Asset-Based Approaches to Community-Driven and Citizen-Led Development

1. Asset-Based Approaches to Community-Driven and Citizen-Led Development Brianne Peters CANGO May 2011

2. The Coady International InstituteSt Francis Xavier University Established in1959 Emerged out of “the Antigonish Movement” in the 1920’s

3. Educational Offerings in Canada and Onsite Over 5,000 graduates in 130 countries • 19-week Diploma in Development Leadership: • Three-week Certificates in: • Advocacy and Citizen Engagement • Community-based Conflict Transformation and Peace Building • Community-based Microfinance • Community-based Natural Resource Management • Community-based Health Impact Assessment • Facilitation and Training Approaches for Community Change • Livelihoods and Markets • Mobilizing Assets for Community-Driven Development • Organizational Learning and Change • Women’s Leadership for Community Development • Master of Adult Education: Community Development Stream - STFX

4. Research for Action (in ABCD) Research and action-research initiatives that support our educational focus on community organizing for economic and social change

5. Asset-based Community Development emerged as a result of: • A growing critique of “problem solving” or • “needs-based” approaches

6. Consequences of a predominant focus on needs • 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

7. Asset-based Community Development also emerged as a result of the recognition of the existence of a multitude of assets in even the poorest communities

8. Stories Knowledge, experiences, innovations, talents and skills of individuals Physical assets and natural resources Financial resources (including the assets accumulated through iddirs, equbs and other informal savings and credit associations) Cultural assets (including traditions of mutual aid and collective action) Rights, claims and entitlements Local institutions Associations and social networks (including the community’s diaspora) What do we mean by assets? (community level)

9. An asset based approach • Recognizes and builds on existing strengths and assets • Provides tools and strategies for mapping, making inventories, analysing the local economy, linking and mobilising assets for community initiative • Promotes community analysis and action for local economic development

10. Examples of Internal Agency • In every country there are countless stories where citizens have self-mobilized and undertaken development initiatives. • They have “used what they have to secure what they have not.”

11. Learning retrospectively from successful communities: What are the roles of “agency” and “assets” in explaining community driven development? a Retrospective cases

12. Positive Deviants

13. Common Threads in these Examples: Internal Agency • Started with what they had (not what they needed from outside) • Started quite small and then grew to be more ambitious over time

14. Local Leadership is Key! • Leadership was spread throughout the community – not just vested in a particular charismatic individual • There were both formal and informal leaders – “gappers” – people who can bridge the gap between informal associations and formal institutions; between generations; between residents and ‘come from away’

15. These Leaders: • Tended to keep people focused on opportunities rather than problems or needs • Were able to get people to sacrifice something now for later benefit • Were able to motivate citizens to act by appealing to community members’ pride, sense of civic duty or responsibility towards others or future generations

16. External Agency • External agency was characterized by an “investment” rather than “service delivery” orientation – investing external resources in the community’s own initiatives • Encouragement and support for, multi-stakeholder arrangements

17. Responsive investment Service Delivery Responsive investment • Focus on needs • Responds to problems • Charityorentitlementorientation • Emphasis on external agencies • Power comes from credentials • “Motivation to act”- incentives, terms of employment • Goal is excellentservice • People areclients, consumers • Programs are the answer • Focus on assets • Builds from opportunities • Investment orientation • Emphasis on associations • Power comes from relationships • “Motivation to Act” – dreams, fears, being asked to contribute • Goal is community-driven development • People are citizens, members • People are the answer

18. Can outside agencies stimulate asset-based and community-driven development where it is not occurring already? a ABCD action research sites

19. Oxfam Canada Ethiopia: 2003-present

20. There is no blueprint! • The choice of methods you use to stimulate ABCD depends on: • The relationship your organization has with the community – What are the expectations of the community? How have you explained your interest in working there? • Their experience and expectations of other NGOs or local government • Power dynamics in the community

21. ABCD as a Methodology Discovering Strengths Organizing and Mapping Community Economic Analysis Linking and Mobilizing Monitoring and Evaluation

22. Appreciative Interviewing • Tell me about an activity you consider to have been successful in your community that started with no help from the outside? • What was it about you that made it successful? • What was it about others? • What was it about the situation?

23. Individual Skills: Gifts of Head/Hand/Heart Carpentry Farming Cooking Mechanics Sewing Weaving Animal husbandry House construction Analysis Accounting Organization Business and trading Management Literacy Problem solving Money management Compassion Care of elderly Sense of humour Conflict resolution Willingness to collaborate Cooperative spirit

25. Infrastructure and Natural Resources

26. Infrastructure and Natural Resources

27. Infrastructure and Natural Resources

28. Infrastructure and Natural Resources

29. Associations and Institutions

30. By mapping associations, the community Identifies existing organizational capacity Sees where the energy is in this community Understands what motivates people to organize Recognizes existing leadership in the community Can think about how existing associations can be modified and expanded to meet new opportunities

31. Associations and Institutions Community Organizing (associations) Institutions & Programs Policies, Markets, etc.

32. Leaky Bucket

33. Linking and Mobilizing

34. Linking and Mobilizing

35. Individual Skills e

36. Other Community Assets e

37. Leaky Bucket

38. Opportunities Identified Priority economic opportunities • Improving fertility of the land through: • Composting and crop rotation • Terracing • Planting commercial and indigenous trees • (Irrigation) Other economic opportunities identified • Reducing alcohol consumption • Construction of high school • Reducing expenditures on social festivities e

39. e

40. Results

42. Draw what ABCD means to you:

43. Issues • Identifying the “low hanging fruit” • Power structures within the community (entry point) • Unpredictable nature of ABCD • Sometimes principles have to be sidestepped • Differing approaches of other NGOs • Changing Mindsets: God and Government • Local and Global Contextual Issues that are beyond community control • Finding comfort in a new role

44. Thank you