29 Sept 2011

Asset Based Community Driven

Development

“Serious ED”

ABCD

ABCD = ASSET BASED COMMUNITY DRIVEN

3

Intro & Welcome

Sebastian Mathews

This is who I am. Please tell me your name, what you do, and

something amazing about yourself…

Workshop programme

Reflection

•- Experiences from South Africa/International

•- Planning an ABCD pilot

•- Engaging with the community

•- Supporting community projects

•- Changing role of the external agency

•- Monitoring & evaluation

•- Next steps

12:45 - 13:00

Do

• Group Activity: Social Assets: Association Mapping

• Group Activity: Physical Assets: Community Mapping

• Group Activity: Economic Assets: Leaky Bucket

11:35 – 12:45

Think

Appreciative Inquiry

• Group Activity: A Tale of Two Communities (10 min)

• Group Activity: Human Assets: ‘Head, heart & hands’ (10 min)

Overview of Asset Based and Community Driven (ABCD) Development

• The Sustainable Livelihoods Framework

10:30 – 11:30

Thursday, 29 Sept

High prevalence of

HIV/AIDS

No jobs or formal

employment

Exercise: A Tale of Two Communities

Instructions: (15min) Each group to select a community A or B. If you are an

NGO/local government official, what policies or actions would you

recommend to support each communities? Give 3 suggestions…

Community A

Healthy families - positive role models

Women’s self help groups

Strong values and culture

Entrepreneurial cultureWide range of individual skills

Positive role models (i.e. farmer innovation)

History of communal work

Stockvels/Burial societies

Close proximity to urban market Diaspora that still feel strong links to the community

Many informal associations

Community B

Disease prevention

- High prevalence of HIV/AIDS

Healthy families - positive role models

Women’s self help groups

Existing values and culture

Improve incomes

- No jobs or formal employment

Entrepreneurial cultureWide range of individual skillsPositive role models (i.e. farmer innovation)History of communal work Burial societiesClose proximity to urban market Diaspora that still feel strong links to the community Many informal associations

Answer?

Guess what – A and B are the same community! The way we view a community tends to determine, however inadvertently, how we

approach them…

Do we see problems… or possibilities….

People and Communities

have deficiencies & needs

Individuals and Communities

have skills and talents

The Dilemma . . .

Two key questions we are exploring:

How can you stimulate community-driven development where it is not occurring?

How can communities sustain that virtuous spiral of increasing assets and agency?

Coady International Institute, September 2009

Needs, assets and citizens:Consequences of a problem-solving approach

� Leadership emphasizing community “needs” in order to secure resources

� Community members internalizing what their leaders are saying (a deficit mentality)

� Funding by categories of needs, and� Money going to the institutions filling the needs

� A dependence on external rather than internal relationships

Downward

Spiral

Neighborhood Needs Map

Environmental pollution

Unemployment

Gangs Literacy

challenges

Early School

Leaving

Broken Families Poor Housing

Joy riding

Drug

Dealin

g

CrimeDisability

Graffiti

A needs assessment of a community may for example emphasize

the following issues and problems that require external agents to

come in with programs and services to solve it:

Consequences of the Power of the “Needs Assessment”

� Internalizations of the “deficiencies” identified by local residents

� Destruction of social capital

� Reinforcement of narrow categorical funding flows

� Direction of funds toward professional helpers, not residents

� Focus on “leaders” who magnify deficiencies

� Rewards failure, produces dependency

� Creates hopelessness

Asset Based

Growing recognition of the

existence of a multitude

of assets in even the

poorest communities

Assets

� ….are resources for making livelihoods and coping with life’s setbacks

� ….provide us with a sense of identity and meaningful engagement with the world

� ….have emancipatory value – by providing us with the capacity to act

� ….are a catalyst for civic involvement and enterprise development

(Sen, Bebbington, Moser, Carter, Sherraden,)

What do we mean by community assets?

� Stories� Knowledge, experiences, innovations, talents and skills of individuals

� Associations and social networks (including the community’s diaspora)

� Local institutions� Physical assets and natural resources� Financial resources (including the assets accumulated through stokvels, funeral societies and other informal savings and credit associations)

� Cultural assets (including traditions of mutual aid and collective action – e.g. the spirit of Ubuntu – the belief that a person is only a person through the help of others, including values such as compassion, respect and human dignity )

� Rights, claims and entitlements

Neighbourhood Asset Map

While a social asset assessment of the same community highlights a

rich network of internal associations and organizations that can

creatively take their community to a preferred future…

The Sustainable Livelihoods Framework –5 Asset Model

Economic Assets

Environmental/ Natural Assets

Physical/Infrastructure

Assets

Human Assets

Social Assets

Community Driven –Agency (“the capacity to act”)

In every community there are countless examples of “positive deviance” - where citizens have self-mobilized and undertaken development initiatives without assistance (at least initially) from outside organizations

We also want to strengthen agency i.e. the capacity to act…

Effective Communities

� Look inside first to solve problems

� Relationships are seen as power

� Have a good sense of assets and capacities,

not just needs

� Leaders open doors

� Citizens are involved

� People take responsibility

Community Building Approach

• Children do well when their families do well,

• And, families do better when they live in

supportive neighborhoods and communities.• (Search Institute Research Data)

‘It takes an entire village to raise a child’ African Saying

Service Delivery To Meet Needs

� Solve problem

� Focus on needs

� Responds to problems

� Grants

� Entitlement (or charity) orientation

� Emphasis on external agencies, programs

� Power comes from credentials

� “Motivation to act”- incentives, terms of employment

� Goal is excellent service

� People are clients, consumers

� Programs are the answer

Community DevelopmentTo Build Assets

� Invest in opportunity

� Focus on assets

� Builds from opportunities

� Matching funds - Grants, Loans, Investments

� Investment orientation

� Emphasis on the initiatives of local associations

� Power comes from relationships

� “Motivation to Act” – dreams, fears, being asked to contribute

� Goal is community-driven development

� People are citizens, members, producers

� People are the answer

Service Delivery AND

Community Development

Service delivery efforts should ideally be balanced by genuine asset based community development initiatives

Everyone should have the opportunity to be a producer of their

own and their communities well-being

It takes everyone to build a

strong and safe community

Summary

Conclusion

“It is what we make out of what we have, not what we are given, that separates one person from another.”

Nelson Mandela