Community Development
Community Development
Community Development
History
Amongst the earliest community development approaches were those developed in Kenya and
British East Africa during the 1930s. Community development practitioners have over many
years developed a range of approaches for working within local communities and in particular
with disadvantaged people. Since the nineteen sixties and seventies through the various anti
poverty programmers in both developed and developing countries, community development
practitioners have been influenced by structural analyses as to the causes of disadvantage and
poverty i.e. inequalities in the distribution of wealth, income, land, etc. and especially political
power and the need to mobilize people power to affect social change. Thus the influence of such
educators as Paulo Frere and his focus upon this work. Other key people who have influenced
this field are Saul Lewinsky (Rules for Radicals) and E.F. Schumacher (Small is Beautiful).
There are a number of international organizations that support community development, for
example, Oxfam, UNICEF, The Hunger Project and Freedom from Hunger, run community
development programs based upon community development initiatives for relief and prevention
of malnutrition. Since 2006 the Dragon Dreaming Project Management techniques have spread
to 37 different countries and are engaged in an estimated 3,250 projects worldwide.
Community development
Definitions
The United Nations defines community development broadly as "a process where
community members come together to take collective action and generate solutions
to common problems.
Different approaches
There are numerous overlapping approaches to community development. Some
focus on the processes, some on the outcomes/ objectives. They include: