Community development (CD) at its heart is rooted in the belief that all people should have access to good health, wellbeing, wealth, justice and opportunity. Although the subject it is seen by many as a process where community members come together to take collective action and generate solutions to common problems.
Community welfares (economic, social, environmental and cultural) often evolve from this type of collective action being taken at a grassroots level. An example of a community development project in Africa is creation of Zambian Community Forests.
Community Development Approach
The universal methodology that is convening on the values of empowerment, human rights, inclusion, social justice, self-determination and collective action is known as community development (CD). Community development programs are led by community members at all phases from critical to problems to selecting and implementing actions, and evaluation. Its emphases on addressing the foundations of inequality and disadvantage through restructuring of power. It recognises that some societies, some clusters and some populations are barred and beleaguered by the way humanity and structures are organised.
Community development pursues to challenge this and guarantee justice for all citizens. The abolition of rural insufficiency has remained a key distress of Third World governments and donor agencies for several years. Various methodologies have been used to eliminate rural insufficiency. Community development (CD) emerged as the dominant approach in the early 1950s in many Third World countries, especially in Asia and Latin America.
However, the community development (CD) movement declined in the 1960s when it was realized that it was not effective in reaching the poor. The French supplement of community development (CD), animation rurale (AR), was conventional in Francophone countries, particularly in Africa in the late 1960s.
Past experience suggests that decentralization will not work without vibrant, participatory communities. After falling in the 1980s, African incomes started growing again in the 1990s. Political change in many countries brought a new interest in decentralization and community participation, though the process has a long way to go. Social funds and other similar funds were created to channel emergency money to needy communities.
The immediate success rate of these schemes was high. They showed that participation by beneficiaries in projects meant for them could improve project design, implementation and outcomes. However, such projects remain almost totally dependent on outside financial support, and this reduces local ownership as well as sustainability. Community development in the Third World is a complex process whose objectives are not easily achieved. Such project should be implemented in a manner that will secure the participation of people that these projects are intended to benefit.
Community Focused Development (CFD) Model
The Community Focused Development (CFD) approach is developed resource allocation network to communities as a powerful contributor to the objective of participatory insufficiency decline in Africa continent.
This model sees community empowerments as key to open access to more resources, poverty reduction and encourage open governance.
Dimensions of Community Focused Development (CFD) Model
The five main dimensions of CFD are: endowing communities, investing in local governments, restoring the center, improving responsibilities, and building capabilities.
1. Endowing Communities
Practice in Africa shows that communities can be structured quickly and effectively to diagnose indigenous problems, come up with answers, lay down priorities, elaborate action plans, and strengthen community organizations and accountability.
However, participatory processes will be discredited and atrophy unless communities are empowered with resources and authority.
Social and other funds already provide matching grants to communities in many countries, but these are typically balkanized funds with a narrow focus tied to donor priorities. Communities will be truly empowered only if they get untied grants, which enable them to decide their own priorities and hone their decision-making skills.
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2. Investing in Local Governments
Community empowerment is unsustainable if based on donor-driven funds. It needs to be embedded in a new institutional framework of local governments. Earlier attempts at decentralization, the world over, were hamstrung by a failure to harmonize the political, administrative and fiscal elements involved. So, harmonization is a top priority. This typically requires a high-powered task force backed by the head of government to work out new legal and constitutional arrangements.
The political leadership in each country can decide how many tiers of government are appropriate and what powers each will enjoy. This is best done on the principle of subsidiarity. Arrangements for local elections can consider providing quotas for women and other socially excluded groups.
3. Restoring the Center
Decentralization implies a far-reaching transformation in the character of the center, as numerous tasks and funds will move from the center to local governments. Administration and regulatory procedures geared to back up a uniform hierarchy will need remodeling to maintain supportive-dimension affiliations amid numerous axes of authority.
Traditionally, central governments in Africa have followed the ‘blue collar’ approach of operating all services. After decentralization, they will need to shift to a ‘white collar’ approach. Instead of running services directly, they should focus on facilitating local government activities, setting standards, monitoring outcomes, providing training to lower levels, and providing rewards and penalties to improve local government performance.
4. Improving Responsibilities
Existing mechanisms have failed to provide adequate accountability. Almost all accountability is upward to donors and central governments, not downward to users of services. Even upward accountability is balkanized because different donors have different requirements and create parallel systems of accountability, which sap limited local resources. A plethora of documents and reports are often required in the language of donors, which may not be locally understood. This reduces transparency and participation, and helps elite capture of programs (only elites understand foreign languages).
The success of community driven projects in Africa shows that accountability exists as social capital in user groups. Social pressure and peer pressure create accountability within a community. The empowerment of communities and local governments will enable this social capital to be harnessed, and provide downward accountability to users of frontline services.
5. Building capabilities
Free equivalent contributions to people will aid the development of their natural ability aimed at problem-solving through knowledge via performance. As they take on more responsibilities, they will find they need to upgrade their skills. This can be facilitated by official assistance from central governments and NGOs.
Local governments should drive and also develop skills primarily through learning by doing, and later through technical assistance. The central government necessities advancement its expertise meant for executing enormous developments, aimed at training local governments and societies, also extra broadly for captivating on its “white collar” design, enablement and governing parts.
To conclude, a better contribution spirit at particular idea prerequisite a local government structure for sustainability in community development.
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