© 2019 University of South Africa

All rights reserved

Printed and published by the

University of South Africa
Muckleneuk, Pretoria

DVA2602/1/2020–2024

70731365

InDesign

HSY_Style
 CONTENTS

 Page

Overview of the modulev

Unit 1: THE HISTORY, THEORY AND APPROACHES OF

COMMUNITY DEVELOPMENT1
1.1 INTRODUCTION1
1.2 UNDERSTANDING THE CONCEPT OF COMMUNITY 2
1.3 THE HISTORY OF COMMUNITY DEVELOPMENT 7
1.4 COMMUNITY DEVELOPMENT THEORY 9
1.5 FUNCTIONALIST, CONFLICT AND INTERAC-
TIONIST THEORIES 12
1.6 CONCLUSION16

Unit 2: COMMUNITY DEVELOPMENT PRACTICE17

2.1 INTRODUCTION17
2.2 THE COMMUNITY DEVELOPMENT PROFESSION 18
2.3 RADICAL COMMUNITY DEVELOPMENT PRACTICE19
2.4 COMMUNITY DEVELOPMENT FROM BELOW 22
2.5 CONCLUSION24

Unit 3: ISSUES IN COMMUNITY DEVELOPMENT25

3.1 INTRODUCTION25
3.2 COMMUNITY MOBILISATION  25
3.3 VALUES AND ETHICS IN COMMUNITY
DEVELOPMENT30
3.4 COMMUNITY PARTICIPATION 35
3.5 CONCLUSION36

Unit 4: SUSTAINABLE APPROACHES TO COMMUNITY

DEVELOPMENT36
4.1 INTRODUCTION36
4.2 UNDERSTANDING THE CONCEPT OF
SUSTAINABLE COMMUNITY DEVELOPMENT 38
4.3 ASSET-BASED COMMUNITY DEVELOPMENT 39
4.4 INTEGRATED COMMUNITY DEVELOPMENT 42
4.5 CONCLUSION43

DVA2602/1/2020–2024(iii)
 Unit 5: INSTITUTIONAL FRAMEWORKS FOR COMMUNITY
DEVELOPMENT44
5.1 INTRODUCTION44
5.2 GOVERNMENTAL INSTITUTIONS AND POLICY
RESPONSES TO POVERTY AND INEQUALITY IN
SOUTH AFRICA 45
5.3 NON-GOVERNMENTAL INSTITUTIONS 48
5.4 COMMUNITY-BASED ORGANISATIONS 50
5.5 CONCLUSION51

Unit 6: GLOBALISATION AND COMMUNITY DEVELOPMENT52

6.1 INTRODUCTION52
6.2 THE CONCEPT OF GLOBALISATION AND ITS
HISTORY54
6.3 GLOBALISATION, DETERRITORIALISATION AND
LOCALISATION 57
6.4 GLOBALISATION, COLONISATION, NEO-
COLONIALISM AND COMMUNITY DEVELOPMENT
PRACTICE 59
6.5 CONCLUSION 62

BIBLIOGRAPHY63

(iv)
1 OVERVIEW OF THE MODULE

i. MODULE AIM
The aim of this module is to critically examine the theory and practice of community
development beyond the narrow economistic focus perpetuated by neo-liberal
approaches in many strategies of governments and international bodies. The module
introduces you to the philosophical and theoretical perspectives that encompass
“holistic development”, which integrates the broader dimensions that comprise
a community, namely, the social, cultural, economic, physical, political and spiritual
elements. These elements are interdependent and collectively affect the well-being
of a community.

In this module you will be encouraged to be critical of the concepts of community

and community development and some of the assumptions about community well-
being so that you can rethink these issues in relation to your own context.

ii. LEARNING OUTCOMES

On successful completion of this module you will be expected to be able to

•• demonstrate an understanding of the concepts “community” and “community

development”
•• demonstrate an understanding of the history and theory of community development
•• apply the principles of asset-based and integrated community development in the
context of the Global South
•• analyse sustainable approaches to community development
•• evaluate solutions to community development problems

iii. STRUCTURE OF THE STUDY GUIDE

In each unit a theme is discussed with a view to imparting specific learning
outcomes. There are six units. Each unit is divided into sections that focus on
specific ideas/concepts that elaborate on the theme.

The changing history and changing theories of community development are discussed
in unit 1. This provides an entry into the concepts and general nature of community
development.

Units 2 and 3 deal with community development practice and its approaches.
These units probe questions such as: Is community development best done through
official processes and by professionalising community development, or should
practice come from grass roots? Do communities have to organise in opposition
to government strategies? These units will allow you to understand the values and

DVA2602/1(v)
OVERVIEW OF THE MODULE

ethics involved in community development practice. Units 4, 5 and 6 deal with the
relation of community development to sustainable development, government and
other institutions, and to globalisation and global processes. These units delve into
the context and dynamics of community development.

(vi)
 1 UNIT 1
THE HISTORY, THEORY AND
1

APPROACHES OF COMMUNITY
DEVELOPMENT

LEARNING OUTCOMES
On completion of this unit and after you have done the required reading
and completed the set activities, you should be able to

•• critique the concepts of community, development and community development

•• write a critical review of the history of community development, with particular
reference to Africa and South Africa
•• demonstrate a critical understanding of the range of theories that inform community
development practice

1.1 INTRODUCTION
Although community development is one of the oldest forms of organised collective
action to bring about social change in communities and community building, the
concepts that underpin the theory and practice of community development are
highly contested. Concepts such as “community”, “development”, “sustainability”
and “community well-being” attract diverse views and opinions from a range of
professional and academic commentators.

In the course of human history, community development has been targeted at

those communities that are considered poor through various forms of government
intervention as part of social welfare policies. In South Africa, as in the rest of
Africa, Asia and Latin America, community development was used as an instrument
of colonisation, which undermined the progressive philosophy and principles that
underpin community development practice dating back to early civilisations.

In postapartheid South Africa, community development has begun to emerge as a

professional practice in the range of intervention strategies employed to deal with
physical and material poverty among the majority of the population.

LEARNING ACTIVITY 1.1

As you start this module, write down what you think community development is:

DVA2602/11


Come back to this activity when you have gone through the whole module and
write down what you now think community development is:

SECTION 1.2 UNDERSTANDING THE CONCEPT OF COMMUNITY

Before we begin discussing community development, it is important to understand
what the concept of community means in different contexts and to different people.
Professionals, academics, politicians and laypersons in their everyday conversations
use the term “community” without actually stopping to think what other people
might understand by it.

Generally, in academic literature the concept of community is understood in different

ways. Consider, for example, these four types of communities:

•• A group of people who live in the same geographic area (physical location).
•• A group of people who make up a local social system (may involve location, but
such a group often has other special features; an example is an ethnic group,
especially when it continues to function as a close-knit community).
•• An association or a functional group of people (a group whose members have
a common interest, values or vision, e.g., a church community).
•• A group of people who together form a political-ideological social movement
(Chile 2007a:22–23).

As we discuss these and other forms of communities, you should keep in mind that
one person or group of persons could belong to more than one type of community
at the same time. If you think of your own context, you will quickly see that
there are different types of communities and that people belong to a number of
different communities.

Write down the communities you are involved in:

1.2.1 A community defined by geographic location

A community, from this perspective, refers to a group of people who live in
a common geographic area and engage with one another in a variety of ways (Ife
2002a). These engagements (interactions) may include various social, economic,
cultural, spiritual and political activities. These interactions may be both organised
(formal) and unorganised (informal). However, the fact that a group of people live
in a common geographic area by itself does not give all group members a sense of
togetherness.

2
 UNIT 1: The history, theory and approaches of community development

There are three levels of geographic community, namely, small, medium and large
(or micro, meso and macro). These gradations of size are relative and depend on the
frame of reference used. A small unit such as a village with strong sociocultural and
economic links and interactions is a micro geographic community; a local district
or municipal council is a meso geographic community; and the country as a whole
is a macro community. Some people talk of the global community. It is unclear
whether community development is useful for macro communities, which are
characterised by many divisions and conflicts and where most people are strangers
to one another.

1.2.2 A community as a l ocal social system

This form of community is defined by a network of social relations imposed by
some form of internal power structure and institutions. This type of community
may, in fact, be a geographic community, but the analysis takes into account
the power structure and the pattern of institutions and their relationship with
one another, and how people relate to these institutions. Examples of local social
system communities include

•• electorates created for purposes of democratic participation

•• institutions such as the Anglican Church of South Africa
•• neighbourhood institutions such as body corporations and residents’ associations
While the members of such a community may have geographic commonality, their
physical location is not as important as their participation.

The members of a local social system community, in contrast with a functional community
(see below), may have opposing values and experiences and may even strongly disagree
with one another. For example, members of the same electorate may have strong
ideological differences that result in differences in political party representation.

1.2.3 A community as a functional association

This form of community is usually based on common bonds of mutual interest and
experiences that generate specific forms of interactions. Functional communities are
usually associated with common aims or shared tasks. They range from informal
online communities, for example, Facebook groups that have particular common
interests (e.g., fantasy football or the exchange of music and gossip) but are not tied or
obliged to one another in other ways, to strong functional communities, for example,
kinship communities based on heritage with strong links to their heritage/tribes
and strong mutual obligations.

The underpinning feature of these communities is that their members are bound
by common aims, irrespective of their physical location relative to one another.

1.2.4 A community as a social movement

This form of community is usually a group of people who seek to express a particular
sociopolitical, ideological or lifestyle perspective. They act out or express their
preferred worldview by the way they live, and/or attempt to change the world
through actions or forms of communication that articulate particular politico-social
or economic-environmental movements. Past examples of these forms of community

DVA2602/13


include communes, the hippies of the 1960s and 1970s and greenies. More recent
examples include African and Asian diaspora communities in the Global North,
new evangelical, prosperity and faith-healing churches and more recent community-
type networks such as new political movements representing people without jobs,
land or formal housing (e.g., Abahlali baseMjondolo in South Africa), the Treatment
Action Campaign (TAC) in South Africa, which responded to government’s failure to
deal with the AIDS pandemic, fundamentalist Islamic movements such as Al-Shabaab
and Boko Haram, the short-lived, democratic-spirited Arab Spring, the Occupy Wall
Street anticapitalistic movement and climate change activism.

LEARNING ACTIVITY 1.2

Locate yourself within the types of community discussed above. Write two lines
on each of the following communities:

•• my geographic community
•• my local social system(s)
•• my functional association(s)
•• my social movement(s)

1.2.5 Community and common bonds

Regardless of how we define the concept of “community”, the underpinning of
any community is the sharing of something that binds that group of people together.
However, common bonds should not be mistaken for homogeneity since there are
likely to be a number of distinct differences in a community, including differences
of opinion, wealth and aspiration.

As stated at the start of this section, the different categories of community are not
exclusive. Individuals and groups of people could belong to more than one of these
different types of community at the same time. For example, I may live in a street
in my local community (geographic), belong to a particular kinship group that is
maintained despite distance and disagreements (functional), play golf with other
members of staff of the university (interest), be an ecofeminist (ideology) and be
registered to vote in a particular electorate (social system). In fact, most people
belong to all these communities and access them at different times for different
purposes.

Understanding the concept of community is important because people’s community

provides them with a base for forming and transmitting their values (what sociologists
refer to as socialisation), which enhances their self-awareness, self-identity and feeling
of belonging. A community not only gives people a sense of collective identity on
the basis of the features that make that community unique, but also provides them
with a platform for collective action to protect and promote their self-identity and
collective identity, to meet current needs and to work towards creating a common
vision and attaining desired future expectations (Chile 2007a:22).

Historically, many communities in Africa were simultaneously geographical and

functional and were social systems in themselves. They could be defined geographically
because people were born, lived, worked and reproduced within defined geographic
boundaries. People’s community was a dominant part of their world and defined
their socio-economic, political and cultural networks. The strong bonds of solidarity

4
 UNIT 1: The history, theory and approaches of community development

among people in a community led to intercommunal wars to expand territories and

to defend the community from external invasion.

The concept of community changed over time from physical, geographic location
to virtual location; from face-to-face interaction to virtual interaction; from
predominantly intimate membership to members not necessarily needing to know
one another; from common, defined issues or causes to more divergent but common
interests; and from single leadership to more diffuse leadership structures.

Two “classical social theorists” whose thinking had important implications for
our understanding of community are German philosopher Ferdinand Tönnies
(1855–1936) and French sociologist Emile Durkheim (1858–1917). Tönnies identified
two types of community, namely, Gessellschaft and Gemeinschaft. Gessellschaft refers to
a community that is homogenous, whose members have the same values and beliefs,
that is united by intimate and enduring social relations based on ties of kinship,
friendship and neighbourliness, and where politics is local. In contrast, Gessellschaft
refers to a community that is impersonal, that is, in which relationships between
members are contractual and limited to the purpose for which they have been
contracted.

Durkheim identified society as either “traditional” (Tönnies’ Gessellschaft) or “modern”

(Tönnies’ Gemeinschaft) based on the degree of division of labour. A traditional
society has a relatively homogenous population, a minimum degree of division of
labour and limited role specialisation, and is characterised by “mechanical social
solidarity”. Over time, a traditional society becomes “modernised”; its population
grows and becomes more heterogeneous, a system of division of labour gradually
evolves, individuals and specialised institutions develop to deal with particular and
distinct spheres of life and social relationships are based on “organic solidarity”.

In Africa’s history under colonialism and imperialism, the division of labour

and impersonal and contractual relationships took on extreme and racist forms.
The comfort of ties of neighbourliness was replaced with slavery (along the West
African coast) and regimes of forced labour (e.g., on the Mozambican prazos). Under
19th-century British colonialism, society was organised, according to Mahmood
Mamdani, around a concept of indirect rule according to which “natives” were
governed as groups, not as individual citizens, and governed by “settlers” through
local tribal authorities. The settlers were seen as dynamic and modern; the natives
were seen and culture-bound and stationary. “[I]f indirect rule aimed to assimilate
elite groups through a civilizing mission, the ambition of indirect rule was to
remake the subjectivities of entire populations … [T]he colonial state created a
system of state-enforced internal discrimination – for which it claimed the mantle
of tradition – thereby effectively fragmenting the colonized majority into so many
administratively driven political minorities. In Africa, this political minority was
called the tribe (Mamdani 2012:45).

Therefore, the modern identity of the colonised majority was not one of impersonal
negotiated contracts but one where people were depersonalised under discriminatory
and racist laws. Further, colonial rule disrupted community life, in its various forms,
through vast systems of migrant labour, southern Africa being a good example.

Though political power has been won through liberation movements and while
the new states have attempted to build new citizen identities, the subordinated and
racially defined identity of the colonised in colonial times still seems to play a role
in state policies that isolate particular groups of people (some argue that Botswana’s

DVA2602/15


treatment of the San constitutes group discrimination), in the recurrence of conflict

sparked by racism and possibly in xenophobic attacks on people with a different
legal identity, for example, in South Africa, all of which fracture social bonds and
stimulate divided and suspicious modern identities.

1.2.6 Development
Like the concept of community, the concept of development is problematic. Books
on development do not always provide a clear definition of what this concept
means but rather explain it in context. As our first-level modules argue, the term
“development” is often used interchangeably with “growth”. This is not accurate.
Development understood simply as “economic growth” is quite limited because
it is primarily associated with growth in national income achieved through high
productivity, economic specialisation and competitive advantage with a view to
maximising economic returns, achieving a high gross national product (GNP) and
attaining high employment or possibly reducing unemployment to as low levels
as possible. These factors are all very important for a country but they do not by
themselves constitute the holistic spectrum of development. We will return to this
aspect in unit 2 when we discuss “development from below”. “Growth” refers to
an increase in size and/or quantity, such as more jobs, higher incomes, more houses
and more schools and hospitals. “Development”, on the other hand, relates to
both human development and structural change in a community. Development is
concerned with such questions as: has an increase in the number of jobs changed
the quality of life of people in a community in respect of quality of jobs (low-skill,
low-wage to high-skill, high-wage jobs or casual to full-time or permanent jobs)?;
does a growth in income reflect the gap between the rich and poor in a community
or has it perpetuated the privileged positions of a few?; and is an increase in the
number of houses reflected in the quality of the housing environment and home
ownership/affordability of housing?

Sen (1999) argues that development should consist of five freedoms, namely, political
freedoms, economic facilities, social opportunities, transparency guarantees and
protective security.

For the purpose of this module we will attempt to explain development as a process
of realising human potential to meet human needs. This view draws on the basic
needs approach to development adopted by international organisations such as the
World Bank and agencies of the United Nations.

The basic needs approach tends to focus on alleviating material poverty as an end
point. Although alleviating “basic needs” created by material poverty (food, shelter,
clothing, basic education, health and employment) is crucial, it must be combined
with other dimensions of development such as

•• access to social justice, human rights and freedoms, and reduction of socio-
economic inequalities
•• enhancement of personal and community security
•• enhancement of the well-being and dignity of humans, particularly the poorest
members of society

An understanding of the concepts of “community” and “development” gives us a

starting point for a critical discussion on the concept of community development.
Moreover, if our understanding of what constitutes development goes beyond

6
 UNIT 1: The history, theory and approaches of community development

“economic growth” to include “structural change”, which challenges society’s

structures that create material poverty in the first place, then we will gain a better
understanding of community development. Community development deals with
the diverse issues that keep people from attaining their full potential and involves
working with them to identify what this potential is, what resources (capabilities)
they have and what forms of support (interventions) they need. This is what we will
be referring to when we discuss the concept of “participation” in respect of the
enhancement of the overall well-being of members of a community by “building
people’s capabilities” through “empowerment” in units 2 and 6.

SECTION 1.3 THE HISTORY OF COMMUNITY DEVELOPMENT

Community development is one of the oldest forms of organised collective
action to bring about social change in communities, to build communities and
to promote the well-being of members of communities collaboratively through
various forms of intervention. However, there is an ongoing debate on the origins
of community development.

De Beer and Swanepoel (2013:2) refer to a number of sources that suggest

that community development started in the United States of America (USA) with
the 1914 Smith-Lever Act, which established the Cooperative Extension Service
programme to support rural communities.

Other scholars trace the roots of community development to the social reform
movement in Britain and North America in the mid-18th century that sought to
deal with social problems brought on by the Industrial Revolution.

These two perspectives may be termed “Eurocentric”, meaning that they focus on
European history to find answers to a global issue.

A more global perspective suggests that community development was part of human
civilisation and was linked to communitarian movements and cooperative farming in
ancient Babylon more than 5 000 years ago before Europeans ventured beyond their
continent (Chile 2007b:36). It is difficult to understand how community development
could originate from cultures characterised by fragmentation, segmentation and
depersonalisation and with an individualistic ethos – it is unlikely to have derived
from Western modernity alone. In contrast, in Africa and other first nations
characterised by close kinship, collective action to deal with issues of community
development was woven in the fabric of communal life such as warfare, farming,
hunting, celebrations and burials (Chile 2011). These indigenous practices gave
inspiration for mobilisation and resistance to colonial intrusions and subsequently
anticolonial nationalist liberation movements (Wass 1972). Anticolonial community
mobilisers such as Mohandas Gandhi and Julius Nyerere used established principles
of African community development as a basis for community mobilisation in the
Ashram movement in South Africa, the Swaraj movement in India, and the Uhuru
and Ujamaa movements in Tanzania and East Africa.

