One thing that has really irked me about development is the jargon. Intermixed with the rhetoric of participatory or bottom-up approaches, there is a language that is used that is incredibly top down. A community group is a beneficiary and their life becomes a project. An organization must assess a beneficiary’s needs and then create an intervention – usually a service that can only be met by that organization. The well being of the beneficiary is dependent on being a client, resulting in them becoming consumers of services rather than producers.
But what if the language was changed and the focus shifted? What if the center of attention was on what a community has, rather than what it needs? Or what if a community member was treated like a citizen with skills and assets, rather than a client with deficiencies?
Well, this is exactly what a non-governmental organization called the Africa 2000 Network is doing using something called Assets Based Community Development (ABCD).
ABCD is an approach to community development based on the principle that communities have assets and strengths that are underutilized due to the community’s focus on their problems. The aim of ABCD is to identify strengths and assets within a community and to give them the tools to effectively use and manage this capital to start developing the community from the inside. Furthermore, the approach aims to change the attitude that communities are poor and must wait for outside help to begin their own development, allowing for regained confidence in local ideas, empowerment of individuals and the strengthening of community spirit.
One technique that is central to ABCD is appreciative inquiry. The methodology is centered on the premise that effective community development starts with building relationships at the community level through appreciating community achievements. In other words by asking community members to talk about what they pride themselves on, energy can be found to build confidence in community driven initiatives. The concept is obvious but strangely underused for a sector that is meant to empower people!
Some other techniques used are “leaky bucket economic analysis”, a tool for explaining community economics; assets mapping with a focus on social assets and skills mapping to identify skills and capacities in a community.
Another unique aspect to the Africa 2000 program is that they are working with the regional and district governments by running workshops for them on ABCD and how to implement it. I find this particularly amazing as it builds capacity of one of the main community development financiers in progressive development approaches.
When I was introduced to Africa 2000 by another EWB volunteer I was immediately inspired. Bringing all of a new approach, new language and new attitude to development, I can’t help but think that there is a lot potential for impact.
Myself, I am really excited to learn more about ABCD! I have the manual and am arranging for the director of Africa 2000 to come and do a workshop at KITE, and hopefully we can find some way to incorporate it into the MFP project.
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Asset Based Community Development is a term coined by John McKnight and Jody Kretzmann of the Institute for Policy Research at Northwestern University in Illinois in their book Building Communities from the Inside Out: A path toward finding and mobilizing community assets. ABCD has been adopted by institutions such as the Coady International Institute at St. Francis Xavier University in Nova Scotia as well several NGOs such as Africa 2000 Network.
For more information visit:
http://www.coady.stfx.ca/work/ABCD/
http://www.northwestern.edu/ipr/abcd.html
