Course Code: AGEXT 4103

Course Title: Community Engagement

Concept of Community
What is a Community?
▪ A Community is a set of people living together with common interest”
▪ We all live in a community. There are different things that bind us together. Let us try to
identify them.
❑ Occupation ❑ Values
❑ Language ❑ Religion
❑ Beliefs ❑ Culture

WHAT’S A COMMUNITY?
It is a social entity made of people or families who have the following characteristics:
• Live in the same geographical area • Have a common leadership and tradition
• Share common goals or problems • Have common system of communication
• Share similar development aspirations • Share some resources-water, school, etc
• Have similar interests or social network • Are sociologically and psychologically
or relationship at local level linked.

Concept of Community engagement

• Community engagement – which can also be referred to as stakeholder engagement, public
participation or community collaboration depending on your industry - is the process of
working with and involving the community in order to create meaningful relationships
between the organisation and the people it serves.
• It's all about communication, involvement, and collaboration, where organisations seek to
connect with their stakeholders, identify shared interests and concerns to make better
decisions, and achieve sustainable outcomes.
To better understand the meaning of community engagement, we can break down each word:
• Community – Groups of people based on common geography (country, state, region, suburb,
neighbourhood, etc.) or common interest (customs, values, religion, needs, etc.), which may
include citizens, businesses, residents, stakeholders, and more
• Engagement – The act of including stakeholders in activities and communications and
allowing them to contribute in a meaningful way
The United Nations Community Engagement Guidelines on Peacebuilding and Sustaining
Peace also includes a usual definition for what community engagement is:

“Community engagement” is a strategic process to directly involve local populations in all

aspects of decision-making, policy development and implementation to strengthen local
ownership, capacities and community structures as well as to improve transparency,
accountability and optimal resource allocations across diverse settings.
Levels of participation

Passive Participation
People participate by being told what is going to happen or what has already happened
It is a unilateral announcement by leaders or administrators or by project managers without
listening to people’s responses or even asking their opinions
The information being shared belongs only to external professionals

Participation in information giving

People participate by answering questions posed by extractive researchers using
questionnaire or such similar approaches
People participate by giving answers to questions for fact finding purposes.
People do not get the opportunity to influence the findings of research.

Participation by consultation
-People participate by being consulted and external agents listen to views
-External agents define problems and solutions and may modify these in light of peoples
responses.
-Such a consultative process does not concede any share in decision-making and professionals
are under no obligation to take on board people’s views.

Participation for material benefits

• People participate by providing resources for example labor in return for food , cash or
other material incentives.
• Much on-farm research falls in this category, as farmers/rural pepole provide the resources
(fields) but are not involved in experimentation or the process of learning

Functional participation (cooperation)

People participate by forming groups to meet pre- determined objectives related to the
project which can involve the development of promotion of externally initiated social
organization.
Such involvement happen in advanced stages of programmes, not in initial stage.
These institutions/organizations (e.g., CBO) tend to be dependent on external support,
but may become self-dependent.
Interactive participation
People participate in joint analysis which leads to action plans and the formation of new local
groups or the strengthening of existing ones.
These groups take control over local decisions. Such involvement happen in
advanced stages of programmes, not in initial
stage.

Importance of community engagement

*Increase trust
• By communicating with community members, you demonstrate greater transparency, which
can help to build trust
• peer-to-peer influence is becoming more powerful than top-down information sharing.
• This makes community engagement even more important and allows institutions to get
good quality, accurate, shareable, information into the hands of their best networked
community members.
• The better and more accurately informed and involved our community is, the more likely
they are to trust the institution engaging them.
• Trust is something that has been in short supply in many communities. Edelman Trust
research clearly suggests that community engagement matters, it is an important way to build
stronger trust with your community.

*Make better decisions – Community engagement gives you more information and
perspectives, which can help you make decisions that consider the bigger picture and impact
on all your stakeholders
• You will get better results if you ask your community to engage from an early stage of the
project.
• Community knows things you can never know. There will always be ideas, issues, concerns,
history and context out there that affects your project that you do not have a good grasp on. It
can build your understanding and help you avoid political landmines at the end of your
process that might set you back by months or even years.

*Be socially responsible

– By engaging with the community, you can become more aware of social, environmental, and
economic factors at play and (hopefully) contribute in a positive way.

*Successfully manage conflict and negotiate -By strategically engaging with the community
(identifying and analyzing stakeholders), you can pinpoint potential sources of conflict
earlier, as well as identify potential common ground that might help different groups (and
your organization) negotiate and move forward with the project

Community satisfaction:
• Community will be more satisfied with your organization’s performance
• The Community is likely to think you are doing a better job if you engage them regularly.
• The extent to which the community feels engaged is consistently one of the most important
factors in determining community satisfaction.
• Community engagement matters because the community feels more satisfied when they are
involved in decision making process.

