. Schuman (Ed.), The IAF handbook of group facilitation: Best practices from the leading organization in facilitation (pp. 421-448). San Francisco: Jossey-Bass.

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from http://www.coady.stfx.ca/resources/abcd/SEWA%20 PME%20Manual.pdf Dart, J., & Davies, R. (2003). A dialogical, story-based evaluation tool: The most significant change technique. American Journal of Evaluation, 24(2), 137-155.

Retrieved September 1, 2006, from http://aje.sagepub.com/cgi/reprint/24/2/137 Davies, R. (1998). An evolutionary approach to facilitating organisational learning: An experiment by the Christian Commission for Development in Bangladesh.

In D. Mosse, J. Farrington, & A. Rew (Eds.), Development as process: Concepts and methods for working with complexity (pp. 68-83). London: Routledge Research and ODI Development Policy Studies. Retrieved August 22, 2006, from http://www.mande.co.uk/docs/ccdb.htm Estrella, M. (2002). Learning From Change. Ottawa, ON, Canada: IDRC. Institute for Development Studies. (1998). Participatory Monitoring and Evaluations: Learning from Change. Brighton, England: Author. (Policy Briefing No. 12).

Retrieved September 1, 2006, from http://www.ids.ac.uk/ids/bookshop/briefs/ brief12.html Mayoux, L. (2002). What do we want to know? Selecting the best indicators. London: Enterprise Development Impact Assessment Information Service. Retrieved August 22, 2006, from http://www.enterprise-impact.org.uk/information resources/toolbox/selectingindicators.shtml McClintock, C. (2004). Using narrative methods to link program evaluation and organizational development. The Evaluation Exchange, 9(4), 14-15. Retrieved August 22, 2006, from http://www.gse.harvard.edu/hfrp/eval/issue24/ pp3.html Waits, N. (2000). The Community Planning Handbook. London: Earthscan. Retrieved September 1, 2006, from http://www.newcommunities.org/cmadocs/ NCPPlanningHandbook.pdf

Further Resources on the Internet Organizations Asset-Based Community Development Institute http://www.northwestern.edu/ipr/abcd.html The Community Economies Project http://www.communityeconomies.org/

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Department for International Development, UK (DFID) http://www.dfid.gov.uk/ The Ford Foundation http://www.fordfound.org/ Institute for Development Studies http://www.ids.ac.uk/ids/ International Fund for Agriculture Development (IFAD) http://www.ifad.org/ International Institute for Environment and Development (IIED) http://www.iied.org/ International Institute on Sustainable Development http://www.iisd.org/ Livelihoods Connect, DFID http://www.livelihoods.org/ Khanya: African Institute for Community Driven Development http://www.khanya-mrc.co.za/site_files/index.asp Myrada http://www.myrada.org/ New Economics Foundation http://www.neweconomics.org/gen/ Scarman Trust http://www.thescarmantrust.org/index.html http://www.thescarmantrust.org/hq/cando.htm Society for Participatory Research in Asia (PRIA) http://www.pria.org/cgi-bin/index.htm Synergos http://www.synergos.org/ United Nations Development Program http://www.undp.org/ The World Bank, Community Driven Development http://www.worldbank.org/participation/CDD.htm

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Articles Application of CARE’s Livelihoods Approach M.Drinkwater & T.Rusinow. http://www.livelihoods.org/info/nrac/care.pdf Roundtable on Assets, Livelihoods and Governance A. Mathie & G. Cunningham (Eds.) http://www.stfx.ca/institutes/coady/text/about_publications_new_transcript.html Beyond Problems Analysis G. Ashford & S. Patkar http://www.iisd.org/pdf/2002/myrada_beyond_final_report.pdf Canadian Rural Partnership Asset Mapping: A Handbook G. Fuller, D. Guy & C. Pletsch http://www.rural.gc.ca/conference/documents/mapping_e.phtml The Development of Capacity A. Kaplan http://www.unsystem.org/ngls/documents/publications.en/develop.dossier/dd.05/dc. contents.htm Future Directions for Development Non-Governmental Organizations R. Fugere http://www.stfx.ca/institutes/coady/text/about_publications_occasional_future.html Locating the Energy for Change: An Introduction to Appreciative Inquiry C. Elliott. http://www.iisd.org/pdf/appreciativeinquiry.pdf The Money Trail J. Sacks http://www.neweconomics.org/gen/uploads/The%20Money%20Trail.pdf.

Participation: From Tyranny to Transformation?