Contemporary community development practice around the world has different

origins and may be understood within particular historical contexts. For example,
the 1914 Smith-Lever Act established the Cooperative Extension Service programme
in the US, while the late 19th- and early 20th-century British settlement movement
of the Victorian-Edwardian period (Popple & Quinne 2002) and the 1925 British
government White Paper on Education Policy in British Tropical Africa (Lotz

DVA2602/17


2010) influenced how the British colonial administration introduced its own brand
of community development to colonies and indigenous communities in Australia,
Canada, New Zealand and other British colonies, including African countries.

The history of community development from a South African perspective

In the case of South Africa, as in the rest of Africa, contemporary community

development was an instrument of colonisation that “interlinked education as
the main community development intervention and conversion to Christianity”
(Maistry 2012:30). This undermined the progressive philosophy and principles
that underpinned centuries of community development practice. In many African
countries, colonial administrations used community development as an instrument
of control against anticolonial movements (Wallis 1976). For example, the use of
“indirect rule” may be interpreted as a typical community development strategy
implemented under the pretext of participatory democracy to undermine the social
cohesion of precolonial African communities. It is therefore important to be critical of
literature that tends to construct community development in Africa in modernist terms
associated with educational and other forms of intervention aimed at helping “poor
Africans” adapt to technological and social change and that tend to focus primarily
on community development as government intervention. Non-statutory community
development in the colonial period was a process of mobilisation strongly connected
to political movements for community conscientisation and empowerment. In
apartheid South Africa, such community development consisted of political, social
and economic mobilisation, and in the postapartheid period both statutory community
development and non-statutory community development form part of the range of
intervention strategies that seek to tackle the physical and material poverty of the
majority of the population.

After the failure of some general theories of development, such as capitalist

industrialisation through modernisation along Western lines, the failure of state
socialism and attempts to escape dependency by opting out of the global market,
there was a move in development thinking to smaller scale and more local solutions
in the 1980s and 1990s. Further, in the era of capitalist globalisation, given that
ordinary people live, suffer and resist primarily at a local level, there is the slogan
to “think globally, but act locally”. Though community development has origins
in colonial-era workgroups and projects in the localities identified with “tribes”,
today’s community development engages with this new thinking that attempts
to engage specifically with development at the micro or local community level.
Community-centred development theory argues for a “bottom-up” approach, which
departs from generalised approaches to community development intervention.
Context is central to such development interventions, which start with the needs,
aspirations and resources of a local community, the people, and their assets, networks
and capacity to organise for collective action.

The focus of community-centred development from this perspective is empowerment,

capacity building and sustainability. Community development from this perspective
is participatory, integrated, governed by principles of social justice, inclusive of all
social groups and reflective of ownership of the policies and actions of a community.
In this approach, development is local, unique (in part) and sustainable within
the context of a community’s local resources, environment, culture and economy.
Community activists and leaders can develop a clear vision of what a community
wants to accomplish, assess the strengths and limitations of the community as

8
 UNIT 1: The history, theory and approaches of community development

regards achieving its desired vision and then develop strategies and action plans for
accomplishing set goals and objectives.

LEARNING ACTIVITY 1.3

Focus your search on the history of community development in South Africa.

•• With reference to Maistry’s inferences as reflected in this section,

(a) draw a timeline of community development in South Africa from
precolonial times, through the apartheid period up to 1994
(b) explain the differences between the different community development
paradigms on your timeline

SECTION 1.4 COMMUNITY DEVELOPMENT THEORY

This section only provides an introduction to the context of community development
theory. A wide range of theories inform community development practice; all these
theories cannot be dealt with in only one section. We will examine specific sets of
theories throughout this module so that they are discussed in context rather than in
isolation. This will give you time to build your knowledge and understanding of the
different theories as the module progresses so that, at the end of the module, you
have a more grounded understanding of what constitutes community development
theory in all its complexity.

In this unit we first deal with one theory that sides radically with the people of
a community. Then we examine theories that help to explain community development
as it is, with all its problems, by examining issues of how power works in communities,
how the function of community development is conditioned by structures, and the
importance of people’s interpretation.

1.4.1 Critical theor y and community development

Community development theory is underpinned by what is generally referred to as
“critical theory”. “Drawing particularly on the thoughts of Karl Marx and Sigmund
Freud, critical theorists maintain that a primary goal of philosophy is to understand
and to help overcome the social structures through which people are dominated and
oppressed” (Encyclopaedia Britannica 2015:1). The premise of critical theory is that it is
necessary to understand people’s lived experience in context by examining the social
conditions in which they live, thereby making it possible to uncover the oppressive
structures, activities and symbols that underpin the dominant order’s assumptions of a
“good society”. A central, uniting focus of critical theory in community development
is the empowerment of individuals, groups and communities to enable them to
critically analyse their own experiences and to understand the ways in which dominant
institutions and ideology undermine emancipatory social transformation. Critical
theory is, therefore, essentially normative, that is, it combines theory and practice as
an intrinsic process of praxis to bring about social change to affect human conditions,
particularly that of the poor and marginalised in a community.

DVA2602/19


LEARNING ACTIVITY 1.4

Understanding critical theory in community development

Use Ledwith’s (2005) article to help you

•• list the main elements of critical theory and explain how each one relates
to community development
•• write a few sentences to explain how praxis is part of critical theory in community
development
•• draw a simple diagram that illustrates the cyclical process of praxis
•• write four to five sentences to explain how each of the stages of the cycle
informs the others

1.4.2 Praxis
The concept of praxis comes from the philosopher Aristotle but was also used by
other philosophers such as Antonio Labriola, Hanna Arendt, Myles Horton and Paulo
Freire. In the context of community development theory, we usually adopt Brazilian
philosopher Freire’s use of praxis whereby theory and practice cannot be separated
and must always be seen as two sides of the same coin. Freire argues as follows:

Cut off from practice, theory becomes a simple verbalism. Separated from
theory, practice is nothing but blind activism. That is why there is no authentic
praxis outside the dialectical unity [of] action–reflection, practice–theory. In
the same way there is no theoretical context if it is not in a dialectical unity with
the concrete context. (Freire 1985:156)

Therefore, according to Freire, praxis is a continuous, dialectic process through

which individuals (whom Freire called “the poor”, “the oppressed”) gain greater
consciousness of themselves and the world they live in through reflecting on their lived
experiences and exchanging these experiences with others in similar situations (i.e.,
the process of dialogue or “dialectical relationship”). Through dialogue, new ideas
and understandings (“thoughts”) are developed that enable personal transformation
(“emancipation”) of the individuals and groups involved in the dialogue.

1.4.3 Conscientisation and hegemony

The concept of emancipatory social transformation, from a Freirian perspective,
is related to a process of “conscientisation” whereby “the oppressed” uncover
the contradictions that exist in the economic, social and political structures of
society controlled by “dominant institutions, individuals and groups” (hegemony).
Conscientisation is a political process that exposes “the poor” or “the oppressed” to
the unequal power relations in society that give “dominant institutions” and groups
unequal access to society’s resources.

10
 UNIT 1: The history, theory and approaches of community development

LEARNING ACTIVITY 1.5

Understanding the concepts “hegemony” and “conscientisation”

•• Give two examples of “hegemonic ideas” of a “good society” regarding

employment/unemployment.
•• Explain the hegemonic assumptions about unemployment.
•• Write four sentences to explain how you could conscientise the unemployed
about the real causes of their unemployment.

The concept of hegemony comes from the work of Gramsci, an Italian political
theorist and philosopher who defined hegemony as a process of domination whereby
one set of ideas (or a n ideology) subverts or co-opts another (Gramsci 1971:247).
By becoming more conscious of the ideologies that dominate society’s institutions,
individuals and groups become empowered to challenge the assumptions (“ideas”
and “symbols”) of “good society” promoted by dominant interest, institutions and
the “elite class”.

Therefore, community development theory has strong political perspectives on

power; the focus of analysis is on the pattern of power distribution in society.

Conscientisation is concerned with enabling individuals, groups and communities to

make critical links between their personal circumstances of poverty, marginalisation
and oppression to the wider structural factors in society – what Mills (1959) refers
to as making connections of how private troubles are related to public issues. Steve
Biko commented as follows on conscientisation in South Africa:

We try to get blacks in conscientisation to grapple realistically with their problems,

to attempt to find solutions to their problems, to develop what one might call
an awareness, a physical awareness of their situation, to be able to analyse it,
and to provide answers for themselves. The purpose behind it really being to
provide some kind of hope; I think the central theme about black society is that
it has got elements of a defeated society, people often look like they have given
up the struggle. Like the man who was telling me that he now lives to work,
he has given himself to the idea. Now this sense of defeat is basically what we
are fighting against; people must not just give in to the hardship of life, people
must develop a hope, people must develop some form of security to be together
to look at their problems, and people must in this way build up their humanity.
This is the point about conscientisation and Black Consciousness. (Biko 1987:114)

Bhattacharyya argues that, unlike the physical sciences, community development

theory does not necessarily have to explain a phenomenon and make predictions but
should be a “charter for actions towards a goal” (Bhattacharyya 2009:10). You will
learn that conscientisation and empowerment are central to community development.
Furthermore, some theories underpinning community development enable us to be
critical of how conscientisation and empowerment are viewed on the one hand and
operationalised (acted upon) on the other hand.

DVA2602/111
 

LEARNING ACTIVITY 1.6

Understanding the concept “critical pedagogy”

Read the following article: Ledwith, M. 2001. Community work as critical pedagogy:
re-envisioning Freire and Gramsci. Community Development Journal 36(3):171–182.

•• Write two sentences to explain what the author means by the term “critical
pedagogy”.
•• List at least two ways in which the author suggests community development work
may be constructed as critical pedagogy.

SECTION 1.5 FUNCTIONALIST, CONFLICT AND INTERACTIONIST THEORIES

There is no “one theory” that describes and explains community development practice.
Community development draws from a range of disciplines. Power, empowerment,
social justice and social transformation are the central agenda of community
development practice, particularly from a critical theory perspective. The heading
for each of these theories presents only the common element that brings a wide
range of theoretical perspectives together. Under each of these three headings there
are perspectives from a wide range of academic disciplines, including economics,
sociology, communication, language, linguistics and political science. We examine
them here from a community development perspective. Each of the three theories
discussed below is directly relevant to community development practice. Functionalist
theory relates to social structure and what the system (be it the government, the
economy or a development project) is designed to do and what logically works
inside this structure, for example, how one works with funders, the government and
business partners. Conflict theories relate to the central issue of power in societies
and in community development dynamics. Without an understanding of power,
one’s community strategies will be naïve. Symbolic interactionism is concerned with
shared meaning, interpretation, communication and cultural differences. These
aspects are crucial to community processes and need to be understood by community
workers and activists to ensure they have a critical understanding of complexities and
dynamics within communities, in order to allow for better community development
practice.

1.5.1 Functionalist or consensus theories

Functionalism (as outlined by, for example, Parsons) examines how social equilibrium
is attained/maintained in society and how the various components of society work to
maintain social stability. Functionalists argue that society consists of a hierarchy of
structures and stability is the central element that is required to achieve development
outcomes. Just as the human body consists of various organs that function together
to keep us alive, healthy and functioning, society’s structures and institutions must
work together to create social solidarity and to achieve development outcomes. A
key premise of functionalist theory is that society is structured so that it provides
the greatest good for the greatest number of people. Therefore, even if there are
few deficiencies in the structure, it is important to work towards equilibrium instead
of “rocking the boat”. Other key features of functionalism are the imperative of
consensus and that the focus should be on what is necessary for the system to function.

12
 UNIT 1: The history, theory and approaches of community development

A functionalist analysis can clarify what purpose the government has for community
development in South Africa. Is its purpose to defuse rebellion (as it may have
been under colonial and apartheid rule?) Is South Africa’s official community
development programme intended to deal with social cohesion, to provide a people-
friendly office in local government and to bring more of the unemployed into the
economy? If this is the function of the programme, then one should not expect real
empowerment. If a community project receives funding that depends on certain rules
being kept, for example, that the funds be used for capital expenditure only and not
salaries, this condition is part of the structure of the project that gives the project
a certain function. A functionalist approach can also help clarify the problems in
an organisation’s structure, management and processes. “In essence, a functionalist
would see structures as important components of capacity-building” (Hustedde &
Ganowicz 2002:6)

A key criticism of this theoretical perspective is that it ignores and/or fails to explain
inequality, except to suggest that inequality has always existed and will continue to
exist because it has a social function. Another criticism is that in order to maintain
the status quo despite social inequalities, those disadvantaged by current social
structural arrangements should accept their situation in the interest of the overall
good of society.

Underlying assumptions of functionalist theories are

•• that society works towards stability

•• that society consists of interdependent components, that is, institutions that fit
together to provide a stable functioning social system; these components include
the family, the educational system, the cultural system, the political system, the
economic system, and so forth and each component fulfils specific functions to
meet the needs of society
•• individuals are socialised into norms and values of society through these institutions
•• socialisation instils in individuals and groups the value of consensus as opposed
to conflict to help maintain social system stability; when community development
is used to build social cohesion, peaceful cooperation in the community and
cooperation with government, it is functional and works towards system stability

1.5.2 Conflict theories

Conflict theories illustrate the dynamics of power in social groups and, for our
purpose, in the arena of community development.

Domination, social conflict, competition, interest groups and the exclusion and
manipulation of people are issues that must be understood in community work.
“Community developers need conflict theory because it provides insights about why
there are differences and competition among groups within the community. These
theories can help us understand why some people are silent or have internalized the
values of elites even to their own disadvantage” (Hustedde & Ganawicz 2002:8).

Conflict theories explain that

•• the defining feature of society is “difference”

•• society’s hierarchical structures tend to perpetuate differences and to reproduce
inequalities along lines of difference (“social stratification”)

DVA2602/113


These lines of difference include race-ethnicity, sex-gender, age, religion, ability-

disability, and socio-economic and class status. These differences create privileged
and underprivileged groups, leading to uneven, unequal and inequitable access
to resources, power and social rewards. To maintain their privilege, those in
“dominant” positions work hard to maintain the status quo regarding the distribution
of wealth, power and status, creating social relations based on exploitation, oppression,
domination and subordination.

“Competition” and tension invariably arise when the underprivileged struggle to

improve their life chances and to get better social rewards while the privileged fight
to maintain their status. Conflict becomes inevitable as a means to empowerment
and redistribution of power, wealth and other privileges.

Assumptions that underpin conflict theories are as follows:

•• Power is central to all social relationships. Power comes in various forms, for
example, economic production/resource control, political influence/control over
means of coercion, cultural/values and social status/prestige.
•• Tension and competition become major sources of conflict when subordinated
individuals, groups and communities challenge the status quo of social power
and economic relations.
•• Conflict is not necessarily a bad thing or a sign of instability. Conflict can stimulate
innovation and lead to social change, that is, changes in power relations and the
social order. It may, in fact, lead to greater unity between individuals and groups
in society and help to define the values of a community.

Critical questions for conflict theorists are as follows:

•• How fundamental are the changes to existing structures of domination and

subordination?
•• Do such changes significantly alter the existing social order of exploitation and
marginalisation or are they simply cosmetic dressing? A community development
project could encourage conflict between factions in order to neutralise both
factions. This playing out of conflict changes nothing.

1.5.3 Interactionist theories

This theoretical perspective, which is also known as symbolic interactionism,
focuses on the level of people’s everyday life and social interactions as the source of
social change. Symbolic interactionism argues that people’s interactions with one
another within communities and across societies enable them to establish social
relationships and give them a sense of identity and belonging. Social relationships in
society are constructed from people’s interpretations of the symbols they exchange
while interacting with others and the interpretations and meanings they attach to
those symbols. If people see strangers as a God-given gift, this leads to one set
of relationships; if strangers are regarded as dangerous pariahs (as in the case of
xenophobia), a different set of relationships emerges. The way people construct their
self-identity and well-being also extends to the way they engage with institutions
of society and how they interpret the roles of such institutions as representative of
their interests or not.

A key feature of this theoretical perspective is that the meaning one attaches to
people, events, institutions and others is learnt, but also unlearnt and changed as one

14
 UNIT 1: The history, theory and approaches of community development

is exposed to different experiences. So, people are very much part of constructing
their reality, their community and their world. Social change comes through people’s
active engagement with one another and the construction and reconstruction of social
relations, and not through being passive and accepting the status quo (functionalist),
nor by constantly fighting against one another and institutions (conflict).

Underlying assumptions of the interactionist perspective are as follows:

•• The way in which individuals interpret and react to one a n other through
interactions help them to socially construct their reality.
•• Society is constructed by everyday relationships, which consist of both spoken
and unspoken rules, and acknowledged and unacknowledged rules of behaviour.
•• Society’s structures and institutions are the product of these interactions and
of individuals’ membership of society.
•• Social interactions are sources of learning.
•• Interactions influence people’s perceptions and interpretation of events and
how they act to change their future.
•• Change comes from both individual and collective action.
•• Effective change comes from conscientisation, that is, the ability to link personal
circumstances with collective conditions.

This perspective allows us to see the importance of people’s understanding

of community processes, the importance of discussion and conscientisation and the
importance of community development as an enduring, reliable and positive symbol
of a way forward to achieving the good of all. It also alerts those in community work
to the issue of cultural differences and key cultural values – some may attach a very
high value to personal freedom while others may value the group. If, for example,
an access road that will greatly help community businesses will have to go through
part of a graveyard or require a piece of a sacred forest to be destroyed, issues relating
to conflicting values and differing understandings of the good of the community
must be discussed.

Critical questions for interactionist theorists are as follows:

•• How are interactions shaped by power and dominant structures?

•• What meanings and institutions in community development are formed by
unequal interactions?

1.5.4 Bringing structure, power and meaning together

To understand a community setting and the dynamics of community projects,
you may find it helpful to bring the three approaches discussed above – structural
functionalism, conflict theories and symbolic interactionism – together. What
are the structural constraints that we work in? What are the dysfunctions of that
structure? Who has power in this context and how can power be used for the good
of the community? What are the competing interests? In this situation, how do
we draw in people with different values and cultural understandings? How do we
handle a negative and divisive spirit in the community? If these sorts of questions
are considered together, a stronger analysis can be made of the context. One theory
that combines these elements is Giddens’ structuration theory (Hustedde & Ganowicz
2002:11ff; Giddens 1990). However, this theory was designed for analysing conditions
in Europe. In the Global South, institutions are often more fluid and unstable and
social divisions are more acute than in Europe; in this situation, power can easily

DVA2602/115


operate outside formal rules and legality. In addition to cultural differences, there are
divided identities due to the subjection of the majority to colonialism, imperialism and
apartheid and thereafter capitalism and neoliberalism in the interests of the Global
North. In consequence, the symbolic interaction in the Global South inevitably
involves living through and, if possible, overcoming the racist denial of the humanity
of the colonised (and all the structural disadvantages that flow from it). This leads
to a wide variety of struggles and initiatives. In dealing with community processes,
the politics and psychology of this split world is part of the texture of community
life and its symbolic expression.