Scope of Community Engagement

1. Community engagement for risk mapping activities
2. Community engagement for flood resilience
3. Community engagement for drought resilience
4. Community participation in development for adaptation
5. Community engagement for Natural resource management (forest, fish)
6. Community engagement for Sustainable Tourism Development
7. Community engagement in primary school management
8. Community engagement for slum improvement programme
9. Community engagement in the Process of Local Level Planning
10. Community engagement for organizing in anti-corruption initiatives through spontaneous
participation
11. Community participation in improving non-formal primary education
12. Community engagement for health risk management

Limitations of Community engagement

1. One of the main drawbacks of community engagement is that it can be a time-consuming
process. This is because it requires extensive consultations and discussions with various
stakeholders. These consultations and discussions take time and can slow down the decision-
making and implementation processes, especially in urgent situations where quick action is
needed. The time-consuming nature of community engagement can be attributed to the need
for thorough discussions to ensure that all perspectives are considered, and all voices are
heard.
• It is crucial to involve a wide range of stakeholders, including community members, local
organizations, government authorities, and other relevant parties, to achieve meaningful
engagement.
2. Another disadvantage of community engagement is the potential resistance to change from
some community members. When proposed changes challenge traditional practices or
hierarchies, it can be difficult to overcome this resistance.
• Overcoming resistance requires patience, education, and effective communication to help
community members understand the benefits and necessity of the proposed changes. It is
important to provide clear and transparent information about the reasons behind the
proposed changes and how they
align with the overall goals and vision of the community. By addressing concerns and
providing opportunities for dialogue, community engagement can help build trust and foster a
sense of ownership among community members.
3. Engaging communities in decision-making can also lead to challenges in existing power
dynamics. When community members are given a voice in decision-making processes, it
can create conflicts, competing interests, and power struggles within the community or even
with government authorities.
-These power dynamics need to be carefully managed to ensure that the community
engagement process remains fair and inclusive. It is essential to establish clear guidelines and
mechanisms for decision-making, ensuring that all voices are
heard and that decisions are made in a transparent and accountable manner. By promoting
inclusivity and equitable participation, community engagement can help address power
imbalances and promote social cohesion.

Principle of Community Engagement

BEFORE STARTING A COMMUNITY ENGAGEMENT EFFORT…

1. Be clear about the purposes or goals of the engagement effort and the populations and/or
communities you want to engage.
2. Become knowledgeable about the community’s culture, economic conditions, social
networks, political and power structures, norms and values, demographic trends, history, and
experience with efforts by outside groups to engage it in various programs. Learn about the
community’s perceptions of those initiating the engagement activities.

FOR ENGAGEMENT TO OCCUR, IT IS NECESSARY TO…

3. Go to the community, establish relationships, build trust, work with the formal and informal
leadership, and seek commitment from community organizations and leaders to create
processes for mobilizing the community.
4. Remember and accept that collective self-determination is the responsibility and right of all
people in a community. No external entity should assume it can bestow on a community the
power to act in its own self-interest.
5. Partnering with the community is necessary to create change and improve the conditions
6. All aspects of community engagement must recognize and respect the diversity of the
community. Awareness of the various cultures of a community and other factors affecting
diversity must be paramount in planning, designing, and implementing approaches to
engaging a community.
7. Community engagement can only be sustained by identifying and mobilizing community
assets and strengths and by developing the community’s capacity and resources to make
decisions and take action.
8. Organizations that wish to engage a community as well as individuals seeking to effect
change must be prepared to release control of actions or interventions to the community and
be flexible enough to meet its changing needs.
9. Community collaboration requires long-term commitment

What are the processes of community engagement?

Community engagement involves taking a strategic approach to an organization's community-
based stakeholders. This includes building relationships, developing communications, and
managing interactions in order to achieve specific outcomes for the organization and the
community itself.

What are the six C's of successful community engagement? The six Cs include
• Communication • Compassion
• Collaboration • Creativity
• Consistency • Commitment
They collectively help in fostering an engaged and vibrant community.

What is ethical engagement? What is the 7 STep model for ethical

Effective and ethical engagement decision making?
recognizes the diversity of communities, A 7-STep Guide to Ethical Decision-Making
and learns from the communities •State the problem. ...
themselves how they are defined and •Check the facts. ...
conceptualized, what the community means •Identify relevant factors (internal and
to its various members, and what the external).
community as a whole considers important •Test the options. ...
topics for health research. •Make a choice based on steps 1-5.
•Review steps 1-6

Levels of community engagement and their objectives. (Adapted from MFSH, 2008)
1. Sharing information
Objective: To share accurate, timely, relevant and easily understood information about
decisions regarding policies, WASH programmes, services or issues that have arisen.
Information can be passive (poster or brochure) or active (face-to-face meetings).
2 Consultation
Objective: To actively seek community opinions, before a decision is made.
3 Planning together
Objective: To collaborate with the community in identifying and analysing issues, developing
alternatives and identifying preferred solutions, communities provide input into the planning
and evaluation.
4 Acting together
Objective: Similar to planning together, except that the community will be involved in
implementing as well as identifying preferred solutions, i.e. the WASH practitioner and
communities share in the planning and evaluation and also share responsibility for making
decisions and implementing them.
5 Community directed
Objective: To support or enable the community to identify issues and solutions, make
decisions and implement them and hence forward to manage a service. Community may be
referred to as a partner.