University of Manchester http://www.sed.manchester.ac.uk/idpm/research/events/participation03/index.htm Regenerating Community J. McKnight http://www.cpn.org/topics/community/regenerating.html Situating Asset-Based Community Development in the International Development Context M. Foster & A. Mathie http://www.stfx.ca/institutes/coady/text/about_publications_new_situating.html

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Social Capital: The Bonds that Connect M. Woolcock and A. Sweetser http://www.adb.org/Documents/Periodicals/ADB_Review/2002/vol34_2/social_capi tal.asp

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The Jambi Kiwa Story: Mobilizing assets for community-driven development Case Study, Ecuador Created by an association of largely indigenous women, Jambi Kiwa is a cooperative business that was set up to grow, process and market medicinal and aromatic plants. To succeed, these women have to drawn on indigenous knowledge, traditional forms of cooperative activity, and the resilience borne out of the struggles of poverty and discrimination. They are determined to maintain and build on local assets, proceeding to secure trade partnerships in national and international markets.

Asset-Based Development: Success stories from Egyptian communities Practitioners Manual, Egypt Among the ways people identify with a community is through the history they share with others of coping with change and responding to opportunity. Tension and struggle are part of this process of change, but those communities that have been able to move forward tend to be those that define themselves by their assets and capacities, rather that by their problems. The purpose of this manual is to shine the light on these communities, and draw out lessons for development practitioners.

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Who is driving development?

Reflections on the transformative potential of asset-based community development Arising out of a critique of needs-based approaches to development, Asset-Based Community Development (ABCD) offers a set of principles and practices to mobilize and sustain community economic development. This paper draws attention to the connections between these principles and practices and (i) current interest in sustainable livelihoods as a conceptual framework, (ii) the concept of social capital, (iii) the social psychology of mobilization, (iv) the enhancement of capacity and agency to engage as citizens with the entitlements of citizenship, (v) the role of multiple stakeholders; and (vi) the issue of control over the development process. Finally the paper, points to the challenges for NGOs employing an asset-based, community-driven approach given the needs-based, problem-solving paradigm in which they operate.

Mathie, A. & Cunningham, G. (2005). Who is driving development?

Reflections on the transformative potential of asset-based community development. Canadian Journal of Development Studies, 26 (1), 175-187.

From Clients to Citizens: Asset-Based Community Development as a Strategy for Community-Driven Development Asset-based community development (ABCD) is presented as an alternative to needs-based approaches to development. Following an overview of the principles and practice of ABCD, five major elements of ABCD are examined in the light of current literature on relevant research and practice. This involves exploring: the theory and practice of appreciative inquiry; the concept of social capital as an asset for community development; the theory of community economic development, such as the sustainable livelihoods approach; lessons learned from two decades of international development in the participatory paradigm; and the theory and practice of building active citizenship engagement and a stronger civil society. How ABCD both reflects recent trends in these areas and stands to benefit from the insights generated from this work is outlined.

Mathie, A., & Cunningham, G. (2003). From clients to citizens: Assetbased community development as a strategy for community-driven development. Development in Practice, 13(5), pp. 474-486 148

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Mobilizing assets for communitydriven development

Tracking the process as it unfolds: Guidelines for collaborative learning and action Collaborative research is a way in which all stakeholders can reflect on their role in promoting community driven development and share their learning. This worksheet will help capture information about what happened and why, what was successful, and what challenges had to be overcome. The fieldworker who works with the local community plays a key role in this learning process. For this reason, these guidelines for documentation are designed to help the fieldworker observe the process with an “ABCD lens”.

Participatory Monitoring and Evaluation Mobilizing Assets for Community Driven Development

Tracking the process as it unfolds: Guidelines for Collaborative Learning and Action

Practitioner Manual, India This manual is a companion volume to “An Asset-based Approach to Community Development” (above). In the case of participatory monitoring and evaluation, the Village Organizer is helping to build the capacity of villagers to monitor and evaluate the community initiatives that they have planned at the JSM level.

PM and E is therefore an important means of strengthening decision-making at the village level.

An Asset-based Approach to Community Development Practitioner Manual, India The Self Employed Women’s Association’s mandate and its work on the SEWA Jeevika (livelihood security) project has emphasized respect for the disadvantaged and for the power of collective action. An asset-based approach to community development is faithful to both these traditions.

This manual brings together an understanding of factors determining livelihood security with a way of working with people at the village level.

It relies on field workers who recognize the assets, experience and knowledge of the most disadvantaged. It can help people to identify opportunities to collaborate together to improve their prospects, and further help them to make the social and institutional connections that will sustain an upward trend in their living conditions over the longer term.

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