So, in short, while the structuration theory is a powerful tool, it must be applied
intelligently to the South African context of community development and the theory
itself must be reshaped if necessary.

LEARNING ACTIVITY 1.7

•• Write three paragraphs (of at least six sentences each) to critique (i.e., state
positive and negative points) the functionalist, conflict and interactionist theories.
•• Write a few sentences about how you think each theoretical perspective complements
critical theory in community development practice.
•• Draw up a table that illustrates how each of these theoretical perspectives responds
to issues of empowerment, conscientisation and social justice as far as community
development is concerned.

1.6 CONCLUSION
Congratulations on having completed this unit. Now that you understand the concepts,
the history and theories relating to community and community development, we
can proceed to the next unit. In unit 2 we will look specifically at how the concepts
of community and community development and theories underpinning them apply
to community development practice.

16
 2 UNIT 2
2 COMMUNITY DEVELOPMENT
PRACTICE

LEARNING OUTCOMES
On completion of this unit and after you have done the required reading and completed
the set activities, you should be able to

•• demonstrate a critical understanding of the diverse perspectives on the challenges

the community development profession faces, with particular reference to South
Africa
•• critique the conception of community development as “radical practice”
•• identify some of the key features of “development from below”
•• critique what has been identified in the literature as the key principles of community
development practice

2.1 INTRODUCTION
This unit consists of four sections that deal with four related themes, namely, community
development as a professional practice, radical community development practice,
development from below and principles of community development. There is an
extensive debate among community development practitioners and other professionals
such as social workers as to whether community development can be described
as a profession and whether it has a professional status. Questions often raised in
conversations include: Does community development require “unique” training and
research that provide an intellectual (knowledge) base? Is developed practice based
on codes of ethics? Does community development have strong organisational
structures to give it a professional status? These questions are the focus of section 2.2.

In section 2.3 we will examine the concept of radical community development

practice. Given that the primary focus of community development is to empower
individuals, groups and communities and to challenge institutional arrangements
that create inequitable power relations in society, much of community development
practice is often termed “radical”. We invite you to examine some of the theoretical
foundations that help explain/clarify the concept of radical practice. Section 2.4 deals
with one of these so-called radical practices, namely, development from below. You
are required to critically examine the concept of development from below.

Some of the ideas and concepts discussed here are very complex and require a large
number of references to do justice to them, but we try to limit the compulsory reading
so that you are not overburdened with text. However, we encourage you to explore
as many of the extra reading material cited in the list of references as possible to
broaden your understanding of these ideas.

DVA2602/117


SECTION 2.2 THE COMMUNITY DEVELOPMENT PROFESSION

Despite the long history of community development practice in relation to human
development and the role it plays in community well-being and social transformation,
there is still a debate as to whether it is a profession (Chile 2011; De Beer & Swanepoel
2012; 2013). Literature that examines how an occupation may be considered a
profession suggests that an occupation has to undergo a series of processes, which
may result in three categories of professionalisation models, each of which offers a
different perspective on the development of a given profession. These models can
be summarised as attribute models, process models and power models (Curnow
& McGonigle 2006). Each profession evolves differently, and the maturity of a
profession determines which model is the most appropriate.

The earliest arguments about professionalization (Wilensky 1964) suggest that

a profession must have at least six characteristics, namely, systematic theory,
authority, community sanction, ethical codes and a culture. To gain recognition
as a profession, an occupation must be supported by academic training provided
by established schools and university programmes that have a significant
intellectual component; be founded on a body of knowledge and theory; have links
with local and national associations that enforce a code of ethics; be subject to
licensing laws; and be governed by a professional organisation with a growing set
of published papers and best practices.

We may argue that all occupations are semiprofessions and can be appraised on a
number of professional aspects as well as the quality of each aspect (Savard 1986). The
traditional conceptualisation of professions tends to be static in that there are fixed
standards of educational, ethical and professional practice that members must meet.
A more contemporary understanding of the concept of professionalisation rejects
the static standards approach of “claimed wisdom”, opting for a more dynamic and
rational instrumental process. The traditional conceptualisation of professions may be
termed “professionalism” while the dynamic conceptualisation of professions may be
termed “professionalisation”. Professionalisation implies an ongoing organic process
of improvement and adaptation by individual professionals in their own practice
and in a professional organisation. The question that needs to be answered, then,
is if community development practice has developed sufficiently to be considered
a profession. Are there formal qualifications in community development practice
based on education, apprenticeship and examinations, are there regulatory bodies
with powers to admit and discipline members and are there organisational structures
with codes of conduct for community development to make a particularly strong
case for professionalisation?

LEARNING ACTIVITY 2.1

•• Read the article by De Beer and Swanepoel (2012).
•• Draw a simple table in which you summarise the key arguments presented by
the authors on why community development is a profession, the challenges
faced by community development as a profession and what needs to happen
for community development practice to be recognised as a profession.

18
 UNIT 2: Community development practice

LEARNING ACTIVITY 2.2

•• Write a half-page essay in which you critique the views presented by De
Beer and Swanepoel. You should discuss whether their arguments on the
professionalisation of community work are convincing.

SECTION 2.3 RADICAL COMMUNITY DEVELOPMENT PRACTICE

Community development practice has always aspired to social change and
transformation that radically transform society’s socio-economic order. To bring
about social transformation, community development situates its practice within a
critical analysis of power, that is, what Freire (1972) refers to as “critical pedagogy”,
or a way of learning that allows people to take responsibility for their situation and
to confront the things that oppress them.

Community development practice can be termed “radical” if it intends to challenge

both the practitioner and the community to engage in critical consciousness and to
understand the relationship between power and empowerment and how structural
arrangements of power explain how individuals’ and communities’ lives of poverty
and privilege are constructed. A critical understanding of power enables people to
make connections between individual and community oppression and structures
of oppression.

Beyond the tenet of social transformation, radical community development also has
an ecological perspective, that is, opposition against “global capitalist consumption”
that adversely affects human and natural resources. Often, the political manifestations
of radical community development are street protests, strikes, boycotts and educational
and conscientisation campaigns aimed at a critique of global capitalism. In this unit
we consider examples of these manifestations, namely, the Soweto Electricity Crisis
Committee and Abahlali baseMjondolo.

2.3.1 Roots of radical community development theories

2.3.1.1 Anarchism
Although anarchism is often associated with a breakdown of law and order, as a
political theory it is consistent with social ecology and social justice. Anarchism
recognises that “small is beautiful”. It argues against hierarchical power relations
and centralised control of democratic institutions, structures, community resources
and decision-making and argues for the development of structures, technologies,
economies and production at a more human level. It supports grass-roots community
development, local autonomy, decentralisation and self-determination.

2.3.1.2 Critique of colonialism

This theoretical perspective relates to critical discourses that seek to examine
how development discourses and practices have perpetuated socio-economic and
political structures established by colonialism and imperialist domination, which
have become subtle but insidious. Postcolonial perspectives seek to recognise the
pervasive nature of colonialism and imperialism and to give a voice and validation to
local culture, communities’ values and indigenous political-economic systems. It is

DVA2602/119


emancipatory by affirming, validating and creating spaces for the “colonised” to effect
“change from below” within the context of their own reality rather than the dictates
of external agencies dominated by international and transnational development
agencies, global transnational corporations and multilateral organisations.

2.3.1.3 Feminism
The underpinning argument of feminist theory is that society is characterised
by patriarchy, which permeates power structures and discourses that dominate
and oppress women. Feminism recognises patriarchal domination as a major and
problematic factor in development outcomes. Women’s oppressed position in society
is the result of class-based capitalism, which undervalues the private sphere (family/
home) and promotes the public sphere (work/economy), thus creating artificial
boundaries between family and the economy. Social feminism advocates increased
emphasis on the private sphere and the role of women in the household and equal
opportunities for women in the public sphere as a solution to a patriarchal social
construction of society. Community development theory from a feminist perspective
directly challenges the domination of patriarchal values such as the “top-down”
undervaluing of community wisdom and local skills and knowledge. Feminist
theory provides an alternative perspective on the dismantling of socially oppressive
patriarchal structures and the sustainable management of resources (“eco-feminism”)
to bring about ecological/environmental social justice and antidiscriminatory practice
based on fundamental human rights to create social justice outcomes. Feminist
theory argues that equity and social justice outcomes must be central to development
intervention, which makes gender a central theme in community development
(Emejulu 2011b).

In Africa, and South Africa, feminists have taken up various issues that confront
African women. These issues include poverty, racism, social inequality and
environmental decline, in that women absorb more than their share of the damage
done by these processes. Hence, women join calls for social and environmental
justice. While women in Africa are generally expected to be submissive, they are
often family and community leaders to a greater extent than women in the West.

Yet, the confused mixture of Western and traditional African patriarchy found in men
in many communities in the current context results in an often violent subordination
of women, for example, through rape and domestic assault. The burden of HIV/
AIDS infection in Southern Africa is largely carried by young women. The number
of women-headed households is increasing. Therefore, in a community development
context, there are inescapable gender issues.

2.3.1.4 Democratic socialism

This set of theories argues that the influence of transnational capitalism has weakened
national governments’ accountability to their people. National economic decisions,
economic institutions and resources focused on capitalist accumulation for privileged
elite should be put under citizen ownership and control to meet human needs of the
majority of the population. Democratic socialism (refer to Hodgson 1984) favours
the bottom-up approach. We will return to a more elaborate discussion of this
approach in unit 5.5 when we examine globalisation and community development.

20
 UNIT 2: Community development practice

LEARNING ACTIVITY 2.3

•• Comment on the following two statements by suggesting reasons why someone
arguing from a radical community development perspective might agree or
disagree with them:
(a) Community development practice does not need to be radical to
effect community change.
(b) The entrenched nature of capitalist exploitation demands radical community
development practice to bring about community transformation.

In an article entitled “ ‘The unfinished business of democratisation’: struggles for

services and accountability in South African cities”, Etzo (2010) gives an account of
two anticapitalistic and broadly antigovernmental social movements in South Africa,
namely, the Soweto Electricity Crisis Committee (SECC) and Abahlali baseMjondolo
(AbM). Both these movements have obtained benefits for the communities they are in.

In Soweto, rising electricity costs and Eskom’s move to cut electricity supply to
numerous houses due to non-payment led to an activist movement, the SECC. The
SECC challenged the legitimacy of Eskom’s action and facilitated illegal reconnections
of residents’ dwellings to the electricity grid, resulting in free electricity. The SECC
justified this by arguing that government’s electricity policy should provide genuinely
free basic services, including electricity.

The SECC partly arose because of “local councillors’ indifference” (Etzo 2010:568).
It effectively questioned the legitimacy of local government and challenged the
legitimacy of privatisation and cost-recovery strategies adopted by the government
and Eskom. The SECC subsequently entered the political arena with a leftist agenda,
but with limited success and increasing divisions (Etzo 2010:571).

LEARNING ACTIVITY 2.4

•• Watch an interview of the South African Civil Society Information Service with
Trevor Ngwane, a key activist of the SECC, at this link: https://www.youtube.com/
watch?v=cK6U6oymLAQ.
•• After you have watched the interview, write a six-line paragraph on Ngwane’s
views on the failures of government with regard to services and welfare.

Abahlali baseMjondolo (AbM) is a shack-dwellers’ movement that originated in

Durban. The context of its rise is partly the massive housing backlog that has resulted
in vast informal settlements, as well as policy aimed at the elimination of informal
settlements. For example, in 2007 the province of KwaZulu-Natal adopted a Slums Act
“aiming at preventing and eradicating shack settlements” (Etzo 2010:573). The effect
of such legislation is that “it tends to criminalize informal settlements by compelling
municipalities and private landlords to take action against illegal occupants” (Etzo
2010:573). The AbM challenged this legislation is court. With a membership of some
8 000, it also engages in other strategies such as organising protests and resisting
evictions (Etzo 2010:576). The AbM focuses on issues concerning democracy and
rights to highlight the exclusion and co-option of the voices of the poor. Like the
SECC, the AbM does not see local government as legitimate. Its view of democracy
is what Zikode (the AbM’s leader) calls a “living force that recognizes the humanity
of the poor, and is inclusive”. Accordingly, development consisting of those daily

DVA2602/121


activities aimed at putting in practice policies or programmes should be “brought

back to the community” (Etzo 2010:575).

LEARNING ACTIVITY 2.5

•• Go to the website of Abahlali baseMjondolo at www.abahlali.org.
•• After you have viewed the website, list four features of the AbM that are in line with
radical community development.

The SECC practices economic socialism in the form of free electricity as part of its
politics, while the AbM has a form of socialist politics characterised by an insistence
on the direct voice of the marginalised. At the same time, these social movements
are not entirely revolutionary in that they claim the postapartheid ANC government
is being unfaithful to its original liberatory purpose. In addition, both movements
have become uncomfortably entangled in negotiations with government.

Nevertheless, both these movements can be seen as a form of radical community

development resulting from the direct failure of government in respect of particular
issues.

LEARNING ACTIVITY 2.6

•• Read the article by Etzo (2010) entitled “ ‘The unfinished business of revolution’:
struggles for services and accountability in South African cities”.
•• List three factors that gave rise to the Soweto Electricity Crisis Committee.
•• List three factors that gave rise to Abahlali baseMjondolo.
•• In a few sentences, discuss what benefits these radical movements have
brought about for the communities they work in.
•• Is there a way that government can work with these radical oppositional
movements? Give a brief answer.

SECTION 2.4 COMMUNITY DEVELOPMENT FROM BELOW

The concept of development from below means different things to different people
at different times. For the purposes of this module, we use the concept to mean
development initiated by the people who are directly affected by a development
intervention. This means that the impetus (stimulus) for a development intervention
not only takes account of the needs of the local community but also builds on
the resources (assets) of the local community, taking full cognisance of the local
environment and the local community’s culture and aspirations. Therefore, in this
instance, a development intervention is not imposed from outside. Development from
below is people centred to enhance community empowerment, community capacity
building, communities’ participation and the use of indigenous knowledge and local
(grass-roots) development agencies. In this vision, decisions about development goals
and objectives and the means to achieve these goals and objectives are made by the
people, and development outcomes must be sustainable, that is to say, ecologically
sound, cost-effective and under local control. Therefore, the goals of development
from below are modest and achievable. Further principles of development from
below are integrating economic and social change, dealing with the root causes
of communities’ problems rather than treating the symptoms and promoting

22
 UNIT 2: Community development practice

decentralised, participatory decision-making that is iterative and adaptive to changing

contexts and processes.

The concept of development from below is a direct response to development from

above or what has been termed “top-down” or “trickle-down” development. Top-
down development has been associated with governments, international development
agencies and multilateral organisations such as UN agencies, the World Bank and
transnational corporations. Top-down development intervention usually consists
of large-scale projects such as the construction of dams, agricultural development
projects and infrastructure development projects such as the construction of roads,
housing schemes and urban redevelopment projects. Policy decisions for these
projects are usually taken by the sponsor organisations with little active engagement of
local communities apart from consultation with selected community leaders. In cases
where such projects are considered to be of national importance, local communities
may be relocated to create space for the projects. Top-down projects expropriate
resources and profits from local communities and accumulate capital and power at
the top to benefit a national and international elite. The philosophy underpinning
development from below is that development intervention must recognise the capacity
of communities to be autonomous, self-reliant and self-determining.

The design and implementation of a community-centred development intervention

must therefore start with the people at the roots of the community, that is to say,
the families and the groups that would be directly affected by the development.

2.4.1 How is development from below accomplished?

Development from below is primarily accomplished through small-scale community-
focused development programmes that seek to transform the socio-economic, political
and physical/ecological environment of communities. It focuses not only on income/
employment generation/security but also on political mobilisation (Friedmann
1988). Development programmes consist of small to medium collective enterprises
operated on the basis of broad-based decision-making with a strong agenda of political
conscientisation. The cooperative/collaborative approach enables the development of
collective consciousness and the building of bonds of solidarity among community
members. Community empowerment comes through enhanced self-awareness, self-
worth and self-confidence.

LEARNING ACTIVITY 2.7

•• Read the following article: Nel, E, Hill, T & Binns, T. 1997. Development from
below in the “new” South Africa: the case of Hertzog, Eastern Cape. The
Geographical Journal 163(1):57–64.
•• Identify aspects of the community’s socio-economic, political and physical/
ecological environment that were transformed and how the community became
empowered.
•• List some of the challenges with which the community was confronted in
developing from below as identified in this article.
•• This article was written in the 1990s shortly after the demise of apartheid in
South Africa and in the time of great enthusiasm about the RDP. State in two
paragraphs whether this sort of project could succeed today in your locality.

DVA2602/123


2.5 CONCLUSION
Well done on having completed the second phase of your learning. Now that you
are aware of the meaning of, and varied approaches to, the practice of community
development, you are in a better position to proceed to unit 3. Unit 3 will take you
through the skills required for community development practice.

24
 3 UNIT 3
3 ISSUES IN COMMUNITY
DEVELOPMENT

LEARNING OUTCOMES
On completion of this unit and after you have done the required reading and completed
the set activities, you should be able to

•• demonstrate a critical understanding of the skills required for community

development practice
•• develop a capacity for critical judgement to fit skills to specific contexts

3.1 INTRODUCTION
Community development work requires practitioners to have certain skills and
knowledge, including a critical understanding of governance and management,
fundraising, financial and people management, change management, organisational
analysis, and the theory and practice of group facilitation. Furthermore, community
development work demands a critical understanding of public policy and social
theories relating to poverty, social inclusion and sociocultural and environmental
sustainability, and community research methodologies, including social analysis,
policy analysis and development. Other key skills include effective communication,
writing and presentation, the capacity to engage with people, conflict management
and conflict resolution, critical self-reflection, strategic planning, and monitoring
and evaluation.

The diversity of skills demands that community development practitioners undergo

ongoing professional development not only to acquire skills but also to remain
current with emerging theories and practices.

In this unit we focus on three key themes that underpin the significant amount
of work undertaken by community development practitioners, irrespective of the
organisations, institutions, agencies and communities for whom and with whom
they work. Section 3.2 examines community mobilisation, which is one of the
fundamental starting points for participatory development. Section 3.3 discusses
ethics as it pertains to critical judgement in community development. Section 3.4
revisits the question of participation.

SECTION 3.2 COMMUNITY MOBILISATION

Community mobilisation is the process of identifying and bringing together the
skills, abilities, talents and experiences within a community to deal with development
challenges of that community. The underpinning premise of community mobilisation
is the active and effective engagement of members of a community in sustainable
socio-economic, cultural and political transformation. Mobilisation is not merely
about consulting a community.

DVA2602/125
 Community mobilisation is a systematic process of engaging a community in
defining its development issues, identifying and mapping resources and engaging
key stakeholders and leadership to develop and implement plans and programmes to
handle those issues. Community mobilisation is a long-term process that requires a
significant investment of time and resources to build relationships. It is a challenging
process because it cannot be prescriptive, but when it is undertaken systematically
it provides an excellent instrument for pooling information and knowledge on
the development dynamics in a community. It is one of the most effective ways of
ensuring community ownership of the development process.

As with all strategies of community development intervention, community mobilisation

must be situated within the cultural context of communities, taking full cognisance
of the historical experiences of communities, including histories of oppression,
marginalisation, exploitation and disconnection from institutions of government
and political and economic power.

Some people strongly believe that community mobilisation is central to bringing

people together to identify their strengths/assets and to work together to find
solutions to their development issues. A radical or bottom-up approach to community
mobilisation is predicated on the premise that individuals, groups and communities
need both the opportunity to engage in meaningful decision-making and the capacity
to choose alternative strategies and actions for community change and transformation.

Community mobilisation may be represented as a flow chart consisting of six stages:

The stages in the community mobilisation flow diagram are described in more detail
in the following sections.

The key tasks/stages in community mobilisation are as follows:

• Making contact with the community

Community development workers outside a community must make first/initial
contact with the community, create contacts and find their way in the community.
This often involves identifying the appropriate contact persons in the community
such as community leaders, co-workers and opinion leaders/shapers. Community

26
 UNIT 3: Issues in community development

development practitioners must exercise critical judgement and realise that these are
only initial contacts that will be built on as the practitioners become more established
in the community.

Community development practitioners must work transparently and avoid being

captured by select groups and interests in communities. They must recognise that
every leadership group has its interests but the purpose of community mobilisation
is to bring a community with diverse interests together to develop a shared vision
through dialogue.

•• Building relationships
During this stage, community development practitioners investigate, analyse and
develop an understanding of the community, its people, its institutions, its resources
and its aspirations. This exercise is undertaken over many months of studious
work to build trusting and respectful relationships with a range of stakeholders
in the community. Community development practitioners have to hold a series of
meetings with individuals and groups to engage the initial contacts made in stage one,
to bring them together and to penetrate the community. Such groups and individuals
may include community networks such as clubs and associations, businesses and
business groups, schools and religious groups, governmental institutions, traditional
authorities, political parties, women and youth groups, sports teams and significant
individuals.

Depending on the nature of the community and the issues involved, this stage may
also involve the use of media such as radio, television, newspapers, billboards or
pamphlets to inform people and to debate issues. Please note that there are challenges
associated with the use of media.

•• Working with different groups and interests

Part of the process of community mobilisation involves working with diverse groups
in a community to reach common ground on a number of issues. This involves
dealing with conflict between different interest groups, dealing with resistance and
creating a cooperative environment to deal with limited resources and supremacy
of ideas. Bringing individuals and groups together for a dialogue is not an easy task.
Some of the strategies outlined in stage two are also useful in this stage. Encouraging
open communication that focuses on shared values, interests and goals and having
respect for differences of opinion are central to building consensus.

•• Negotiation and consensus building

The role of community development practitioners is to bring individuals and groups
in a community together to help build trust across the community. To this end,
there must be mutual trust between individuals and groups in the community and
the community development practitioners. Trust is earned and cannot be taken for
granted. Being a professional does not automatically make a community development
practitioner trustworthy. Transparency, openness and accountability on the part of
a practitioner will engender reciprocity from other people. A practitioner should be
seen as a bridge-builder who seeks consensus and does not take sides.

Building trust between individuals and groups in communities requires effective

facilitation and involves encouraging individuals and groups to transcend their
differences and to build consensus on common values through participatory decision-
making processes. At this point, negotiations to arrive at agreed community objectives
and activities will include prioritising and sequencing activities so that people

DVA2602/127


with diverse interests feel their needs and aspirations have been incorporated in
the community action plan. This ensures the broadest possible acceptance and
ownership of the community action plan and motivation for collective action.

•• Motivating collective action

This stage of community mobilisation involves motivating members of the community
to implement the range of activities developed in the preceding four stages and
maintaining high energy levels to enable them to achieve set development goals. To
ensure the continued active participation of all stakeholders, the activities should
be sequenced so that there is evidence of achieved outcomes across the community.
SMART objectives developed in stages three and four are central to attaining this
goal. The acronym SMART stands for specific, measurable, achievable, realistic
and time bound. SMART objectives should always be assisted by activities that
range from small actions with quick results to more complex actions requiring longer
time frames.

•• Monitoring and evaluation

Although this stage is placed last in the cycle/flow diagram, it is both part of each of
the other stages and stands on its own. At every stage in the community mobilisation
process, as in every form of community development intervention, it is important
to check whether what is being done meets set objectives, is timely and is on budget
and whether stakeholders’ feedback is sought and everyone involved critically reflects
on the activities undertaken. Monitoring should comprise critical reflection on and
the documentation of answers to such questions as: Are we doing what we agreed
to do? What is the evidence of success? What issues do we have? What should/
could we do differently? This must be an ongoing process and not just a one-off
activity. Answers to these questions should be discussed with the management and
governance committees if such committees exist. If any of the activities are funded
be external bodies, the submission of regular monitoring reports should form part
of the accountability process.
An “end-point evaluation” involves going over the entire community mobilisation
process and assessing the collective effort of the community’s achievements, what
worked and did not work and why, what could have been done differently, what
remains to be done, what the next steps are and a future vision and aspirations.
The task of mobilising communities requires sets of both behavioural and technical
skills.

Behavioural skills:

•• Critical self-awareness, that is, the capacity to constantly challenge one’s

assumptions, opinions and beliefs about people, ideas and situations
•• A non-judgemental attitude
•• Unconditional acceptance of other people’s perspectives, recognising that there
are no universal truths
•• Trusting others and being trustworthy
Technical skills:

•• Effective communication
•• Active listening (staying calm and quiet and focusing on what the other person is
saying rather than trying to develop a counterargument while he/she is speaking)
•• Group facilitation

28
 UNIT 3: Issues in community development

•• Advocacy and lobbying

•• Project management
•• Keeping track of documents, and being aware of and keeping appointments
The issues/stages and skills discussed above constitute a general and rather ideal
picture of mobilising a community. How does this picture translate into the realities
of our current world? One account of mobilisation in a troubled context is provided
by Von Holdt in his description of mobilisation against xenophobia in a semiformal
settlement in Gauteng, South Africa. This settlement is characterised by a poor
and black population, distance from town, desperation, lawlessness, widespread
criminality, sharp conflicts between South Africans and foreigners, and anger and
despair at the failure of government and the police to provide residents with a decent
and peaceful life. At the same time, some residents see value in foreigners and, at
times, there is reasonable respect for the rule of law. Following bitter xenophobic
violence, the ANC branch, together with the Community Policing Forum and the
South African National Civics Association, mobilised some citizens and foreigners to
participate in an antixenophobia campaign, resulting in fragile but significant peace.

The type of community mobilisation discussed by Von Holdt is particular and

issue based and occurs among residents who have deep divisions and little faith in
government. It could be argued that many, even most, contexts in which community
mobilisation is attempted will display a similar degree of conflict and mistrust. Conflict
and mistrust greatly influence what sort of mobilisation can be attempted and towards
what purpose.. Every conflict occurs within a specific context shaped by a particular
history and politics, and that determines which kind of mobilisation will take place.
At the same time, if we keep the ideal of a flourishing and convivial community that
is organised in a practical and integrated way, there is a large task that lies ahead.

LEARNING ACTIVITY 3.1

•• Copy the flow diagram that summarises the stages of community mobilisation
in the study guide.
•• Use a case study of a community you are familiar with to complete the details
in the flow diagram.
•• List some of the challenges you may face in each stage of the process.

LEARNING ACTIVITY 3.2

•• Read Von Holdt’s (2011) article about an informal settlement and mobilisation
against xenophobia.
•• Briefly describe how mobilisation against xenophobia was accomplished.
•• List four ways in which this process of mobilisation followed the stages
of community mobilisation and required the skills discussed above.
•• List three ways in which this process in a troubled context clearly differs from
the stages and skills discussed above.
•• Write a short paragraph on issues relating to mobilisation in a residential area
that you know.

DVA2602/129


SECTION 3.3 VALUES AND ETHICS IN COMMUNITY DEVELOPMENT

“Poverty eradication without empowerment is unsustainable. Social integration
without minority rights is unimaginable. Gender equality without women’s rights is
illusory. Full employment without workers’ rights may be no more than a promise
of sweatshops, exploitation and slavery. The logic of human rights in development
is inescapable” (Robinson 2002). (Mary Robinson was President of the Republic
of Ireland from 1990 to 1997 and United Nations High Commissioner for Human
Rights from 1997 to 2002.)

Values are sets of principles that define what an individual, a group, a community or
a society holds to be important and or desirable. They are the goals that individuals
and communities aspire to, that are the source of their inspiration and that define
their identity. Values may be expressed through an individual, a group or a society’s
moral and or ethical philosophy and how it guides or qualifies individual conduct
or interactions among members of the group or the community, and how and what
decisions are made for the group or the community. At the organisational level, the
values that an organisation has are usually an expression of the collective values of
members that have evolved and developed within the organisation over time (Chile
2009:31).

Ethics, on the other hand, may be defined as a set of principles that governs individual
and group behaviour, interactions and relationships. Ethics usually relates to what
is considered appropriate behaviour and the nature of obligations that individuals
and groups owe themselves and one another in a particular cultural (or professional)
context. The purpose of ethics is primarily to ensure that individual and group
behaviour respects the interests and fundamental rights of individuals and serves
the overall good of a community and society (Chile 2009:33).

There is only a fine line between values and ethics because, in most cases, values
define what may or may not be ethical. In community development practice, ethics
may relate to how practitioners treat information, finances, relationships with clients
and communities and conflicts of interest.

There are different levels of values. Personal values are the personal qualities that
we consider as the driving forces or motivations for our being. They represent what
we consider to be of highest worth or priority for our life’s purpose. Personal values
evolve over time through socialisation by family, education and society’s cultural
norms and practices that help define what we consider “right” or “wrong”, “good”
or “bad”.

Professional values are the principles that guide people’s decisions and actions as
professionals. These values constitute the foundation that informs the work of
professional groups and seeks to enhance professional standards and to provide
guidelines for practice and relationship with clients and the general public. Professional
values for most professional groups are provided in codes of professional ethics,
which are set in a framework of ethical practice.

A third group or level of values is organisational values. These values are the underlying
principles that guide the business, the operations and the practices of organisations.
For most organisations, these values are encapsulated in a vision, a mission statement
and organisational principles that guide relationships and interactions among staff,
management, governance and relationships with the general public.

30
 UNIT 3: Issues in community development

These different values may come into conflict with one another. This kind of
conflict can occur in community development work when practitioners’ personal
values conflict with professional and/or organisational values. Dealing with a
conflict of values requires critical self-awareness from a community development
worker. Every community development worker comes to the job with his/her
own context, that is, experience, gender, family background, values, education and
culture, among other things. Context affects practice both explicitly (consciously)
and tacitly (unconsciously). Critical self-awareness enables a practitioner to focus on
a community’s agenda rather than his/her own agenda, to work with a community
rather than “for” a community, to achieve community outcomes rather than personal
or professional outputs and to develop inclusive processes with communities rather
than inviting communities to participate.

3.3.1 Ethical issues that inform community development practice

Ife argues that community development, by its nature, cannot be a technical activity
free of values. The very act of community development work implies certain values,
such as that of community itself, and the values of democracy, participation and
self-determination (Ife 2002b:269–270).

Community development practice must be underpinned by core values that are

consistent with certain principles. The central tenets of these principles are collective
action, participation, empowerment, conscientisation and social justice. Professional
values for community development set a framework for what is expected of community
development practitioners to ensure they work ethically and fulfil their obligations
to clients, communities and society.

Many countries, including South Africa, do not have national associations that govern
the practice of community development. There are currently processes underway to
“professionalise” community development in South Africa, which include instituting
professional qualifications at a degree level and creating a national professional
association and codes of practice (refer to De Beer & Swanepoel 2013; Hart 2012;
Luka & Maistry 2012). The purpose of setting up such professional associations
and developing professional standards and codes of ethical practice is to protect
practitioners and clients alike. The ethical base of community development practice
is especially important because the greater part of community development practice
is undertaken with vulnerable groups and communities, and ethical guidelines help
to mediate where the background and personal values of practitioners may conflict
with communities’ values and principles of community development (Chile 2012).

Community development seeks to build the capacity of individuals, groups

and communities by enabling them to develop their knowledge, skills and confidence
to critically analyse their circumstances, to develop plans and to initiate activities to
deal with community issues through collective action. However, there is a potential
conflict of values as the community development process takes shape and community
development practitioners and organisations face resource and time constraints
and contesting interests. For example, there may be tension between building the
capacities of local communities and achieving organisational programme objectives
to deliver services; tension between democratic participation, inclusion and collective
action and delivery of services in a timely and efficient manner; and tension between
independent political activism for social change, on the one hand, and constructive
engagement with government and corporations to access resources for communities,
on the other.

DVA2602/131


One of the key challenges of community development practice is how to work through
these dilemmas and tensions. Professional codes of conduct that clearly articulate
the value base and framework for handling ethical conflicts and dilemmas help
individual professionals and employer organisations to better manage these tensions.

Critical values and principles that underpin community development (Chile 2009;
Swanepoel & De Beer 2011) are as follows:

•• Individuals and communities must be empowered to be active participants in

their own transformation. Community development should be a democratic
process and not a tyranny of the majority. All voices must be heard and considered,
and minority rights must be protected.
•• Partnerships and meaningful and respectful relationships must be developed
with communities. Development should not be imposed by external “experts”.
There is much wisdom in communities that allows them to take on their issues.
•• The internal potential of communities must be valued. Communities’ internal
resources such as local institutions, organisations, networks and leadership are
critical assets that must be mobilised and integrated with external resources for
sustainable development.
•• The diversities within communities must be recognised, embraced and respected.
•• There must be a commitment to the promotion of human rights, equity, social
inclusion and social justice.
•• The development of civil society must be fostered, and individual and community
capabilities must be developed and strengthened.
•• The focus of community development must be on a collective response rather
than an ad hoc response to individual crises, albeit recognising that social
transformation starts with individual transformation.
•• The outcomes of community development must be transformative rather than
conformist, empowering rather than controlling.
•• Community development is not a quick fix that can be achieved within
short time frames. It requires a long-term perspective to deal with deeply
rooted inequalities and disadvantages in communities, recognising that it takes
varying lengths of time to achieve tangible sustainable outcomes, depending on
the communities involved.

These values are open to discussion – perhaps they are the values of a humane
and humanist version of “development as usual” and suggest a fairly peaceful and
defined community. Perhaps it is necessary for values to be rethought for every context.

The priority of community development might be to stop violence and to slowly

engender an ethic of peace and coexistence. The inclusion of women and the
eradication of patriarchal patterns are generative themes in some cases. Further, some
contexts require more urgent and politically challenging values. We will consider
this aspect in a later section.

LEARNING ACTIVITY 3.3

•• While there was no official community development association in South
Africa as at the start of 2014, concerted efforts have been made to develop a
unified body that represents community development professionals across the
country. This body, once it has been established, will lay down principles that
govern the practice of community development. South Africa currently has A

32
 UNIT 3: Issues in community development

handbook for community development workers, which contains key ideas on

the role of community development in South Africa.
•• Locate this document in the e-reserves for this module.
•• Read the document carefully and then answer the following questions:
(a) What is the key purpose of community development?
(b) What specific experiences in South Africa guided the development of
the principles of community development in South Africa?

3.3.2 Human rights

There is increasing recognition that the integration of the principles of human
rights and social justice in all development interventions is central to sustainable
development. At the start of this module we invited you to conceptualise community
development as inclusive of access to social justice, human rights, freedoms, reduction
of socio-economic inequalities, enhancement of personal and community security,
and human well-being and dignity. This approach is termed the human rights-based
approach to development, and it is central to the empowerment of individuals, groups
and communities as rightsholders to ensure they know and claim their rights to
development, and for governments and institutions as duty bearers to ensure they
meet their obligations.

Community development practitioners need a critical understanding of the complex

linkages between fundamental human rights and development outcomes. At the
basic level there are human rights that define human survival and dignified living
such as the right to life and liberty and the right to a standard of living adequate for
the sustainable physical and mental health of individuals and their families. At the
higher level there are human rights and freedoms necessary for human creativity
and intellectual and spiritual development and human rights that guarantee personal
and community security, social inclusion and self-determination.

The concept of human rights in community development has two sides. On the one
side, the UN Declaration on the Right to Development suggests that all persons,
groups and communities have the right to be supported and given adequate resources
to enable them to reach their full potential. The other side of the coin is that the
development process must respect the rights of individuals, groups and communities
whose lives are affected by a development intervention. This relates to the right to be
actively involved in decision-making processes, including the right to reject, refuse
or choose different forms of intervention.

Human rights have implications for development work with communities, such as
indigenous communities, people with disabilities and other groups, who choose to
follow different pathways to those presented by development agencies and institutions,
and for development interventions, such as large-scale developments of dams, mines
and oil drilling that have an impact on the physical environment and the cultural
heritage and traditional and social structures of communities who are displaced by
such development projects.

DVA2602/133


3.3.3 Ethics of liberation

If we carry the values of critical theory and the Freirean approach to praxis into
this discussion, we engage with the “ethics of liberation”. An important exponent
of this approach is the decolonial theorist Dussel. Dussel (2006) states, among other
things, that

•• values often are Eurocentric

•• ethics should be concerned with “the production, reproduction and development
of the life of the community, of human beings” (Dussel 2006:500)
•• “[a]ll ethical actions … imply the reciprocal acknowledgment of all the members
of a communicative group” (Dussel 2006:502)
•• “[t]he existence of victims makes the need to transform society, its institutions
and forms of organization, an ethical obligation” (Dussel 2006:503)
•• we must recognise the “impossibility of victims taking action until they recognize
their own condition” (Dussel 2006:503)
•• “[a]ny form of ethics must look, as a matter of urgency, at the liberation of the
victims whose lives have been plundered and limited” (Dussel 2006:504)
•• “[w]e are living a time of confrontation between [a] Eurocentric world, exclusive
and violent, and the possibility of a different modernity” (Dussel 2006:505)

If we apply this perspective of Dussel to community development, ethical

considerations start with a partisan focus on the life and welfare of the victims
of racialised modernity – the displaced, overwhelmingly black, propertyless and
dishonoured residents of the poorer areas where community development may be
attempted. Dussel also exhorts us to work out new, non-colonial, inclusive ways
of being modern and using suppressed cultural resources. This should take place
through people’s full participation, inclusion and reciprocity.

LEARNING ACTIVITY 3.4

The Irish Community Workers’ Cooperative developed what it terms standards of
quality for community development work.

•• Read this document, noting especially the “values and principles” on pages
22–26.
•• Summarise what each of these values means in practice.
•• Test all these values against your own practice, noting the challenges they
present to community development practitioners and employer organisations.
If you are not in community development practice, then find someone who
is a community development practitioner and interview him/her to help you
evaluate his/her practice against these values, and the challenges these values
present to him/her and his/her organisation.

34
 UNIT 3: Issues in community development

Community Measured against own Challenges these values

development practice present to practice and
values organisation

Collective action

Empowerment

Social justice

Equality and
antidiscrimination

Participation

LEARNING ACTIVITY 3.5

•• Read Dussel’s article in your reader.
•• Write a paragraph on how Dussel’s values could improve how we think
about community development.
•• List two groups in your country who might take these values forward.
•• Write a short paragraph on how easy or difficult it would be to spread such
values in social groups and settlements in your country.

SECTION 3.4 COMMUNITY PARTICIPATION

Community participation comes about by actively engaging members of communities
in decision-making about development interventions that affect them. Community
participation is not an uncontested concept in community development. Participation
can range from, on the one end of the spectrum, tokenism, where basic information
is given to selected “community leaders” as a form of manipulation to legitimise
decisions already made by sponsoring agencies such as governmental institutions,
non-governmental organisations (NGOs) and corporations to, on the other end,
genuine community self-mobilisation for political resistance and/or economic self-
actualisation. These extreme ends of participation have led to a further challenge:
participation may be perceived as “good/welcome” or “bad/unwelcome” (McClymont
& O’Hare 2008). Another area of contestation is instances where development
institutions, agencies and organisations situate themselves as “community change
agents” and initiate, plan and implement development interventions, but the entire
process is managed by professional experts, even where such interventions purport
to empower communities. In some cases where communities are consulted directly
or through their leaders, the role of development experts is privileged over that
of communities.

Our discussion of community participation in this section focuses on what we refer to as

participatory community action planning. This is a community development approach
that mobilises individuals, groups and communities to achieve sustainable community
change and transformation through collaborative and coordinated efforts of all key
stakeholders in communities. Participatory community action planning draws from at
least two of the theories we have already touched on in this module, namely, community
development as social planning and asset-based community development. It adopts

DVA2602/135


two key principles from planning, namely, comprehensive planning and strategic
planning combined with community mapping to bring community members together
in a learning process to

•• create a common understanding of their community

•• build collaborations among themselves
•• develop leadership
•• identify strengths, resources and opportunities for social change in the community
As a community learning process, participatory community action planning can
also be a tool for historical analysis of communities by making links between past
experiences, current situations and future aspirations. The community mapping
process identifies the risk factors that may impede community change. Working
collaboratively across lines of differences to develop a common vision and to prioritise
activities gives communities ownership of the development process and its outcomes.

Assumptions and tensions that underlie the concept of community participation

are as follows:

•• Participation is a privilege bestowed by the powers that be and can be withdrawn

by those who give such privileges.
•• Participation is a human right embedded in the right to development and the
right to self-determination.
•• Participation is a form of self-expression, and freedom of expression is part
of community members’ right to be heard.
•• Participation demands compliance and conformity.
•• Decision-making processes are open and democratic, and people’s participation
is accepted.
•• There are degrees of openness in decision-making processes, and different groups
have different degrees of access to decision-making processes.
Some of these assumptions contradict one another and, in many cases, community
development practitioners may not appreciate these contradictions. It is important
that practitioners critically reflect on these assumptions when they embark on their
everyday engagement with communities.

LEARNING ACTIVITY 3.6

The following activities require you to critically reflect on the documents you had
to read when you worked through section 3.3. Reread each of these documents
before you attempt to complete the activities.

•• In a short paragraph, discuss how participation can overcome barriers of class,

group and status.
•• Provide five reasons why people may not participate in community development
initiatives.

3.5 CONCLUSION
Well done on having reached this point. Now that you have an understanding of the
particular skills required for community development practice, we can proceed to
unit 4 where you will be introduced to various sustainable development approaches
to community development.

36
 4 UNIT 4
4 SUSTAINABLE APPROACHES TO
COMMUNTY DEVELOPMENT

LEARNING OUTCOMES
On completion of this unit and after you have done the required reading and completed
the set activities, you should be able to

•• demonstrate a critical understanding of the concept of sustainable development

•• outline the aims of integrated community development and asset-based community
development
•• identify the principles that underly integrated community development and asset-
based community development
•• discuss whether the approaches of integrated community development and asset-
based community development can promote sustainable community development

4.1 INTRODUCTION
Sustainable community development relates to the long-term sustainability of the
outcomes of community change and transformation. To obtain long-term sustainable
outcomes, community development adopts a series of conscious, planned methods
(strategies) to mobilise individuals, groups and communities to create a platform for
identifying, understanding and handling community issues. The strategic approach
consists of identifying what communities (individuals and groups) want to see
changed in the future, the difference that any set of actions will make in the lives
of individuals, families and groups in communities, and the opportunities and
resources available inside (internal) and outside (external) communities to help
achieve desired changes in the lives of individuals and groups.

The underpinning objective of sustainable community development is to enhance

popular participation that enables local people to make the most of their own
social, cultural, economic and environmental resources rather than depending
on external input. Sustainable community development for social change and
transformation is, therefore, the process of bringing about and maintaining adjustments
between communities’ socio-economic welfare, resources and ecological sustainability.
Unlike sustainable development, which in its original meaning referred to the physical
environmental context, sustainable community development encompasses more
than a physical environmental focus. Community development is a deliberate and
sustained attempt to empower individuals, groups and communities to enhance their
well-being through collective, participatory and collaborative processes. It involves
more than completing specific projects; instead, it is a vehicle for community change
and transformation.

In this unit we focus on community development approaches that seek to create long-
term, long-lasting outcomes. Such approaches build on the strengths and the assets
of communities and take a more holistic perspective compared with “single-sector”

DVA2602/137


approaches. These approaches have been described as, among other things, asset-
based community development, strengths-based development, participatory action
planning, integrated community development and holistic community development.

This unit consists of three sections. Section 4.2 invites you to critically reflect on the
concepts of sustainability and sustainable development. Section 4.3 discusses asset-
based community development and includes a discussion of “social capital” as a form
of community asset. Section 4.4 introduces the complex theme of integrated community
development. It has been argued in the literature that these two approaches provide
some of the best possible outcomes of sustainable community development. You are
invited to consider whether the aims of sustainability are likely to be dealt with through
either asset-based community development or integrated community development.

SECTION 4.2 UNDERSTANDING THE CONCEPT OF SUSTAINABLE

COMMUNITY DEVELOPMENT
The concepts “sustainability” and “sustainable development” are contested
in community development and development discourse. However, most discussions on
sustainable development cite the Report of the World Commission on Environment
and Development, popularly referred to as the Brundtland Report (1987), which
defines sustainable development as “development that meets the needs of the present
without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs”
(United Nations 1987:43).

There are two central points in this definition of sustainable development. The
first is the issue of intergenerational equity. The second is the concept of needs and
the limitations placed on socio-economic, political and technological activities that
adversely affect the environment’s capacity to meet the needs of present and future
generations. These limitations are relevant at the global, national and local community
levels. While the popular understanding of “environment” usually relates to the
natural environment, it is important to understand that the concept of environment
from a more ecological perspective encompasses the entire human ecology, including
the physical environment (land, water, air and all resources therein), the social
environment (technology, knowledge, health and all those assets created through the
application of human knowledge), the cultural environment (values, built habitats,
urban infrastructure, housing, architecture, agriculture/farming systems and the
arts/music) and the entire context that supports human well-being. Discourses on
sustainable community development must be critical of who determines what is
sustainable and how to attain sustainability so that decision-making on sustainability
is not externally imposed, which would constitute a resort to imperialistic imposition.

LEARNING ACTIVITY 4.1

•• Click on the following link and study the brief entitled “The concept of sustainable
development: definition and defining principles” by Rachel Emas: https://
sustainabledevelopment.un.org/content/documents/5839GSDR%202015_SD_
concept_definiton_rev.pdf.
•• Click on the following link and watch the YouTube video entitled “Understanding
the dimensions of sustainable development”: https://www.youtube.com/
watch?v=pgNLonYOc9s.
•• Open the link below and study the article on the dimensions of sustainable
development by Remigijus Ciegis, Jolita Ramanauskiene and Bronislovas

38
 UNIT 4: Sustainable approaches to communty development

Martinkus: https://www.researchgate.net/publication/228639830_The_Concept_
of_Sustainable_ Development_and_its_Use_for_Sustainability_Scenarios.

You should by now be familiar with the concept of sustainable development and be
able to identify the dimensions and the principles that underly sustainable devel-
opment. Take special notice of the concept of the indigenous view of sustainable
development and the need for a systemic analysis of the dimensions.

As far as transformative community development outcomes are concerned, we

also need to be critical of the sustainability of the impacts of intervention and the
sustainability of the processes of intervention. For example, the design of community
development interventions aimed at creating employment and generating income must
demonstrate not only ecological sustainability but also the long-term sustainability
of the number and the quality of jobs and the capacity of the programmes to deliver
sustainable wages/income in the long term.

LEARNING ACTIVITY 4.2

•• Open the following link to get an idea of the meaning of sustainable community
development: https://www.sfu.ca/sustainabledevelopment/about-us/what-is-
sustainable-community-development.html.html.
•• Click on the following link and study “Chapter 5: sustainable community
development”. Make sure that you understand the dimensions and the
challenges of sustainable community development: https://dspace.nwu.
ac.za/bitstream/handle/10394/9539/ Van_Schalkwyk _ BB_Chapter_5.
pdf?sequence=6&isAllowed=y.
•• Study the following article in the e-reserves: Hamstead, MP & Quinn, MS. 2007.
Sustainable community development and ecological economics: theoretical
convergence and practical implications. Local Environment. The International
Journal of Justice and Sustainability 10(2):141–158.
•• Click on the following link and focus on the concept of ecological economics:
https://barnabythinks.com/2017/08/06/environmental-economics-vs-ecological-
economics/.
•• Define the concept of sustainable community development.
•• Explain the dimensions and the principles of sustainable development.
•• Describe the challenges in realising sustainable community development.
•• Explain your understanding of the concepts “economics of sustainability” and
“ecological economics”.
•• Give your opinion about the importance of the sustainability of resources in
sustainable community development. Substantiate your argument.

SECTION 4.3 ASSET-BASED COMMUNITY DEVELOPMENT

The theory of asset-based community development (ABCD) is usually associated with
Kretzmann and McKnight (1993). The central thesis of the theory is that community
development should begin from a position of what a community has (strengths,
assets or resources) rather than what it lacks (deficits, needs or problems). This theory
represents a radical shift in community development thinking in that community
development work traditionally started with the identification of communities’
problems through needs assessment. The ABCD approach derives from the
philosophical position that we will find what we look for in a community. If we go

DVA2602/139


looking for problems, we will find them aplenty, but if we believe that communities
thrive, then we will find assets, strengths and resources to build on.

Development theory seeks to transform the culture of development communication

from one that focuses on a negative construction of individuals and communities
to one that speaks to their strengths and capacities to promote positive change by
focusing on peak experience and successes. It draws from appreciative enquiry theory,
which recognises that people’s reality is socially constructed and the language people
use to describe themselves and their communities becomes a vehicle for reinforcing
meaning and constructing and attributing reality. Communities defined by their
deficits internalise deficiency while those defined by their assets, strengths and
resources will see these as starting points for their development and transformation.

Sustainable community development is predicated on understanding a community,

identifying strengths, mapping potentials and resources and defining community
issues from the community’s perspective. This process consists of a series of activities
that may be termed community analysis, which is aimed at identifying and gaining
an understanding of the community, its history, resources and aspirations, and
key stakeholders of development in the community with a view to mobilising
the community to develop a vision, goals, objectives and development activities.
The central purpose of community analysis is to facilitate a process of community
learning to build stakeholders’ insight and confidence in the community’s capacity to
effect change and to transformation through collective action. This process involves
identifying local assets that form the building blocks of sustainable community
development.

LEARNING ACTIVITY 4.3

•• Open the following link and watch the video on ABCD. Identify the point of
departure of the ABCD approach, the aims of ABCD and the importance
of community analysis. This activity will help you to do the assignment
on sustainable community development: https://www.youtube.com/
watch?v=_muFMCLebZ4.
•• To gain an understanding of the approach and practice of ABCD, click on the
following link: https://www.nurturedevelopment.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/01/
From-Needs-to-Assets-Charting-a-Sustainable-path-towards-Development-in-
Sub-Saharan-African-Countries.pdf.
Do you think that ABCD is an alternative to the needs-based approach to
addressing community needs? Give reasons for your answer.

Asset-based community development recognises that communities have knowledge,

wisdom and expertise that are as important as “universal knowledge” and that
recognising and using communities’ knowledge empower them towards self-
determination. Local knowledge is critical in the management of local resources and
development interventions based on ecological principles. Community mobilisation
and collaboration between local associations, institutions and community leadership
lead to the creation of social capital, thereby privileging and validating local voices
and enhancing participation, community engagement and community ownership.

40
 UNIT 4: Sustainable approaches to communty development

LEARNING ACTIVITY 4.4

•• Open the following link and watch the video on ABCD in the Philippines. Take
note of how asset mapping was used to identify the assets of the community:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QCS7gg4uPD0.

4.3.1 The question of social capital as a community asset

The concept of social capital derives primarily from Putnam, who defines social capital
as “connections among individuals – social networks and the norms of reciprocity and
trustworthiness that arise from them” (Putnam 2000:19). Field (2003:1–2) suggests
that the central argument of social capital theory is that “relationships matter” and
that “social networks are a valuable asset” in building communities. This is because
the key elements of social capital, namely, trust, shared norms, reciprocity, shared
identity, tolerance, acceptance and celebration of difference, and familiarity are the
“glue” that helps to bring and hold people together.

Despite its appeal, the usefulness of social capital theory in community development
is challenged on a number of levels. For example, Portes and Landolt (1996) ask
if social capital can, in fact, be built and how social capital can serve divisions in
a community. Furthermore, Coleman (1993) argues that trust and cooperation,
which are central to community social capital theory, may not be transferable from
one situation to another or between groups of networks, given the socio-economic
and other forms of stratification in communities. Moreover, DeFilippis (2001:791)
argues that the concept of social capital fails to take into account the issue of power
in the community.

LEARNING ACTIVITY 4.5

•• Study the following article: 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. Available at:
https://www.coloradocollege.edu/ dotAsset/27454fab-98e8-4d89-80a0-
044837593aa0.pdf (accessed on 11/06/2019).
•• Study the following article: Emery, M, Fey, S & Flora, C. 2006. Using community
capitals to develop assets for positive community change. CD Practice
13:1–19. Available at: http://srdc.msstate.edu/fop/levelthree/trainarc/
socialcapital/communitycapitalstodevelopassets-emeryfeyflora2006.pdf
(accessed on 11/06/2019).
•• Study the following report that is obtainable from the e-reserves: UN-HABITAT.
2008. An asset-based approach to community development and capacity-
building. Nairobi: UN-HABITAT.
•• Discuss ABCD as an approach, as a set of methods for community mobilisation
and as a strategy for community-based development.
•• Analyse ABCD as a strategy for sustainable community development.
•• Write five short paragraphs in which you explain how you could undertake
asset mapping in your community and mobilise members of the community to
participate in the asset mapping programme.
•• Explain how the Community Capitals Framework can be applied in ABCD.

DVA2602/141


SECTION 4.4 INTEGRATED COMMUNITY DEVELOPMENT

Historically, community development intervention grew out of institutional and/or
organisational responses to specific needs in communities rather than as the result of
well-thought-out, planned strategies. In many cases, responses were ad hoc, coming
from different agencies with no overarching coordinated approach or institutional
framework. Therefore, development projects targeting health needs, education,
income generation and water supply, for example, could be designed and implemented
by different agencies and institutions without as much as consultation, the least of
all collaboration, between the sponsoring agencies, even though the projects could
be compatible with and complement one another.

Integrated community development departs from the “ad hoc philanthropy”

approach where external agents come into a community, identify what they think
the community needs and develop and implement projects with limited engagement
with the community. Several authors describe integrated community development
as the approach followed by experts who work with the poor to improve their
living standards through increased productivity, enhanced entrepreneurial skills,
development of collaborative skills and leadership development. We think this
is a rather narrow and deficit-focused perspective. We take a broader approach
to conceptualising integrated community development, which we understand
as development intervention that is community led and that involves handling
local community issues with local community resources/assets through coordinated
partnerships of multi-agencies, incorporating a range of activities across a number
of sectors. Integrated community development is based on a holistic, cross-sector
approach.

Integrated community development involves community action planning to coordinate

the combined efforts of all development actors in communities. For example, the
development activities of government, international organisations, local philanthropic
organisations such as churches or business corporations that do “good things”
in communities (e.g., build schools, health clinics, roads and other infrastructure) are
coordinated so that there are limited leakages of valuable resources due to duplication
and competition between agencies. Integrated community development means
that the entire process of conceptualisation, planning, development, funding and
implementation of proposed development interventions is incorporated into community
action plans coordinated by communities’ coordination committees. There is both
interagency and cross-sector collaboration that focuses on broader community
transformation outcomes rather than agency and or sector outcomes.

The integrated community development approach seeks to ensure that development

intervention contributes to long-term sustainable outcomes and engages communities’
economic, human, political, environmental and socio-cultural assets. These assets
are carefully mapped. Strategic planning integrates the activities of local businesses,
philanthropic organisations, community-based organisations and government
departments to mobilise local communities’ participation and to build partnership
across community sectors and stakeholders. This opens up and establishes clear lines
of communication between the communities, the government departments and the
organisations engaged in the development process.

Integrated community development enables more effective use of communities’

resources because of a reduction in duplication and conflicting objectives. Coordination
between agencies, governmental institutions and community-based organisations to
prioritise activities across sectors ensures more relevant response to communities’

42
 UNIT 4: Sustainable approaches to communty development

aspirations, taking into consideration areas of strength and capacity needs. The
active engagement of members of communities enables the development of critical
consciousness and the empowerment of communities, allowing them to gain strength
and confidence.

