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ANALYSIS OF VALUES AND PRINCIPLES OF COMMUNITY DEVELOPMENT: A

RESPONSE TO THE CHALLENGES OF BUILDING A NEW NIGERIA

Conference Paper · November 2015

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 ANALYSIS OF VALUES AND PRINCIPLES OF COMMUNITY
DEVELOPMENT: A RESPONSE TO THE CHALLENGES OF BUILDING
A NEW NIGERIA

Being a National Conference Paper Presented

By,

LATOPA, Abdul-Lateef Ayinde,

Department of Local Government Studies
(CASSS), Kaduna Polytechnic

And,

SAIDU Mohammed Bashir

Institute for Social Science Studies, Universiti Putra Malaysia
University Putra Malaysia

At the 7th Annual National Conference of the College of

Administrative Studies and Social Sciences (C.A.S.S.S.), Kaduna
Polytechnic held between 2nd – 6th November 2015 at the
department of Public Administration Lecture Hall, C.A.S.S.S. Bye-
Pass Campus, Kaduna

1
Abstract

Community Development is a crucial phenomenon in development discusses. It involves

improvement of the well-being of the people through joint effort and with regards to the
development goals. Some prevailing circumstances and researchers have noted that application
of core values and principles of community development has not been able to influence and
achieve development goals in the developing countries of Africa. With the use of secondary data,
various related literature were explored to identify the challenges facing the values and
principles of community development in building a new Nigeria with a view to know the factors
responsible for the problems. To achieve this purpose, this paper discusses and analyzed the
attendant values and principles of community development by tracing the evolution of community
development and its influence on contemporary approaches to community development practice.
The challenges that were identified are; political, security, corruption, inefficient
monitoring/implementation and evaluation of development programs.The paper concluded that,
when traditional and cultural values of communities are respected in the development planning,
and necessary capacity development program are localized, the factors affecting the influence of
values and principles of community development will be overcome.

Keywords: Community, Development, Community development, Core values of community

development.

1. Introduction:
Community development is a process where people are united with those of government and
other stakeholdersto improve the socio-economic and cultural conditions of the community
members. The community is synonymous with people that shared common interests, but human
beings are dynamic and think rationally. Therefore, people think differently and perceive issues
from various angles. In this regard, two people may not think or react the same way to the same
circumstance. This situation explains the need for a guiding principle and values upon which the
community members exist for peaceful co-existence and development (Rhonda Phillips &
Pittman, 2009).

The community is a sociological term that established an environment that will accommodate
different people operating on the basis of mutual concern. The common interest will be a focus
point that all members of the community will protect, serve and contribute to ensure enabling
and prosperous environment. For the community not to be stagnated against its potential
progress, the social context of the community needs to be improved. Such improvement will
increase choice and create an environment where people can exercise their full potentials to live
productive lives (Shaffer 1989). In the same direction, as the community seeks to improve in

2
their socio-economic and cultural existence, they tend to adopt desirable measures. The
development of the community can be achieved progressively with the cooperation of various
stakeholders.

Statement of the Problem

The government effort in building a new Nigeria cannot be successful if the development of the
communities that have for a long while remained underdeveloped is not made a priority. This
cannot be established without a good understanding of the core values and principles of
community development. Such understanding becomes imperative for a critical response to the
challenges of building a new Nigeria.

Objectives of the Paper

Therefore, this paper has as its objective discussing the historical perspective of values and
practices of community development. It is also intended to analyze the attendant values and
principles of community development as a measure of building a great nation as well as its
challenges in real life situations.

2. Literature Review and Conceptual Framework

The term ‘community’ does not have a universal definition as a social science terminology.
However, it can be defined as a group of people with a shared identity (Cavaye, 2001). This
definition tries to see a community like a body of people that have a common identity. The
character is diverse. It could be a group of people living in a particular area or cut across between
two or more geographical locations but with a common interest. Consequently, a community
could be defined by geographical or legal boundaries. A community could involve interactions
among people with a common interest that may not live in the same area. It could be a collection
of people with common social, economic or political interest regardless of residency (Vincent,
2009).

From the traditional views, it is asserted thatcommunity has three features; People, Relationship,
and Interaction. These early observations indicate that the essential point of a community is;
there must be a group of people that relate together for a purpose and interact informally or face
to face. The perception of the traditionalist might not be completely deviating from the
contemporary views that focus on ‘interest’ that bind them together as members of a community.

3
That is a term that represents relationship and interaction of the traditionalist. On both sides,
people are constant. It is what explains ‘community’ as a sociological term (Willmott, 1986; Lee
& Newby, 1983; Crow & Allen, 1995).

Since the period before nineteen century, the community was identified with a kind of bond
among the people. There was no literature in the place until 1915 when the first clear
sociological definition emerged (Smith, 2002). The sociological definition that was coined by
Galpin and Sawtelle (1919) identifies and relates rural communities in terms of trade and
services around a central village. It was after this that various definitions emerged from different
authors. At this juncture, it is necessary to examinefew definitions of the communityas viewed
by some authors as a pointer to the scope of the term 'community’.

Frazer (1999), viewed community as a value that brings some elements of solidarity,
commitment, mutuality, and trust among the people. He also viewed it as a descriptive category
or set of variables. The variables he emphasized were coined in different ways that seem to align
with some postulations by Crow and Allan (1994); Fraser (2005); Lee and Newby (1983); and
Willmott (1986). These variables according to them are;

1. Place: This explained community base on geographical location or territory. It is when

people are localized depending on their area of the residence. (e.g., Igbo community in
Ilorin)
2. Interest: As mentioned earlier, the community is seen here as where people share the same
interest or bring together by a factor or circumstance, e.g. society of widows, Better
Women or other interest groupings. For example, the Academic Staff Union of Universities
(ASUP)
3. Communion: This means a sense of attachment to particular activities or activities. It can be
spiritual or otherwise, for example; Muslim community, Christian community, gays group,
and the likes.
From the above, it can be deduced thatcommunity derived its status from people, social
relationship, and service. All these centered on human values that are mostly guided by goodwill
and neighborliness. There is no externalization except what the societal leaders imposed on them
which always determine the direction of their local community organization.

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2.1 Status of the Community.
The community as justified here is a sociological term because it involves a man and his
environment. The principal actor in a community is a human being or man (as in psychology).
Formation or creation of a community can be from different angles. A school of thought believes
it is a natural phenomenon of people relationship, or coming together to pursue a common goal.
While another school of thought thinks it is a creation of man in terms of social needs and the
need to partner and harness common belief. The common areas in these views are man, interest,
relationship and environment. Therefore, the first and the principal actor in a community is
people (George, 1955; Willis, 1977).

Right from the creation, the community has been in existence. People relate one way or the other
and for one purpose or the other. The interest might be different from one community to another,
but the relationships and interests are meant to improve the welfare of members of the
community(Kelly, 1992).

It should be notedthat the larger society where the community is located is managed with and by
the instrument of government. Therefore, the government holds the sole responsibility of
creating an enabling environment for the people through the provision of social infrastructure
and control of various community activities through legislations and other instruments of
government. As a result of too many commitments on the side of government couple with little
resources and other political factors, many local resources are over–utilized (Frazer
2005).Consequently, some weaknesses in the growth of major assets of the community were
created. In most cases, this result to poverty, inequalities, infrastructural decay, and lack of
community support the initiative, weak social interaction and inefficient organization of
structures. In this circumstance, the democratic government must have developed various
legislations that determine public goods, implemented by federal agencies and the courts,
whereas the primary legislative principles have separated policy from the administration, (Fesler
& Kettl., 1991). This activity is popularly called top – bottom approachthatearlier writers have
viewed as afailure of the government. If the world is talking about improving the quality of life
of the rural community through several means to make life better, the government at various
levels must change its role. Stakeholders should be accommodated internally and externally to
contribute by ‘working together’ and not ‘working for’ the people to make communities more

5
viable and resourceful. The only way to achieve this is through the strategic process of the
development plan.

In line with the above, community development is a process of intervention through

collaborative effort between the government, community and other stakeholders, for the purpose
of transforming the fortune of the community for the betterment of all.

2.2. Community versus Development:

The activities of community and development are enhanced and improved by an intertwoven of
activities of both of them emphasized about a man and his environment, and how a man will
make purposeful use of his environment and himself. These activities are at this moment
summarized as shown in Table 1 below;

Table 1: fundamental emphasis on community and development

Community Development
1. Relationship Social relationship (networking)
2 Geographical location Emphasized about people
3. Improved environment for productivity Emphasized about capacity building
4 Human value Value added to all activities
5. Repeated services/activities Discovery of new opportunities
Source: Culled from Phillips and Pittman (2009) and Cavaye, (2001)

From the above table, it appears that community is of vital importance to the human social
interaction, comradeship, and community organization that will ensure unity of purpose among
the people. It creates an environment of free expression and participation of community members
towards joint resolution of emerging challenges and neighborhood. However, the community
may remain stagnated despite its purposeful existence if there are fewer emphases on a better
way of adding value to the community efforts and interaction.

2.3. Evolution of community development

The history of community development and its global acceptance as a means of improving the
quality life of the people literarily place it as a body of knowledge and profession or discipline
(Biggs, 1999). Tracing its evolution, Phillips and Pittman (2009) relates its root to social

6
movement through collective efforts and efforts against sanitary and housing reform of the
1840s. Through the period, there were massive progressive changes by ‘civil organizations’ or
‘community regeneration’. The agitations ran through 1890. During the 1950 and 1960, social
change and collective actions against poverty-stricken rural areas in the North America and the
movement of the civil right and anti-poverty crusaders got recognitions. The recognition
included community development as a practice and emerging profession,taking form as a means
to elicit social, economic, political and environment aspect of communities. By 1960, thousands
of Community Development Corporation (CDCs) was formed, mostly focusing on housing
needs. This action later paid off for making legislation fund non-profit based community
organizations (Phillips & Pittman, 2009). This period become a generation of the transformation
of the citizen-based ruling in the United States. As progress continues to emerge with more
CDCs and various movements toward 1970, Community Development Journals were introduced
in the UK and North America. Also, academic programs began to emerge in the field of
community development Phillips and Pittman (2009) concluded.

This brief on the emergence of Community development as a field of the study indicates that,
community development is a product of radical reformation and systematic reposition of the
human being and his environment towards good quality of life.

Thus, community development becomes a process of adding values or impacting the quality of
social interaction of the people of common interest towards moving from right step to a better
level situation. Therefore, the community according to Cavaye (2006) is both the means and an
end of community development.

2.4. Community development in perspective

Going deep into various perceptions of community development, one will come with the fact
that, different authors and ideologists have come up with definitions and expressions of
community development. Community Development is a global concept that is used consciously
or unconsciously by all professions and professionals when it comes to systematic improvement
in the lives of people. Every aspect of human endeavors constitutes a community, formerly,
informally, legally or illegally.

7
Looking at the above definitions, and those discussed earlier, we may come to agree that,
development is a set of knowledge that rose out of the need to improve the activities of
community organizations. The improvement will make it more viable, self-sustained and allow
the community itself exhibited its potentials to the fullest in a competitive and leveled playing
ground environment. A community in this respect is the means and end. Community
development improves the ability collectively to make better decisions about the use of resources
such as infrastructure, labor, and knowledge. It is pertinent to understand that a community is a
product of nature; therefore it depends much on its environment and the opportunity around it
before taking a decision. Such decision becomes ineffective when the community is powerless
by the overbearing monopoly of the government machinery. This situation explains the
transformation of development as a concept from the top – bottom approach to bottom – up,
which is more educating, participatory, enabling and empowering.

Community development is a wide-ranging discipline that encompasses economic development.

Community development is a process whereby all citizens participate in the process of
community change and improvement. Success in community development leads to more success
in economic development. To sustain this, a set of values, beliefs and ethical standards that
should always guide community development process has been developed (Vincent, 2009). Such
standard will ensure well-coordinated environment that will reinvigorate social capital indices
toward more efficient use of resources, improved welfare, effective networking, inclusive
decision making, choice opportunities, wealth creation, equity, flexibility, functional institution
and improved quality of life (Rappaport, 1987).

2.5. Core values and principles of community development

2.5.1 Core Values

The terms such as ‘community development’, ‘community capacity building’ and ‘community
involvement’ are similar in the sense that, they are processes of helping community members to
develop skills and confidence.Such skills and confidence will enable them to have an influence
on the issues that directly affect their lives. Similarly, the terms such as 'community
involvement', 'community participation' and 'community engagement' usually refer to ‘being part
of’ a development program.Such ‘being part of’ is an attempts to encourage communities to get
involved in the work of an outside agency or organization.This type of work is more likely to

8
start with the needs or targets of the agency, rather than the needs of the community (Conyers,
1986).

Core values and principles of community development are designed to establish an acceptable
process and standard within which modern community development process and framework
should operate. This process and standard will serve as a direction to community development
planners and other stakeholders, and will be a pointer to steps and basis for assessing community
development outcome. The core values of development are three according to Todaro and Smith
(2006). They described these three core values explained below as the standard sought by
individual and society;
i. Self-esteem – This emphasizes that people be recognized as being worthy of esteem or
respect. They should be carried along in the activities that affect their well-being and
welfare and contribute to the decision-making process, and not onlookers, whose life is
passive and compelled to comply. To accord a person personal dignity is to value his
existence as a human being that has potentials just like any other individual no matter
how ‘weak’ the person may be. Therefore, every person should be seen as an asset, a
partner as a contributor to community development process.
ii. Freedom to Servitude - People should be represented adequately by the spread of the
community. Democratic principles should is used in dealing with people and not
autocratic principle. The principle will give the room for afair hearing and adopt the kind
of environment they so wish through debate and consensus. It will give people the ability
to choose among available options.
iii. Sustainability – This value connotes that the people should have the capacity to assess or
acquire the basic needs of life such asfood, shelter, health and security. Availability of
these basic needs is community development in action. People will, with the availability
of these; be able to sustain the community development process or program.

2.5.2 Principles
Community development as a process of positive transformation of well-being of the people has
an absolute standard as emphasized earlier. These principles are parts of the framework and
guidelines within which community development will focus its program of activities to have a
holistic approach. It is important to clarify that, community development principles is practiced

9
by various individual professionals and groups. For example, the United Nations as a world body
of nations has its primary activities on development, particularly as it concerns the developing
and under-developed nations of the world. The UN has initiated various programs and policies
that geared toward thewell-being of the underdeveloped and developed world. In ensuring the
successes of these initiatives, certain standards are established as a guide to all member countries
to follow in their various capacity and roles. Such standard means thatpartnering/financing by the
developed countries will have criteria to be met by beneficiary countries. These standards serve
as the principle of engagement between the donor and beneficiary of community development
project (United Nations, 1981). For instance, a charity organization that is resident in the UK;
Community Development Exchange (CDX).In one of its information report of 1985 titled;
Community development: Principles and Practice listed six principles of community
development thus;

 Holistic approach to development needs

 Community development should be a process
 It should be empowering
 It should consider environment issues
 It should be sustainable
 It should partner with stakeholders.

CDX tries to clarify the standard for any community development program because there are
other related community development related activities as mentioned earlier. Also, various
authors have viewed community development from different perspectives. For example, there is
consensus theory, pluralist theory, thestructuralist theory of community development, and all
these theories defined and described the concept of community development in their ways and
perceptions. Their perceptions, of course, relate to the same notion. Also, individual writers and
intellectuals like Biggs (1999), Shaffer (1989), Flora, Flora, Spears and Swanson (1992),
Christenson and Robinson (1989), and Cavaye (2001) have also postulated views and concepts
on community development theory and practice. Sanders (1950) presented afourfold typology of
community development; as a process; as a method; as a program and as a movement.
Application of any of these four typologies gives reasonable meaning to the concept of
community development but from different directions. Therefore, to have an acceptable criterion
for any community development theory, the principles must be cleared, meaningful and holistic.

10
In the light of this, the following principle is therefore compiled from different views for an ideal
community development activities or program;

i. People oriented – the first principle as suggested here is that community development
plan should be people oriented. It must be a program that is initiated by the public not
imposed on them. It should involve all aspects or components of development like social,
cultural, and economic (Mathie & Cunningham, 2003; Wates, 2014). People protect what
they build with their hands.
ii. Framework – for any serious undertaking like community development program, there
must be a framework of activities. Such structure should be clear enough to encompass
all stakeholders, the schedule of work, step by step activities, roles of stakeholders, and
the source of funding and should be flexible to accommodate other circumstances.
(Wandersman, 1981).
iii. Mobilization - Watson-Thompson, Fawcett and Schultz (2008) described community
mobilization as a key factor in healthy development, participation, and community
engagement. This description is the heart of sustainable development and development
process that sought expanded decision making. Development is a joint effort that involve
various stakeholders. Therefore, the stakeholders will pull their resources together
towardnot just achieving development but also to sustain it. These mean development
that will last long and will multiply progressively in stages (Paul, 1987).
iv. Participation – this is another core aspect of community development that emphasize on
theinvolvement of people in all areas of development, be it in planning, decision-making,
managing, monitoring, and implementation. Participation also involved all stakeholders
through networking. Participation will also encourage capacity building and sense of
belonging. Also, it will make people ‘work together’ and not ‘work for’ the people as it it
is in a top – bottom approach (Asnarulkhadi & Aref, 2009; Cohen & Uphoff, 1977;
Cohen & Uphoff, 1980; Dusseldorp, 1981).
v. Empowerment – community development should be an empowerment instrument for all
various sectors of the community, i.e., women, youth, widows, farmers, and all other
groups of people that make up the community. Empowerment can be through
community education and participation. When people are powerless, it means they are
living in poverty, low income, neglected, have no real social amenities, deprived, in ill

11
 and health, such people will be psychologically depressed. Therefore, to empower people
is to put the people in the reverse order of the above as postulated by Staples (1990);
United Nations (1981) and Berger and Neuhaus (1977).
vi. Partnership – the partnership in community development is a new trend that
accommodates other all stakeholders. It connotes sharing of resources in reciprocity; so
that resources will be pulled together towards achieving a common goal. These
stakeholders include government or its agencies, community, Non-Government
Organizations (NGOs), and other development partners (Christakis & Fowler, 2009).
vii. Motivation – Motivation is a psychological feature that arouses an organism to act
towards a desired goal elicits controls and sustains certain goal-oriented behavior. It can
be called a driving force; a psychological drive that compels or reinforces an action
toward a desired goal. Motivation in community development process emphasized in
some activities that will energize the people to voluntarily or induced to work toward
achieving development objectives. Such activities include recognition and celebration of
successes, appreciation of efforts, consultation, sense of belonging and ownership and the
likes (Hibbert, Piacentini & Dajani, 2003).
viii. Sustainability – a development that cannot be sustained is like a wasted venture. In the
global circle, the United Nation has also changed its development tactics towards not just
development, but sustainable development. For example, Agenda 21 or Rio Declaration
emphasize strongly on sustainable development at local communities. It emphasized on
respect for social, cultural, economic and environmental needs of the people. Wih these
emphases, people wil actively involved in development process and adopt a community
oriented strategy towards ensuring sustainable development (Annan, 1998; Lele, 1991;
Pinter, Hardi& Bartelmus, 2005).
ix. Social justice – this is a terrible aspect of underdevelopment. It is a factor that put one
opportune side of a community or society above or at an advantage over the other. When
a situation like this exists in any society, there will be oppression, deprivation, neglect,
and social injustice. Therefore, community development should be conducted in such a
way as to ensure equity in the right, distribution of wealth, access to essential services
and equal participation. Social justice also includes right of individual or group to express

12
 their feelings without fear of molestation or victimization. Community development
should expect and accommodate opposition (Pandey, 1991; Simpson &Rapone, 2000).
x. Ethical conduct – In a society where there are no laws, there will be no offense.
Community development is an academic pursuit and professional work; therefore the
code of ethics and conduct should be applied in all respect of its functions. The
application will to a large extent give credibility to the whole process in the event of
disagreement or advocacy (Banks, 2012).

Methodology
This paper is based on the Descriptive research methodology. The onus of the paper is to view
from historical perspective the applications of the value and principles of community
development. Also an ex-post factor evaluation of the challenges of the community development
in the quest by the government to build a new Nigeria.

2.6 Challenges of community development in building a new Nigeria

Community development is a prerequisite to people’s well-being, even distribution of resources,

poverty alleviation, and national development. Various attempts have been put in place by the
United Nations as a global body to develop a framework that will serve as a model for
developing nations toward improving the well-being of the people. The most recent in such
move is Millennium Development Goal (MDG) and Agenda 21 (Barrutia et al., 2007; Ruggie,
2003).

These two development programs, for example, were time framed with standard, which each
country are expected to follow and realized within the time frame. However, indications have
revealed some countries in the developing countries may not achieved the objectives due to some
internal and external issues across the nations (Foley, 2010; Fukuda‐Parr, 2010; WHO, 2008).
These issues constitute barriers to the achievement of development agenda in underdeveloped
and developing nations. These obstacles are summarized by the authors as found bellow:

a) Political – Some political decisions in the international community have contributed to the
challenges of development across the nation. The development process involved various
stakeholders from beneficiaries to donors. Some developed nations take advantage of their

13
 roles in the development process to intimidate or force some policies on the developing
nations as a condition to play their role. For example, when the issue of same-sex marriage
came up, the British government attempted to force Nigeria into adopting itas a precondition
for aid not minding the difference in culture (Akogun, & Ohia, 2011; Thomas-Greenfield,
2015). Nigerian government rather maintained its stand instead of engaging in a culture that
is unacceptable to its people (Mark, 2013).In addition, there are other internal political
factorsthat manifestinto religious conflicts, insurgency like ‘boko haram’ in West Africa,
ISIS in Syria and Iraq.

b) Security – When there is no security, no development activities can be executed. There are
security challenges across the world. In some developing countries, the insecurity has caused
a serious setback to internal and international policies on development. Examples are Nigeria
and Pakistan where polio workers were ambushed and killed in January 2013 and November
2012 respectively (David, 2013; Khalil, 2014).Such unfortunate incidences resulted
inwithdrawal of the polio staff from that part of those countries. Also in the same Nigeria, the
United Nations building was bombed by the local self-acclaimed Islamic revolutionary called
Boko haram (meaning; Western education is a forbidden). The effect of such is apparent in
terms of development. There are various security challenges in other countries like Mali,
Sudan, Afghanistan, Egypt and so on (Adebajo & Rashid, 2004; Haacke & Williams, 2009).

c) Inefficient monitoring and implementation – There are many local lapses in the
implementation of development programs by some developing nations. Monitoring and
Evaluationensures that development programs are going in the right direction to achieve their
stated goals: while monitoring tracks changes in program outcomes over time, evaluation
seeks to understand specifically why these changes occur The programs are not well
executed thereby making monitoring difficult(OECD 2010). For example, the United Nations
observed that most of the development programs in developing countries have failed to meet
its target goals because of poor monitoring and evaluation (UNDP, 2008).

d) Corruption – This is a very terrible enemy of progress to any development. It is a known fact
that there is corruption everywhere in the world, but the degree of corruption might be
different from one country to another country. The levels of corruption in some developing
countries have drawn such countries backward for many years. For example, Nigeria is one

14
 of the most blessed countries in the world in terms of human and natural
resources.Unfortunately, the rate of corrupt practices has deeply impeded development
(Dike, 2005; Ogbeidi, 2012).This trend is not limited to Nigeria. Other African countries
have suffered socio-economic backwardness due to high rate of corrupt practices as noted in
Anoruo and Braha (2005), Ndikumana (2006), and McFerson(2009).

e) Other issues are;measuring of output and outcome, mobilization and community education,
low participation, lack of effective evaluation mechanism, and weak social and cultural
capital (Chabal, 2002; Kassahun, 2010; Dalziel, Saunders, Fyfe & Newton, 2009).

3. Discussion
Having reviewed the core values and principle on one hand, and historical and contemporary
development practice on the another hand, the authors argued that, development practice in the
early period was a privilege, not a right. This assertion is because, all development activities;
from planning stage to execution were at the liberty of the government. The government dictates
what to do as development effort rather than what is the priority of the community. It was a
situation of ‘giver and taker’. The community contributes only the role of ‘taker’. Other
supposed stakeholders like the NGOs were also passive in their activities because their roles
were charity. This method of community development is top – bottom approach; from the
governmentat the ‘top’, down to the people at the ‘bottom’. This top - bottom approach of
community development became defective because, the government was unable to achieve
sustainable development. Not only because it did not meet yearnings of the people but also
because it could not finance and maintain all the state projects. Also, it lacks some technical
expertise required in community development process.

In the contemporary and favored by the community development practitioners is the bottom-up
approach that is regarded as a prefered and people-oriented community development practice.
The fundamental principles and values relies on people participation, mobilization,
empowerment, networking, social justice and general well-being of the population. This method
considers the interest of people and their needs rather than the imposition of development
projects and programs. This method also involved apartnership with various stakeholders and
community organizations’ techniques of reaching to the people. This method is also technically
referred to as “bottom – up” approach to community development.

15
It is very important to state that studies such as,Willett et al. (2010), Heid (2004); Mutwarasibo
(2002) and Sikula (2002) have proved that there are novice communities across developing and
underdeveloped countries. These communiuties cannot identify their needs due to ignorance and
lack of understanding of development needs and priorities. In this situation, top-bottom may be
inevitable to impact the lives of such community or better still a “partnership approach” that will
bring government and people to pull resources together. However, it is expected that, over a
period, such community will come to terms with the bottom – up paradigm. In addition to this,
the nature of community development project or program may also be a factor in the direction of
a community development approach. For example, if development is an intervention in nature,
the government may be saddled with the responsibility for developing such program. An instance
is a youth or women empowerment or capacity building program aimed to reduce thehigh level
of unemployment and poverty. In the light of the above, and in the real life situation, we may
assert that;

i. The historical elements of community development were autocratic, self-serving and

lacked the context of principles within which positive development could be achieved.
ii. The top-bottom or up-down approach as the case may be contained some rudiments that
are detrimental to the core values and principles of community development in totality.
iii. The contemporary development practices are rich in context and designed to
accommodate people oriented and all-inclusive development process. It is also
democratic, open and flexible.

4. Conclusion
Given the discussions above, the authors are of the views that;
i. Both top-bottom and bottom-up approaches to community development are important to
the human community and its environment. Each approach should be viewed and applied
by the prevailing and acceptable structure of the state or community where development
project/program is to be executed. The principle of ‘democratic’ attachment to
participatory community development may be counter-productive in a society where
such principle is alien, and an attempt is made to force such principle on the people.
While the people may differ over such imposed principle, the trusted relationship among
the people that is also a key factor in the development process will decline and probably

16
 degenerate to insecurity. No development can take place where there is insecurity
because violence, lawlessness, threats, anxieties fears and the likes will emerge as
currently observed in some African countries.
ii. Community capacity building is an important aspect of community development,
particularly for the sustainable wellbeing of the people. The local people are
knowledgeable about their environment and cultural demands of the community.
Therefore, indigenous capacity development enhanced is a local knowledge sustained for
the future capacity demand. Such capacity development should involve the community
leaders, Community Based Organizations (CBO), Community Youth, and Women
Development Organizations, and other localized associations. The capacity development
schedule should include building social capital, cultural capital, environmental capital,
and knowledge capital. Also, ethical conduct that will promote transparency against
corruption, financial management skills, and creativity will play tremendous roles in
local human capital quality. The local capacity development is without prejudices to the
technical assistance or financial support that may be extended to the external
stakeholders. This process will support the idea behind the democratic principles that
have caused more damaged than building the community as earlier observed above as
well as respect peculiarities of a different environment.
iii. The indigenous people should be adequately involved in the monitoring and evaluation
of community development programs to encurage local knowledge and capacity. They
should understand updates of short and long-term development plan and to enable quick
response to issues that affect the work plan in real time. Reciprocity among neighboring
communities through networking will support sustainability, partnership, collaboration,
knowledge sharing and harmonious/peaceful co-existence. Achievement of community
development programs should be celebrated as motivation for more participation and
enhanced commitment and psychological empowerment of the community.
iv. When the above views are adequately enshrined and applied in the community
development plan, those factors that are militating against theapplication of core values
and principles of community development will be tackled. Consequently, they will be
able to influence and achieve development goals in the developing countries of Africa
and beyond.

17
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