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