LEARNING ACTIVITY 4.6

•• Study the following article in the e-reserves: Pawar, M & Torres, R. 2011.
Integrated community development through dialogue, capacity-building and
partnership in an Australian town. Journal of Comparative Social Welfare
27(3):253–268.
•• Study the following article: Rout, PC & Gupta, SK. 2017. Asset
based community development in mountain environs: a strategic application
for sustainable community based tourism development in the Jaunsar-Bawar
region of Uttarakhand, India. African Journal of Hospitality, Tourism and
Leisure 6(3):1–11. Available at: http://www.ajhtl.com/uploads/ 7/1/6/3/7163688/
article_25_vol_6_ _3_ _2017.pdf (accessed on 11/06/2019).
•• Write four to six sentences in which you summarise the elements and features
of integrated community development.
•• List the challenges to following an integrated approach to community
development.
•• Using the case study on India, discuss ABCD as a strategy for
sustainable community-driven development.

4.5 CONCLUSION
Congratulations on having completed this unit. Your understanding of the concept
of sustainable development and the various approaches by which it can be promoted,
for example, integrated community development will assist you with unit 5. Your
understanding of issues relating to sustainable development will help you to understand
the importance of institutions involved in community development. These institutions
are discussed in unit 5.

DVA2602/143


5 UNIT 5
5 INSTITUTIONAL FRAMEWORKS FOR
COMMUNITY DEVELOPMENT

LEARNING OUTCOMES
On completion of this unit and after you have done the required reading and completed
the set activities, you should be able to

•• demonstrate a critical understanding of some of the institutions involved

in community development at the local, provincial and national levels
•• identify and discuss some of the challenges that contemporary institutional
arrangements present to community development
•• critique the role of institutions and organisations involved in community
development in South Africa or another country
•• identify and discuss some of the roles people fulfil in community development
in South Africa or another country

5.1 INTRODUCTION
Community development practice operates by means of limited financial and human
capital, technology and organisational management resources that are allocated
by various institutions to facilitate the transformation of communities. To ensure
the greatest possible outcomes for communities, one of the important challenges
of community development intervention involves designing appropriate social,
economic, cultural and political institutions to manage communities’ development
resources, to oversee the effectiveness of development intervention and to help improve
the sustainability of development outcomes. Development policies, programmes and
activities not only have an impact on the well-being of individuals and communities
but also trigger changes in the nature of interactions and relationship between
members of communities and between community members and societal institutions.
These changes often lead to modifications of existing development institutions and
the creation of new ones.

Therefore, one of the key challenges to community development practice is designing

institutional structures that mobilise local experience and resources and integrate
them with local and external expertise and resources to facilitate the transformation
of communities. This challenge includes creating community development institutions
at the local community level, namely, local agencies, institutions and organisations
that can articulate the needs and aspirations of communities so that development
programmes respond appropriately to the communities’ aspirations to empowerment
and self-determination.

Community development work is undertaken both within government structures

(the statutory sector) and outside of the statutory sector. The statutory sector
consists of the national (central) government, provincial governments, municipal
and local territorial authorities (local government) and local communities and village

44
 UNIT 5: Institutional frameworks for community development

administrations. In many cases, these structures are quite remote from the experiences
of local communities, and the bureaucratic nature of government departments may
render them inaccessible to local communities.

Government may have general legislation and programmes that greatly help or
hinder community development. If education, health, job creation and policing
are working well, this provides a platform for successful community development.

In addition to government structures, voluntary and non-governmental organisations

undertake a substantial amount of community development work. The majority of
these organisations are independent and may not relate directly to or coordinate
with one another. This may create challenges. It could be argued that this lack
of coordination may explain the poor planning and integration of community
development interventions and the often ineffective and unsustainable nature
of development outcomes. In this unit we will examine some of the challenges
these institutional arrangements pose for community development practice. The
unit consists of three sections. Each section is devoted to a critical examination
of an institutional arrangement. Section 5.2 examines the role of governmental
institutions, section 5.3 discusses the role of NGOs and section 5.4 highlights the
role of community-based organisations.

SECTION 5.2 GOVERNMENTAL INSTITUTIONS AND POLICY RESPONSES TO

POVERTY AND INEQUALITY IN SOUTH AFRICA
State institutions at national, provincial and local government/municipal levels are
frequently the sites for community development initiatives. Such initiatives range
from well-resourced and well-intentioned projects and programmes to vague and
often inconsequential policies and political rhetoric. Although the state is involved
in community development efforts, there is still a fundamental tension in the overall
idea that the state and its institutions can lead or undertake community development.
At the heart of this tension is the issue of power and its distribution between the state
and communities and between communities themselves. State institutions seldom
question the distribution of power and the legitimacy of its use. To do so would quite
quickly call into question the actual purpose of state involvement in community
development and the legitimacy of the state institutions themselves. Ignoring power
and its distribution and use raises questions of whether the state and its institutions
are involved in community development for purposes of community management
and community control rather than community self-determination.

A further issue is that many policies of government deal with social needs through
mass programmes, national legislation and the programmes of national departments
or ministries. Such programmes deal with general and structural issues such as
poverty, unemployment, conditions of employment and poor formal education. Such
programmes, while clearly necessary, often are not tailored to local conditions and
specific needs on the ground.

The relationship between the state and communities may be placed on a continuum
that ranges from paternalism to partnership. A possible mid-point on this continuum
is a level at which participatory arrangements are made. This range of relationships
may be assessed in terms of the location of authority and accountability. In this
context, authority rests with the dominant party (the state) while accountability falls
to the subservient party (the community) in a relationship.

DVA2602/145


The real intentions behind the state’s engagement with communities may not always
be apparent from its rhetoric, although policy intentions may be implicit rather than
explicit. Swanepoel (2011) remarks that in the early 1980s, community development
in South Africa was used as a method to “clear up black spots” and to relocate people
from the so-called “white South Africa” to the homelands. This was evident when the
then Minister of Community Development, PW Botha (who later became President),
used the UN’s definition of community development to justify the Group Areas Act
and to resettle black Africans in the homelands as a precondition for development.
This example reflects the way in which community development was used by colonial
authorities throughout Africa as an instrument of control, as discussed in unit 1.
From this perspective, community development was used as an instrument of social
control. Even in the postapartheid, contemporary South Africa, state involvement
in community development must not be accepted uncritically.

Government institutions operate according to sets of values that are governed by

ideology. Although community development in South Africa is located within the
Department of Social Development in the national and provincial governments,
social development policy is governed by the ideology of the government.
Therefore, community development practitioners in both statutory and non-state
institutions must have a good understanding of political ideology and how ideology
influences government policies regarding communities and community development
to better understand how it influences development policies and activities of the state.

Swanepoel and De Beer (2011) suggest that poverty may occur at the individual,
community or societal level, depending on the proportion of individuals and families
in the population experiencing deprivation and hardship. They conclude that “[i]n
South Africa, where some areas experience unemployment of up to 50% and even
more, societal poverty is the order of the day” (Swanepoel & De Beer 2011:2).

While there are many causes of poverty, some authors argue that there are “individual
causes” such as people’s attitudes, lifestyles, misfortune, cultural practices, beliefs
and values, and psychological disposition. Others argue that attributing poverty to
individual factors amounts to “blaming the victims” of poverty. This group of authors
argue that the real causes of poverty are found in the way society is structured, which
creates inequality of access to society’s resources and assets. Inequitable access to
society’s natural, social, economic, cultural and political resources creates “winners”
and “losers”. The losers are the poor. They may not necessarily want to be losers or
they are not necessarily “bad players”, but the rules of the game are such that they
will always fall short no matter how hard they try.

Consequently, poverty indicators such as income, employment, health, education,

life expectancy, housing, social inclusion and food security cannot be attributed to
individual factors but must be understood within the context of the fundamental
structural arrangements of society.

Policy responses to poverty also reflect theoretical perspectives on the causes of

poverty. Individual-focused theories find policy responses in conservative and neo-
liberal approaches such as self-help strategies and programmes for the poor to help
them to take personal responsibility for pulling themselves out of poverty. Neo-liberal
responses blame the poor for their overdependence on generous state social welfare
assistance for both individual poverty and society’s poverty. These responses come in
the form punitive policies such as policies that limit state welfare and push hard for
the poor to find jobs through “self-employment” and similar programmes. Theories
that implicate cultural practices, beliefs and values embedded in particular cultures

46
 UNIT 5: Institutional frameworks for community development

and communities that transmit intergenerational poverty generate policy responses

that seek to “correct” these “cultural impediments” by teaching the poor to adopt
different cultural norms such as middle-class values of education and personal
responsibility.

Individual-focused theories and policy responses go beyond individual persons

to communities such as ghettos, specific disadvantaged residential areas of towns,
townships and villages. At this point it may be useful to be critical of even some
of the emerging community development theories such as asset-based community
development. While these theories shift the focus from communities’ deficits to their
strengths, they still define communities’ poverty by their failure to take advantage
of their local resources and assets to improve their competitive advantage, thus
blaming communities for their poverty.

Policy responses from theoretical perspectives that attribute poverty to structural

aspects of economic, political and social systems that limit equitable access to
opportunities and resources seek social change and transformation. According
to this group of theories, the structure of national and global economic systems
constrains job creation, wage structures and the productive sectors. These constraints
create structural unemployment, low wages, “working poor” and growing income
gaps in society, leading to social and economic inequalities. Parallel barriers in
social and political systems limit effective participation of the poor in democratic
processes. The combined effect of economic, political and social marginalisation
makes mobilising the poor to influence the political process in order to bring
about social and economic change difficult. Policy responses that seek to change
the system develop strategies on at least three levels, namely, political mobilisation
through awareness raising and conscientisation of the poor, the creation of alternative
institutional arrangements such as community corporations and banking systems
that follow a holistic approach to breaking the cycle of poverty, and community
empowerment through making poverty a social justice and human rights issue.

The two perspectives on the causes of poverty and the corresponding policy responses
require critical analysis by community development practitioners. Policy responses
that focus on dealing with issues of personal responsibility, skills and capacity
development, education and training are important and must not be dismissed simply
as instances of neo-liberals blaming the poor. However, such responses should not
be taken as the “only” solution. There are structural constraints that must also be
handled because personal responsibility does not operate in a vacuum. Striking
a balance between responses that deal with individual “deficits” and integrated
programmes that seek to tackle the multidimensional aspects of poverty is the
challenge of contemporary community development theory and practice.

May (2014:93) argues that, despite some mistakes and setbacks due to the global
economy, the South African government has had modest success in dealing with
poverty through decentralisation and cooperative governance and “through the
provision of a social wage package. This includes free clinic-based primary health care
(PHC) for all, compulsory education for all those aged seven to thirteen years, and
subsidies on housing, electricity, water, sanitation, refuse removal and transportation
on those who qualify”. May mentions successes in the areas of social grant payments
and the Extended Public Works Programme. Clear failures have been in the areas
of land reform and, up to 2007, HIV/AIDS. May concludes that government efforts
to deal with poverty in South Africa should be far more efficiently managed, that
even with subsidies, many people cannot afford services provided and that social

DVA2602/147
 

grants make an important and direct contribution to the reduction of poverty (May
2014:10). He also advocates urgent attention to health and land issues.

For those concerned with community development in South Africa, it is crucial to

understand the successes and failures of government in dealing with the needs and
empowerment of people. Government has policies and programmes regarding, among
other things, education and training, job creation, infrastructure, small businesses,
exports and labour legislation – all of which affect communities. Community
development workers must work with these programmes, deal with the failures of
these programmes and deal with the local and contextual issues to which national
programmes are blind.

LEARNING ACTIVITY 5.1

Read the chapter by May (2014).

•• List the policy responses to poverty outlined in this article.

•• List three ways in which these policies aid the welfare of communities.
•• State in two sentences whether any of these policies “blame the poor”.
•• Write a page on the following proposition: “One of the most effective policy
responses to structural causes of poverty is legal initiatives and policy reforms to
ensure equitable access for the poor to society’s resources and opportunities.”

LEARNING ACTIVITY 5.2

Read the article by Gray, M & Mubangizi, B. (2010).

•• In a few sentences, explain what community development is about.

•• Explain the role of a community development worker (CDW) in community
development.
•• List the challenges that a CDW faces in respect of community development.

SECTION 5.3 NON-GOVERNMENTAL INSTITUTIONS

Non-governmental institutions or organisations involved in community development
range from international and transnational non-profit organisations and international
and transnational business corporations to national voluntary, private sector and
non-sectarian organisations involved in a wide range of projects in education and
training, humanitarian support and human rights watchdog activities.

The role of NGOs in community development in South Africa has changed

significantly since 1994. During the apartheid period, NGOs played a key role in
facilitating dialogue with significant political actors at national and international
levels, working particularly with the anti-apartheid movements, supporting victims
of apartheid policies and helping mobilise communities for self-determination. In the
post-apartheid period, the situation changed. The NGO sector became fragmented
because it struggled to negotiate new arrangements with an evolving power structure
in a democratic state (Habib & Taylor 1999). Furthermore, many of the most senior
staff members of both national and international NGOs were absorbed into the state
sector. These shifts complicated (and, some may argue, compromised) the work of
NGOs in communities. Many NGOs face a number of challenges, for example, the

48
 UNIT 5: Institutional frameworks for community development

legal environment within which they operate, dwindling sources of funding and the
need to seek a variety of means, including profit-making activities, to be sustainable.

There are unresolved tensions between voluntarism and professionalism, commercialism

and non-profit strategies, and civic-political activism and its relationship with
governments.

NGOs have two key features, namely, (i) most NGOs are rooted in humanitarian relief
and welfare, and (ii) most NGOs purport to work with the poor and marginalised in
society. These features create some tensions regarding the community development
work of NGOs. Firstly, there is tension between short-term relief work and longer-
term transformative work. Secondly, there is tension between welfare provision and
conscientisation about power, empowerment and activism. Thirdly, the claim that
NGOs work with the poor is contested because the number of poor people in Africa
is so great that it will take extensive resources to reach the poorest quintile in society.

Inevitably, people who tend to benefit from the services rendered by NGOs are
usually those who have some skills, literacy and networks. The poorest of the poor
then tend to be neglected. Fourthly, because women and girls are proportionally
the largest group of poor people in most African communities, development
interventions that do not prioritise gender inequality are less likely to reach the
poorest in the community – and many NGOs have fallen into this trap.

LEARNING ACTIVITY 5.3

Read the following article: Nikkhah, HA & Redzuan, MB. 2010. The role of NGOs
in promoting empowerment for sustainable community development. Journal of
Human Ecology 30(2):85–92.

•• Write a summary on ways in which NGOs contribute to sustainable community

development.
•• In the table below, provide an example of each role that NGOs play in community
development.

Roles of NGOs Examples

DVA2602/149


SECTION 5.4 COMMUNITY-BASED ORGANISATIONS

Community-based organisations (CBOs) are part of a myriad of civil society
organisations that seek to promote the public good and to encourage empowerment
and participation to tackle the structural roots of poverty. They play critical roles in
bringing grass-roots communities together to take action and to make representations
on issues of common interest and providing services at the local level. They work
in a variety of fields such as education, health, the rights of people with disabilities,
gender issues, and so forth. They are owned and managed by community members
and their primary focus is on self-help activities. In most cases, they are legal entities
with formal governance/management structures. Although they may perform some
of the functions undertaken by NGOs, two key features distinguish CBOs from
NGOs. Firstly, CBOs are small and focus on single geographical areas. Secondly,
the primary focus of their development activities is self-help. In most CBOs, people
organise themselves around issues they consider most necessary for their livelihood. In
apartheid South Africa, for example, many CBOs were organised around commitment
to liberation and used strategies of conscientisation to mobilise communities against
apartheid laws. The civic organisations of individual townships in the 1980s were
examples of this. Given the challenges confronting large NGOs in the post-apartheid
period (discussed in section 2), the number of CBOs has grown exponentially to
fill the gap left by NGOs. Furthermore, government efforts to provide services to
local communities to reach as many communities as possible have further boosted
the growth of CBOs (Swilling & Russell 2002).

In most countries, CBOs constitute the majority of organisations that come

under the umbrella of the voluntary and community sector (VCS), civil society
organisations (CSOs) or the not-for-profit sector. Their activities focus primarily
on social mobilisation, economic and social development, advocacy and self-help
and they are governed at the local community level. Most of them are governed by
small administrative committees of local people. They also help identify potential
development partners for communities. Their small size may render them especially
vulnerable to financial stress and external influences. Some of the key challenges
confronting CBOs relate to long-term sustainability because of human resource
capability, lack of funding, governance and management. There are also challenges
related to collaboration and cooperation with governmental institutions.

LEARNING ACTIVITY 5.4

Identify one CBO that is engaged in a community development programme in
your community or area.

•• Write one page on

(a) the key issues that the CBO has been involved in since its inception
(b) the CBO’s membership structure
(c) the major projects that the CBO has completed in the community
(d) the CBO’s main partners in the development process
(e) the difference that the CBO has made in the community it operates in
(f) challenges that have confronted or may confront the CBO

50
 UNIT 5: Institutional frameworks for community development

5.5 CONCLUSION
Well done on having completed this unit. Now that you are aware of the institutions
involved in community development and the issues they face, you can proceed to
unit 6, which explains how globalisation affects community development practice.

DVA2602/151


UNIT 6
6

6 GLOBALISATION AND COMMUNITY

DEVELOPMENT

LEARNING OUTCOMES
On completion of this unit and after you have done the required reading and completed
the set activities, you should be able to

•• demonstrate a critical understanding of the historical context of globalisation,

including colonialism
•• identify and discuss some of the key processes of globalisation
•• critique the role of globalisation in community development and some of the
local responses to the challenges that globalisation poses for local communities
in South Africa or another country

6.1 INTRODUCTION
The purpose of this unit is to stimulate your thinking about how global processes have
affected your country and the communities with which you engage. The situation of
social groups and settlements in the Global South has been dramatically influenced by
the forces of globalisation. This, in turn, influences what can be done in community
development. Globalisation has undermined the natural environment and, in many
respects, constrained national governments. This implies that the factors that form
the context of community development are all related and can be discussed together.
It also implies that an understanding of globalisation is crucial to the way forward
for community development.

The global changes in international communications, particularly since the mid-

20th century, have led to rapid reductions in the barriers between nation states. The
rapid growth in transportation technology, information and telecommunications,
and technologies for the production of goods and services has reduced temporal
and spatial distances between individuals, groups and communities and between
producers and consumers across national boundaries. Technological changes have
radically altered the way in which people around the world engage with one another,
how nation states interact and how organisations, institutions and corporations
undertake business. The combined outcome of these changes is what has become
popularly referred to as globalisation.

A much-contested concept, globalisation generally refers to the increasing inter­

connectedness of different parts of the world facilitated by advanced communications,
information and transportation technologies. This interconnectedness is realised
through global economic integration processes such as the international free trade of
goods and services, the mass transnational migration of people, labour and financial
capital, and the gradual deterritorialisation of national boundaries.

