Engaging Communities in Development

In many communities, women are often not heard. The male members in the family speak for them in community meetings. Mostly, they stay at home and do not take part in official functions. Although, many programs have alleviated this lack, much work still has to be done to engage women fully in community life.

If you want to help an individual, it's best to help the community the individual lives in. Yes, the key is community engagement. All boats rising on the same tide means no sailor is jealous of, or vindictive to the next boat! For the development program to be successful, the community needs to be engaged in the planning, decision making, monitoring and evaluating the project.

To start, communities, need to have good information to make choices. Choices without data are crap shoots, not development. Many communities especially in remote areas have very limited knowledge and so don't see choices, just hopelessness. However, as these communities grow in experience, they become more focused on opportunities which they themselves can identify more clearly. Development program specialists train community assistants who will be given skills in facilitating community involvement and participation. It's really important to get the village leaders involved in ownership or you will be sabotaged as a competitor.As they get engaged, their understanding broadens and their participation becomes more meaningful.

Beyond just power, community leaders and elders have to be involved as they are the decison makers in the communities. They know about leadership, they just need support, information and then maybe some resources. As they hold the power in their households and in their villages or communes, the new skills in facilitating community development will be very useful in building strong households and villages. These leaders and elders, when effectively engaged and trained, will make your community development project happen... with energy, drive and vision. Because they are poor or have weak language skills, some first world development nouveaus think they are a bit thick! The reality is that usually the local leaders have the horsepower to run rings around the project managers if they have information, resources and hope.

Generally, they respond to the needs of small communities which include training and education, enterprise development, microfinance, health and income generation. Other programs address specific problems, issues such as gender development and human rights. Often, narrowly targetted "agenda'' based programs are designed more to meet the needs of donors or voters back home and have almost nothing to do with development. If you have a personal " cause" or a messisanic urge, impose yourelf on those who can afford you and leave alone poor communities who deserve better!

The following modules will detail some of the better focused programs including community based microfinance, commuity based skills training, community based enterprise development, community managed tourism and sustainable forest management.

Often, people in small and remote communities do no have access to banking facilities. If they have, many of them cannot afford the fees that banks impose. Even if some can afford, they choose to use this amount for more pressing needs. As such, microfinance has flourished as an area for community development. One successful example is the Grameen Bank in Bangladesh. With community based microfinance, communities are encouraged to have some savings and are able to access capital for small enterprises.

In other countries, community based cooperatives have served this need and some have become very successful. Many of these cooperatives facilitate savings and loans for their members and often support training and other small development programs in their communities.

Implemented by the Ministry of Labor and Vocational Training and funded by the Asian Development Bank, this project gave communes belonging to the poorest 40% of all such habitations (Commune is 5 or more villages) a voucher worth $5000 a year to buy the training they wanted to move the commune ahead. They are assisted by the Provincial Training Centers to do a community development plan in which EVERYONE has a voice. The donor is in the back of the room taking notes!

The provincial training centers then help the communes find the trainers and organize the training. From 2006-2009, 210 communes in seven pilot provinces of Cambodia trained around 162,772 commune members. The process worked so well it was picked up by government funding and now will be extended to all the provinces of Cambodia. Subsequently, the communes identified post harvest technology and bridging programs for out/of/school youth as the next key steps in their training. A grant from the Japanese government has made these additional initiatives possible and as the pilots are refined, they too will probably end up as part of government long term programming. The post harvest technology training has now given some of the communes products to sell like soy milk and pickles. It is showing them how to pick, package and transport fruit and veg for better market proces. The skills bridging will enable the younger members of the communes to get into post secondary skills programs and eventually get better employment. Why do these work? They are designed by the communities with good information on options and a very few resources to kick start the process.

The women around Assumption College-Antipolo, Philippines had no jobs and no skills so Assumption established a center to offer them training in sewing and food preparation. After years of training, the women were anxious to apply their new skills to earn more income. The College started to assist the women with design and capital to sew school uniforms and prepare other products that they could market. It was all the kick start needed. Many of these women have expanded their operatons and they have supported their own children to earn educational degrees.

Communities need to have the skills needed for their development. No amount of advocacy can bring development unless skills are provided the people in the community. These skills are varied. Some may need skills to participate in the conomic life of the community. Others may need skills to be active in health, governance and the other aspects of community life.

When you visit Bali, you will see that some of the most intriguing temples and sites are managed by the communities where they are located. They set the rules of the visit. They have their own tourist guides and set the fees, too. Smart development had them focus on the reources they had, gave information on what tourists wanted and got them started on community success.

Some communities have developed agri-tourism and have set up the mechanism around which people can come and stay in their villages or visit some of the farms and houses. They have village stores where they sell their own products such as exotic fruits that you can sample.

Some communities have shown that when they manage their own forest resources for consumption and income generation, they are more committed to ensure the long term sustainability of these resources. Indigenous communities are often totally involved in these initiatives as they usually are close to the forests. Smart development assistance is centered on community economic development to improve incomes, not on sustainable development...a concept which seems rather vague to people who are hungry.