52
 UNIT 6: Globalisation and community development

Another aspect of global interconnectedness is the emergence of global governance

through transnational and multilateral arrangements such as the United Nations and
its various subsidiaries, the World Bank, the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and
the World Trade Organization (WTO). At the regional level there are organisations
such as the African Union, the European Union, the Association of Southeast Asian
Nations (ASEAN) and subregional organisations such as the Southern African
Development Community (SADC) and the Economic Community of West African
States (ECOWAS).

The debate about globalisation and development is mired in controversy. There are
those who argue that globalisation provides opportunities for enhanced development
outcomes for individuals, groups, communities and countries. For example, it has
been argued that international trade liberalisation leads to growth in countries’ GDP
(Bouët 2008), which helps reduce poverty, the international free flow of financial
capital, which increases foreign direct investment (Asiedu & Gyimah-Brempong
2008), and financial flows from the African diaspora, which contribute a significant
share of African countries’ GDP (Ndikumana & Verick 2008).

Furthermore, the growth and diversification of national economies has the potential
to create political stability, to enhance gender equality since more women are engaged
in the economy, to promote cultural development through tourism and invariably
to further reduce poverty and social inequalities.

On the other hand, there are those who argue that the neo-liberal ideology of
globalisation undermines the role of nation states through monetarist policies that
undermine social democracy (Berner & Phillips 2005), facilitates the collapse of social
infrastructure in health, education and water supply, and undermines rural economies
by neglecting roads, railways and even agricultural input to support food security.
Africa’s limited access to global finance, trade and technology creates an unequal
exchange between Africa and the global economy, in that losses from preferential
trade agreements, tariff revenues and the expropriation of profits by transnational
corporations are not compensated for owing to declining foreign direct investment
(FDI), development aid and international trade constraints resulting from fragile
links dominated by primary products. Manufacturing has declined and, in some cases,
almost collapsed due to loss of protection, demand restraints and selective investment
in terms of profit-driven privatisation policies that favour FDI in high-technology,
high-skill, export-oriented sectors of the economy. Therefore, globalisation has
been implicated in many of the issues that community development deals with. For
example, the IMF and the World Bank imposed a neo-liberal redefinition of the
role of the state, which has weakened state institutions and undermined the quality
and coverage of social services and infrastructure. An unregulated market destroys
local enterprises and undermines local economies, creating masses of unemployed
and low wages, particularly in countries’ poorer regions and rural areas.

The weakening of the state undermines social democracy since government

accountability shifts from citizens of nation states to transnational corporations, which
brings to question the sociopolitical legitimacy of the state in society. Globalisation
by its nature privileges large-scale, market-focused production and consumption
supported by intensive technology, which has serious consequences for the physical
and cultural environment of communities. It involves a shift away from smallholder
farming and diversified subsistence cultivation, undermines communities’ food
security, aggravates rural-out migration and reinforces poverty. Furthermore, the
privileging of the free market transfers ownership of local economies to external

DVA2602/153


agents, who may be more interested in pursuing profits than communities’ interests.
This invariably shifts the power of social change and transformation away from
local community control and, together with other globalising forces, leads to sharply
increasing inequalities within countries. Community development is faced with the
task of developing interventions that not only correct the impacts but also counter
the hegemony of globalisation.

However, globalisation also presents opportunities for community development.

Information and communication technologies provide opportunities for linkages
between groups and organisations, the sharing of information and knowledge and the
building of strategic alliances that support social justice, human rights and community
empowerment, which are central to community development practice.

This unit examines the role of globalisation and its impacts on and implications
for community development. The discussion in each of the three sections is intended
to expose you to critical reflections on three key themes, namely, the historical context
of globalisation, the tension between globalisation and localisation, and the links
between globalisation, colonisation, neo-colonialism and community development
practice.

SECTION 6.2 THE CONCEPT OF GLOBALISATION AND ITS HISTORY

As we work through this section it is important to note that the concept of globalisation
is contested and cannot be assumed to represent a monolithic process focused
exclusively on global economic integration. So, our use of the concept “globalisation”
refers to the increasing integration of human activities across national boundaries.
This interpretation is different from the view of globalisation in the popular press
and the media, which often limits the concept to global financial institutions led by
transnational corporations and international capitalism. As important as it is, global
economic integration is only one aspect of the complex process of globalisation, which
includes and cuts across political, social, demographic, cultural and environmental
dimensions, making it a multifaceted process that interconnects the world through
instantaneous global communication.

Giddens (1990) describes globalisation as a complex multidimensional process

involving a dialectical relationship between the global and the local, including
“sideways stretch”, the breaking down of state boundaries and the creation of new
international agencies (including transnational corporations, multilateral agencies and
transnational NGOs). The transformation of global exchanges fuelled by technological
transformations in transportation, information and communications has led to
exponential growth in capitalist industrial/manufacturing production, economic
expansion, international trade, transnational migration and financial transactions.
However, globalisation has also created and intensified a “core” and “peripheries”,
that is, a stratified global landscape of inequalities between the more privileged
centres of global exchange – “the core” – and less-developed “peripheries”.

LEARNING ACTIVITY 6.1

•• Click on the following link and study the brief on globalisation: https://medium.com/@
ShahidHussainRa/globalisation-challenges-response-477b80ed91ab.

54
 UNIT 6: Globalisation and community development

6.2.1 Historical context of globalisation

The historical context of globalisation may be traced to the ancient civilisations of
Egypt, Greece, Rome, India and Babylon and the African civilisations of Mali, Ghana
and Songhai, which spread their influence and built regional economies, incorporated
other empires and kingdoms, and spread their values, beliefs and customs across
the “known world” of that time. The history of contemporary globalisation from a
Western and European perspective is linked with the creation of a global capitalist
economy at the time of the growth of European trading cities such as Venice in the
14th century and Antwerp and Brugge in the 15th century.

From the 14th century through to the 19th century, economic globalisation expanded
through the expeditions of European explorers and traders and the establishment
of trading posts in Africa, Asia and the Americas. The transatlantic slave trade and
the imperialist partition of Africa were all part of global capitalist expansion, which
was capped by the process of colonisation and the creation of colonial empires to
deepen imperial capitalism. In the postcolonial period as of the mid-20th century,
economic globalisation expanded through the growth of multinational-transnational
corporations ran by what Castells (1996; 1997; 1998) terms “networks of power”
across national boundaries. The rise of global corporations fostered further global
economic integration, thereby entrenching Western capitalism, which extended to
incorporate political globalisation as the power of the World Bank, the IMF and the
WTO extended and deepened.

LEARNING ACTIVITY 6.2

•• Click on the following links for a summary of the history of globalisation: https://
www.slideshare.net/larchi/history-of-globalisation
https://www.weforum.org/agenda/2019/01/how-globalization-4-0-fits-into-
the-history-of-globalization/.

•• Open the following link to read an article on the effects of globalisation on developing
countries: https://medium.com/@BonillaXM/the-effects-of-globalization-
on-developing-countries-1e465257c400.

•• List 10 to15 global companies that have a direct impact on your life.
•• Give a brief summary of the history of globalisation.
•• Briefly describe the effects of globalisation on developing countries.

6.2.2 Globalisation and Southern Africa

We will now move from a more general consideration of globalisation and look at
the regional setting of Southern Africa. The following extract from Kössler, Melber
and Strand (2003) presents an example of how globalisation can be examined at the
local community level and not just on a global or continental scale. This serves both to
illustrate the long-term processes of globalisation during the 19th and 20th centuries
and the context of the South African subcontinent. Kössler et al (2003:10–11) assert:

Southern Africa is a subcontinent that has undergone particularly large

upheavals during the last two centuries. This has been occasioned above all
by the implantation of settler colonialism. A further important factor was the
age of wars and large-scale migrations that was brought about by the rise and
expansion of the Zulu realm in the first quarter of the 19th century. With the

DVA2602/155


famous trek and the establishment of Boer republics in what is today the centre
and north-west of the Republic of South Africa, these two movements blended.
They were superseded later on by the establishment of large-scale systems of
migrant labour that have encompassed the entire subcontinent. However, this
system has never been uniform (cf. Kössler 1999a). In particular, the western
parts of the region have been shaped by the longer-term impacts of the Cape
trading system, and later, in colonial Namibia a specific system of migrant labour
came into being, mainly involving the mobilisation of the labour reserves that
existed at the northern fringes of the territory for mining and settler agriculture
in the central and southern parts. To provide background for our case study, as
well as to flesh out somewhat the notion of globalisation just outlined, we have
to take a brief look at some of these developments.

Southern Africa and particularly its western portion [present] a range of especially
clear examples for the long-term processes of globalisation alluded to above. In
the whole area, communities and their interrelations as well as their internal
conditions have not evolved in splendid pristine isolation, but in close connection
with the world market and the dynamics of capital. The establishment of Cape
Town in 1652 as an entrepôt for the trade of the Dutch East India Company
ushered in a process of settlement and gradual territorial expansion by the
settlers. At the same time, the Cape became a hub of forced as well as voluntary
migration, from Europe as well as from South East Asia. Almost instantly,
the expanding colony became a centre of inland trade and at the same time, its
slow but continuous extension dislodged the Khoi groups that had been living
in the region before the advent of the Dutch. In this way, a long-term double
movement towards the northern parts of the later Cape colony was initiated:
fugitive Khoi along with Dutch or Boer settler-farmers. The evolving border
society (cf. Legassick 1969; 1992; Penn 1995) was marked by incisive changes,
both in terms of social organisations and inevitably linked to this, in terms of
identity formation. The outcome was a whole range of new emerging groups
such as the Griqua, Oorlam, Koranna and Basters. Under the leadership of
outstanding personalities, some of these groups have reached historic stature.
But all of them were marked by the supersession of earlier communal ties
based on kinship by those of personal loyalty. This resulted in considerable
flexibility and integrative capacity that has also marked these groups in later
decades (Kössler et al 2003:10–11).

LEARNING ACTIVITY 6.3

•• Click on the following link and read about the challenges of globalisation for development
in Southern Africa: https://repository.up.ac.za/bitstream/handle/2263/5450/
Jordaan_Challenges%282001%29.pdf?sequence=1&isAllowed=y.

56
 UNIT 6: Globalisation and community development

SECTION 6.3 GLOBALISATION, DETERRITORIALISATION AND

LOCALISATION
One of the most critical features of globalisation is “deterritorialisation”. Although
deterritorialisation has specific meanings in anthropology and the arts (Tomlinson
1999), we use the term here to mean the collapse of national borders because of
new communications technologies and the rapidly expanding forces of globalisation.
Deterritorialisation also means that the borders of nation states no longer constitute
“impenetrable walls” to the movement of people, money, information and ideas.
The growth and development of communications technologies has increased
deterritorialisation to the extent that globalisation penetrates local communities,
breaking down boundaries between local communities and the international/
global community. Deterritorialisation also has marginalised governments of nation
states in decision-making on national public policies that affect their citizens since
national, social, economic, environmental, political and even cultural policies and
issues of morality are inextricably intertwined with policies on a global level that are
controlled by multilateral transnational organisations.

The challenges imposed on national and local communities by the forces of

globalisation have led to some form of resistance to what has come to be referred
to as “globalisation from above”. Globalisation from above has been accused of
representing the dominant neo-liberal ideology, which has been blamed for creating
a number of negative consequences such as poverty-induced migration, corporate-
dominated world media and neo-imperialism of global capitalism.

Globalisation from below, often termed “localisation”, is therefore presented as

a response by community-focused movements working to restore local control
over the democratic state for more local forms of production and reproduction to
ensure more sustainable socio-economic, cultural and environmental development.
However, the plethora of antiglobalisation movements, ranging from extreme right-
wing xenophobic political movements that advocate national isolationism, including
some that even seek the dismantling of the UN because of what they perceive as
the UN’s imposition of global governance, to extreme left-wing “anticapitalism”
movements, may not all necessarily represent globalisation in the interests of the
poor. The practice of community development is concerned with domestic issues at
the local community level and how such activities affect and are affected by policies
and activities at the global level.

It would be simplistic to categorise globalisation from above as “bad” and globalisation

from below as “good”. Such dualism misses a critique of a complex process. For
example, through the global reach of the UN, civil, political, economic, social and
cultural rights have been foregrounded and sustainable environmental practices
promoted vigorously. Further, these rights and practices have become enshrined
as global values in a wide range of positive global initiatives such as the UN’s
Universal Declaration of Human Rights of 1948, the International Covenant on
Economic, Social and Cultural Rights of 1966, the Rio Declaration on Environment
and Development of 1992 and the Kyoto Protocol on climate change of 2009.
These international covenants check some of the overbearing powers of national
governments over their citizens and at least attempt to temper the effects of the
excesses of exploitative corporate capitalism on physical and cultural environments.
Furthermore, while the role of nation states is undermined by forces of economic
and financial globalisation, the global integration of civil society social justice
movements bring pressure to bear on both national governments and transnational
corporations, which has tended to entrench social democratic principles as the

DVA2602/157


basis of legitimate authority and the setting of global, national and local community
development agendas (Sen 1999). The globalisation of news media can bring abuses
of power by national governments to international attention and expose corporate
pillage. At the same time, global media can, for example, legitimise imperial wars –
with regard to both Iraq and Libya, global media both legitimised and questioned
Western military intervention.

6.3.1 Thinking globally and acting locally

Many global issues are felt locally and the strings of local activities add up to create
large, global-level issues. Global warming and climate change, for example, have come
about as a result of actions of individuals, groups and organisations, both large
and small, across the world. The concept of “thinking globally and acting locally”
suggests that we take a broader, global view of the consequences of our individual
activities. It may be linked to the Gandhian principle that we must be the change
we want to see in the world. In order to bring about positive change in the world,
we must not only engage with the world but also change our own world. If we want
to see greater awareness in the world, we have to cultivate awareness. This demands
that communities develop local responsiveness to socio-economic, cultural, political
and environmental issues such as poverty, injustice, war and climate change, starting
at the local community level, and not simply look to international, transnational,
governmental and non-governmental agencies to identify problems and to develop
solutions.

Consequently, community development practice must strive for some form of balance
between international institutions and organisations that provide global-level policies,
and local-national and community-based institutions that translate those policies into
activities that deliver sustainable development outcomes in the long term. In the
context of community development practice, this approach recognises that universal
metanarrative homogenising constructs advocated by blanket globalisation must be
challenged to reflect the context, the diversity and the lived experiences of those
directly affected by development intervention.

LEARNING ACTIVITY 6.4

•• Click on the following link to read about the motto “think globally, act locally”:
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3828730/
•• Explain the meaning of the motto “think globally, act locally” in your own words.

6.3.2 World Social Forum: an example of globalisation from below?

One of the ways in which international civil society has responded to corporate
globalisation was to come together to present alternatives to neo-liberal globalisation.
Initially, these alternatives were primarily manifested in antiglobalisation protests
such as the WTO protests in Seattle in 1999. These protests were followed by
protests against the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, in 2000. Some
of the protests attracted large participation globally but were criticised as being
characterised by resistance instead of providing alternative perspectives on global
development. Therefore, following deliberations in Davos, a number of activists,
intellectuals and civil society leaders came together to organise what has become a

58
 UNIT 6: Globalisation and community development

regular World Social Forum (WSF). The first WSF was held in partnership with the
administration of the city of Porto Alegre, Brazil, to develop a development agenda
as an alternative to the corporate-focused World Economic Forum. The city of Porto
Alegre and the state of Rio Grande, where it is located, were both governed by a
Workers’ Party with strong social democratic ideals. The partnership between the
City Council administration and the Rio Grande state government established the
WSF as a weeklong annual event on the city’s calendar from 2001 to 2003. The city
of Mumbai in India hosted the WSF in 2004. The WSF returned to Porto Alegre in
2005 before going global from 2006.

LEARNING ACTIVITY 6.5

•• Click on the link below and read the following article: Appadurai, A. 2011.
Cosmopolitanism from below: some ethical lessons from the slums of Mubai.
JWTC: The Salon 4:32–43. Focus on the last two sections, namely, “The
cosmopolitanism of the urban poor” and “Cosmopolitanism and the politics
of hope”: http://www.jwtc.org.za/resources/docs/salon-volume-4/6_Salon_
Vol4_Appadurai.pdf.
•• State in two sentences what strikes you most about this article.
•• List five ways in which the poor have developed innovative practices to deal
with difficult life situations.
•• Write a short paragraph on modern/cosmopolitan strategies of people in
townships, informal settlements and slums in your country.

Appadurai (2011) outlines some ways in which the poor of Mumbai in India have
used the resources and tools of networking, international links and organisational
cooperation to empower themselves to some extent. Appadurai describes how three
organisations linked up in a way that used the resources of cosmopolitan culture.
The three organisations were a group that organised social work in the slums, an
organisation of sex workers and a slumdwellers’ movement. “They ... learned to
speak directly to banks, engineers, architects, developers, politicians, academics and
multi-national celebrities. They … learned to document, survey, monitor and regulate
their own communities, through techniques of surveying, enumeration and mutual
information. They … evolved sophisticated forms for articulating their own savings
circles and assets with official and quasi-official banking and credit institutions”
(Appadurai 2011:33–34). This can be seen as a form of community development
from below. Appadurai’s argument is that, despite the desperate situation in slums,
there is evidence of a “capacity to aspire” among a proportion of slumdwellers and
this energy can empower people through a form of globalisation from below.

SECTION 6.4 GLOBALISATION, COLONISATION, NEO-COLONIALISM

AND COMMUNITY DEVELOPMENT PRACTICE
Colonisation occurs when one group invades, conquers and takes over another
people’s land and resources and then subjugates and dominates the colonised
people’s wealth, culture, identity and values. The African and other black people of
South Africa were subject to a triple dose of Dutch and British colonialism, British
imperialism and apartheid. Colonialism entails the subjugation of colonised people
because of a strongly held belief in the superiority and “ordained mandate” of the
colonisers. The mandate of the colonisers is evolved and expanded through a number
of administrative apparatuses that enable them to rule and maintain control over

DVA2602/159


the colonised, to exploit the resources of the colonised and to expropriate profits
from the colonised for their (the colonisers’) benefit.

6.4.1 Postcolonialism, or more currently, decolonial thinking

Postcolonialism refers to the theoretical frameworks that seek to dismantle and
disestablish colonial thinking, ideology and practice and to develop practices that
move beyond the oppressive structures and discourses of colonialism, that articulate
the people’s voice and that disestablish the structures perpetuated by colonialism.

Some of the documents you had to read when you studied unit 1 suggest that community
development was part of the instruments of colonialism (Maistry 2012). Even in
more contemporary times, community development has been used by multilateral
and transnational organisations to “neo-colonise” communities across the world.
Global business corporations such as mining and logging companies and NGOs use
international aid and development projects to perpetrate exploitative relationships
with local communities and to legitimise the values of transnational capital and
local elite. Similarly, transnational corporations and multilateral agencies’ neo-
liberal policies undermine local communities’ economies, environmental, social and
cultural systems, democratic participation, local knowledge, values and practices,
and erode community identity.

Much of the process of neo-colonisation is undertaken under the guise of

local community development as in the case of, for example, oil companies in
Nigeria’s Niger Delta, mining companies in South Africa and Namibia, and
multilateral agencies and international NGOs using international development aid,
financial incentives and development professionals. The conception, design and
implementation of such development programmes by external professional experts
from the World Bank and the IMF impose hegemonic values on local communities
on the assumption that “professional experts” know best what the communities
want. The challenge for community development practice is how to develop
decolonising practices that are critical of such hegemonic values and assumptions.

6.4.2 Globalisation and the (under)development of African communities

Many writers take a critical perspective of the impact of globalisation on Africa. They
trace the negative impact of globalisation on the continent to Africa’s colonial past,
starting with the slave trade in the 16th century, through the partition of Africa by
European countries at the Berlin conference in the late 19th century, to exploitative
colonial capitalism in the post-1945 period and the inequitable processes by which
Africa has been integrated into the global economy (Collier 2007; Collier, Hoeffler
& Patillo 2004; Mkandawire 2005). Globalisation has therefore led to an “unequal
exchange” between Africa and the global economy since Africa, the poorest continent
in the global economy, has become a net exporter of capital to the world (Chile 2001;
Easterly 2007).

60
 UNIT 6: Globalisation and community development

LEARNING ACTIVITY 6.6

•• Read the following article in the e-reserves: Mosoetsa, S. 2005.
Compromised communities and re-emerging civic engagement in Mpumalanga
township, Durban, KwaZulu-Natal. Journal of Southern African Studies
31(4):857–873.
•• List four ways in which the community was disadvantaged by apartheid,
imperialism and colonialism.
•• List three ways in which the neo-liberal market has “compromised” people in
Mpumalanga township.
•• Write a paragraph on why community development could be difficult in this
township,

However, since the last decade of the 20th century and, in particular, the first two
decades of the 21th century, Africa has more actively sought to take its place in
the community of nations and to determine its place in the global economy on more
equal terms rather than at the behest of Western global powerhouses.

One of Africa’s more positive engagements with globalisation has been to adopt the
asset-based development approach to identify its assets at the global level, including
what used to be called the “brain drain”, and how these assets can be utilised more
effectively for the development of Africa.

Other assets include Africa’s natural resources, cultures, traditions and history, and
local knowledge and wisdom. For example, whereas foreign direct investment, in
traditional thinking, is associated with Western European, Chinese and American
transnational corporate investors, the asset-based development approach to foreign
direct investment seeks to engage with the African diaspora as a potential force of
foreign direct investment in African countries and communities.

Other areas such as tourism, encourage Africans to discover the beauty and heritage
of their own countries.

Local communities can leverage communication technologies that link them to

global networks of other communities, to gain access to diverse resources, and to
transform themselves.

One of the most important elements of globalisation that has the greatest potential
for transformative community development outcomes for African communities is
international migration. The World Bank estimates that in 2013 there were over 22
million sub-Saharan African migrants living in countries other than the ones they
were born in (World Bank 2013:29), and collectively they remitted over US$32 billion
to African countries (World Bank 2013:3). Remittances to Nigeria and Egypt alone
were US$21 billion and US$20 billion, respectively. Note that Egypt was classified
under North Africa and the Middle East and not sub-Saharan Africa. Remittances
constituted 25% of Lesotho’s GDP and 20% of Liberia’s (World Bank 2013:5), while
for Sudan, remittances were 208% greater than the country’s foreign exchange
reserves (World Bank 2013:2). Giddens’ (1990:64) definition of globalisation as
“the intensification of world-wide social relations which link distant localities in
such a way that local happenings are shaped by events occurring many miles away
and vice versa” is particularly relevant to how the African diaspora engages with
the continent for the transformation of local communities from the ground up.
Therefore, while many communities lose through globalisation, there are sometimes
flows of resources the other way.

DVA2602/161


LEARNING ACTIVITY 6.7

•• Click on the following link and read the article on globalisation and cultural
identity by Wang: https://web.uri.edu/iaics/files/09-Yi-Wang.pdf.
•• Write a paragraph on how globalisation enhances cultural identity.
•• Open the following link: https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.1177/
095624780201400110.
Now read the following article on a case study relating to Angola: Jenkins,
P, Robson, P & Cain, A. 2002. Local responses to globalization and
peripheralization in Luanda, Angola. Environment and Urbanization
14(1):115–127.

•• Draw up a strategic framework for your community to engage with global networks
to achieve sustainable community development outcomes. You can consider
the following dimensions:

(1) connections between migrants from your community who are living out-
side their home community, as well as their connections with national and
international NGOs
(2) connections with the formal economy and the informal economy

•• Write a brief conclusion in which you summarise the role that civil society can
play to enhance local responses to globalisation.

6.5 CONCLUSION
Congratulations on having completed the last unit of the study guide. Now that
you have completed this unit, which introduced you to the history of globalisation
and colonialism, you are in a better position to think more critically about how
globalisation and community development practice interface with one another.

62
 BIBLIOGRAPHY

Note: This bibliography reflects the sources that were used to write the study
guide. You are not obliged to read it.

Abegunde, AA. 2009. The role of community based organisations in economic

development in Nigeria: the case of Oshogbo, Osun state, Nigeria. International
NGO Journal 4(5):236–252. Available at: http://www.academicjournals.org/
article/article1381230035_Abegunde.pdf (accessed on 12/06/2019).
Appadurai, A. 2011. Cosmopolitanism from below: some ethical lessons from the
slums of Mumbai. JWTC: The Salon 4:32–43.
Asiedu, E & Gyimah-Brempong, K. 2008. The effect of the liberalization of investment
policies on employment and investment of multinational corporations in Africa. Oxford,
UK: Blackwell.
Berner, E & Phillips, B. 2005. Left to their own devices? Community self-help
between alternative development and neo-liberalism. Community Development
Journal 40(1):17–29.
Bhattacharyya, J. 2009. Theorizing community development. Journal of the Community
Development Society 34(2):5–34.
Biko, S. 1987. I write what I like. London: Heinneman.
Bogo, M & McKnight, K. 2006. Clinical supervision in social work: a review of the
research literature. The Clinical Supervisor 24(1–2):49–67.
Bouët, A. 2008. The expected benefits of trade liberalization for world income and development:
opening the “black box” of global trade modelling. Washington, DC: International
Food Policy Research Institute.
Bridger, JC & Luloff, AE. 2000. Building the sustainable community: is social capital
the answer? Sociological Inquiry 71(4):458–72.
Castells, M. 1996. The information age: economy, society, and culture: the rise of the network
society. Volume I. Malden, MA: Blackwell.
Castells, M. 1997. The information age: economy, society, and culture: the power of identity.
Volume II. Malden, MA: Blackwell.
Castells, M. 1998. The information age: economy, society, and culture: end of millennium. Volume
III. Malden, MA: Blackwell.
Chile, LM. 2001. International development partnership and humanitarian response to
the emergency crises in Africa, in Rethinking humanitarianism, edited by B Evans-
Kent & R Bleiker. Brisbane, Australia: University of Queensland:279–286.
Chile, LM. 2004. Good practice in community development work: towards community
well-being. Social Work Review XVI(3):26–31.
Chile, LM. 2007a. Community development practice in New Zealand: exploring good practice.
Auckland: AUT University.
Chile, LM. 2007b. The three tikanga of community development in Aotearoa New
Zealand, in Community development practice in New Zealand: exploring good practice,
edited by LM Chile. Auckland: AUT University:35–74.
Chile, LM. 2009. Culturally competent practice: a training manual for professionals working with
refugees, migrants and people from diverse backgrounds. Auckland: AUT University.

DVA2602/163
BIBLIOGRAPHY

Chile, LM. 2011. Cross cultural issues in building healthy communities, in Walking
the talk: the collection of oral presentations from the AUT School of Public Health and
Psychosocial Studies, edited by R Scherman & C Krageloh. Auckland: Auckland
University of Technology:146–159.
Coleman, JS. 1993. The rational reconstruction of society. American Sociological Review
58(1):1–15.
Collier, P. 2007. The bottom billion: why the poorest countries are failing and what can be done
about it. New York: Oxford University Press.
Collier, P, Hoeffler, A & Patillo, C. 2004. Africa’s exodus: capital flight and the brain
drain as portfolio decisions. Journal of African Economies 13:15–54.
Cornwall, A. 2005. Unpacking ‘participation’: models, meanings and practices.
Community Development Journal 43(3):269–283.
Curnow, C & McGonigle, TP. 2006. The effects of government initiatives on
the professionalization of occupations. Human Resource Management Review
16(3):284–293.
De Beer, F & Swanepoel, H. 2012. A postscript as an introduction: do we know
where to go with the professionalization of community development in South
Africa? Africanus Journal of Development Studies 42(2):3–13.
De Beer, F & Swanepoel, H. 2013. The community development profession: issues, concepts
and approaches. Pretoria: Van Schaik.
DeFilippis, J. 2001. The myth of social capital in community development. Housing
Policy Debate 12(4):781–806.
Dussel, E. 2006. Globalization, organization and the ethics of liberation. Organization
13(4):489–508.
Easterly, W. 2007. The white man’s burden: why the West’s efforts to aid the rest have done so
much ill and so little good. New York: Penguin Press.
Efanodor, OH. 2013. Africa and sustainable development in the age of globalization:
old wine in new wine skin? Journal of Sustainable Development in Africa 15(2):11–26.
Emejulu, A. 2011a. The silencing of radical democracy in American community
development: the struggle of identities, discourses and practices. Community
Development Journal 46(2):229–244.
Emejulu, A. 2011b. Re-theorizing feminist community development: towards a
radical democratic citizenship. Community Development Journal 46(3):378–390.
Encyclopaedia Britannica. 2015. Sv “critical theory”. Available at: https://www.
britannica.com/ (accessed on 25/06/2015).
Etzo, S. 2010. The unfinished business of democratization: Struggles for service
and accountability in South African cities, from Democratisation. Routledge
17(3): 564–586.
Field, J. 2003. Social capital. London: Routledge.
Freire, P. 1970. Pedagog y of the oppressed. New York: Continuum.
Freire, P. 1972. Pedagog y of the oppressed. Harmondsworth: Penguin.
Freire, P. 1973. Education for critical consciousness. New York: Seabury Press.
Freire, P. 1985. The politics of education: culture, power, and liberation. South Hadley, MA:
Bergin & Garvey.
Friedmann, J. 1988. Life space and economic space: essays in Third World planning. New
Brunswick: Transaction Publishers.
Giddens, A. 1990. The consequences of modernity. Cambridge: Polity Press.
Gramsci, A. 1971. Selections from the prison notebooks. Translated by Q Hoare and G
Nowell-Smith. New York: International Publishers.
Gray, M & Mubangizi, B. 2010. Caught in the vortex: Can local government community
development workers succeed in South Africa? Community Development Journal
45(2):186–197

64
 Bibliography

Habib, A & Taylor, R. 1999. South Africa: anti-apartheid NGOS in transition.

Voluntas: International Journal of Voluntary and Nonprofit Organizations 10(1):73–82.
Hart, CS. 2012. Professionalization of community development in South Africa:
process, issues and achievements. Africanus Journal of Development Studies
42(2):55–66.
Hodgson, GM. 1984. The democratic economy: a new look at planning, markets and power.
Harmondsworth: Penguin.
Hustedde, RJ & Ganowicz, J. 2002. The basics: what’s essential about theory
for community development practice? Journal of the Community Development
Society 33(1):1–19.
Ife, J. 2002a. Community development: creating community alternatives – vision, analysis and
practice. Melbourne, Australia: Longman.
Ife, J. 2002b. Community development: community-based alternatives in an age of globalization.
Frenchs Forrest, NSW, Australia: Pearson Education.
Ife, J. 2010. Human rights from below: achieving rights through community development.
Melbourne, Australia: Cambridge University Press.
Igwe, D. 2011. Africa in the age of globalisation. International Journal of Sociolog y and
Anthropolog y 3(8):295–303.
Irish Community Workers’ Cooperative. 2012. Towards standards for quality community
work: an all-Ireland statement of values, principles and standards. Available
at: http://mrci.ie/wp-content/uploads/ 2012/10/Torwards-Standards-for-
Quality-Community-Work.pdf (accessed on 25/06/2015).
Jenkins, P, Robson, P & Cain, A. 2002. Local responses to globalization and
periheralization in Luanda, Angola. Environment and Urbanization 14(1):115–127.
Kenny, S, Fanany, I & Rahayu, S. 2013. Community development in Indonesia:
Westernization or doing it their way? Community Development Journal 48(2):280–297.
Kössler, R, Melber, H & Strand, P. 2003. Development from below: a Namibian case
study. Discussion Paper 21. Available at: http://www.diva-portal.org/ smash/
get/diva2:241408/FULLTEXT01.pdf (accessed on 25/06/2015).
Kretzmann, J & McKnight, J. 1993. Building communities from the inside out: a path toward
finding and mobilizing a community’s assets. Evanston, IL: Centre for Urban Affairs
and Policy Research, North Western University.
Ledwith, M. 2005. Community development: a critical approach. Bristol, UK: The Polity
Press.
Lotz, J. 2010. Understanding Canada: regional and community development in a new nation.
Kitchener, ON: Working Centre Publications.
Luka, S & Maistry, M. 2012. The institutionalization of community development in
a democratic South Africa. Africanus Journal of Development Studies 42(2):14–28.
Mamdani, M. 2012. Define and rule: Native as political identity, London, England: Harvard
University Press.
May, J. 2014. Sustaining effective anti-poverty programmes beyond transformation:
challenges and way forward, in The twin challenges of reducing poverty and creating
employment. New York: United Nations: 1–235.
Maistry, M. 2012. Towards professionalization: journey of community development
in the African and South African context. Africanus Journal of Development Studies
42(2):29–41.
McClymont, K & O’Hare, P. 2008. We’re not NIMBYs! Contrasting local protest
groups with idealised conceptions of sustainable communities. Local Environment
13(4):321–335.
Mills, CW. 1959. The sociological imagination. Oxford: Oxford UP.
Minkler, M. 2004. Ethical challenges for the “outside” researcher in community-
based participatory research. Health Education and Behaviour 31(6):684–697.

DVA2602/165
BIBLIOGRAPHY

Mkandawire, T. 2005. Maladjusted African economies and globalization. Africa

Development 30(1):1–33.
Mosoetsa, S. 2005. Compromised communities and re-emerging civic engagement
in Mpumalanga township, Durban, KwaZulu-Natal. Journal of Southern African
Studies 31(4):857–873.
Nel, E, Hill, T & Binns, T. 1997. Development from below in the “new” South
Africa: the case of Hertzog, Eastern Cape. The Geographical Journal 163(1):57–64.
Nikkhah, HA & Redzuan, MB. 2010. The role of NGOs in promoting empowerment
for sustainable community development. Journal of Human Ecolog y 30(2):85–92.
Ndikumana, L & Verick, S. 2008. The linkages between FDI and domestic investment:
unravelling the developmental impact of foreign investment in sub-Saharan
Africa. Development Policy Review 26(6):713–726.
Olutayo, A & Omobowale, AO. 2007. Capitalism, globalisation and the
underdevelopment process in Africa: history in perpetuity. Africa Development
32(2):97–112.
Pew Research Center. 2003. Views of a changing world. Washington, DC: The Pew
Research Center.
Pieterse, JN. 2012. Periodizing globalization: histories of globalization. New Global
Studies 6(2):1–25.
Popple, K & Quinne, A. 2002. Theory and practice of community development:
a case study from the United Kingdom. Journal of the Community Development
Society 33(1):71–85.
Portes, AY & Landholt, P. 1996. The downside of social capital. The American Prospect
26:18–21.
Putnam, R. 2000. Bowling alone: civic disengagement in America. New York: Simon and
Schuster.
UNESCO. 1956. UNESCO working paper for ACC Working Group on
Community Development: the definition of community development.
Working Paper 3, Paris, 22 June. Available at: http://unesdoc.unesco.org/
images/0017/001797/179726eb.pdf (accessed on 25/06/2015).
Robinson, M. 2002. Opening statement of the Tenth Workshop on Regional
Cooperation for the Promotion and Protection of Human Rights in the
Asia-Pacific Region, Beirut, 4–6 March.
Savard, R. 1986. Toward a new model of professionalism? American Library Association
25(4):498–505.
Sen, A. 1999. Development as freedom. New York: Anchor Books.
Smyth, R. [Sa]. A new look at the evolution of community development in Britain’s African
colonies. Malden, MA: Blackwell.
Swanepoel, H. 2011. Romance and other challenges to the professionalisation
of community development in South Africa: a viewpoint. The Social Work
Practitioner-Researcher 23(3).
Swanepoel, H & De Beer, F. 2011. Community development: breaking the cycle of poverty.
5th edition. Landsdowne: Juta.
Swilling, M & Russell, B. 2002. The size and scope of the non-profit sector in South Africa.
Durban: Centre for Civil Society, University of Natal.
Tomlinson, J. 1999. Globalization and Culture. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
United Nations. 1987. Report of the World Commission on Environment and
Development: our common future. Available at: http://www.un-documents.net/
our-common-future.pdf (accessed on 25/06/2015).

66
 Bibliography

United Nations. 2010. Sustainable development: from Brundtland to Rio 2012.

Background paper prepared for consideration by the High Level Panel on
Global Sustainability at its first meeting, 19 September 2010. Available at:
http://www.surdurulebilirkalkinma.gov.tr/wp-content/uploads/2016/06/
Background_on_Sustainable_Development.pdf (accessed on 25/06/2015).
Wallis, M. 1976. Community development in Kenya: some current issues. Community
Development Journal 11(3):192–198.
Wass, P. 1972. The history of community development in Botswana in the 1960s.
Botswana Notes and Records 4(1):81–93.
Watson-Thompson, J, Fawcett, SB & Schultz, JA. 2008. A framework for community
mobilization to promote healthy youth development. American Journal of Preventive
Medicine 34(3S):S72–S81.
Wilensky, HL. 1964. The professionalization of everyone? American Journal of Sociolog y
70(2):137–158.
World Bank. 2013. Migration and remittance flows: recent trends and outlook, 2013–
2016. Available at: http://siteresources.worldbank.org/INTPROSPECTS/
Resources/334934-1288990760745/MigrationandDevelopmentBrief21.pdf
(accessed on 25/06/2015).
Wright-Revolledo, K. 2007. Supporting the capacity of organisations at community
level: an exploration of issues, methods and principles for good practice.
INTRAC Occasional Papers Series No 48. Available at: https://www.intrac.
org/wpcms/wp-content/uploads/2018/11/OPS-48-Supporting-the-Capacity-
of-Organisations-at-Community-Level.pdf (accessed on 25/06/2015).

DVA2602/167