Scales of Sustainability

2015

The potential of communities for sustainability learning and governance has generated substantial interest in sustainability discourses, but their specific roles and remits are not always critically examined. This thesis' original contribution to these discourses lies in the analysis of community projects as liminal spaces for pro-sustainable change that are limited in scope within wider political landscapes that do not sufficiently address wider challenges of an unravelling biosphere. The particular manifestation of community projects which emerges in Scotland as a result of Climate Challenge Fund funding made available by the Scottish Government is one example of sustainability governance at a local level. The present study draws upon data from field notes of eleven months of fieldwork, and semi-structured interviews with fifty-two informants, constructing two case studies with references to a third one. A transdisciplinary analysis of findings examines leadership and organisa...

Canadian Public Administration/Administration publique du Canada, 2007

Various levels of government contract-out the provision of public services such as health and education to community organizations, which have traditionally received core funding for these services. In recent years, however, with the adoption of neoliberal policies and New Public Management ideals, Canadian federal and provincial governments have increasingly off-loaded the provision of social services to community organizations through a project-funding regime. Community organizations and their workers now find themselves facing new challenges created by this new funding regime. This article explores the ways in which the daily lives of these workers have been organized and influenced by project-funding regime procedures and rules, which benefit the state but create hardships for workers. This analysis draws on staff interviews and focus group data collected from three community organizations in three provinces across Canada. The qualitative analytic approach includes both a thematic analysis and the identification of practices that benefit the institution but complicate worker activities, as identified by the Psycho-Social Ethnography of the Common-Place method, which borrows from Institutional Ethnography. Through the analysis of procedures of increased accountability, shortterm funding, hiring on contract, use of information and communication technologies, and forced partnerships, the authors delineate the ways in which a neoliberalized ruling system benefits and manages staff activities while complicating the lives of the workers. Recommendations and responses to this situation are discussed.

Organisations are increasingly being asked to respond to local environmental issues, however, due to competing interests, initiatives that are led by organisations can often be viewed with skepticism and mistrust. In addition, research on organisationally led initiatives to respond positively to environmental issues is lacking. Using qualitative methodology, this case study explores the drivers of a successful sustainable water allocation strategy implemented in the town of Griffith NSW, part of the Murray Darling Basin in Australia, facilitated by the local irrigation authority. Content analysis indicated that community engagement in the initial planning and scoping phase was an important step in fostering support and project success. Furthermore, equity in engagement, and facilitation via a combined top-down/bottom-up management style, increased trust. Organisational understanding of the needs of each stakeholder group appeared to generate better engagement in the project, regardl...

Community led local development and community driven development played a mandatory role in rural development of both developed and under developed countries. The paper explores the relationship between community empowerment, sense of community and sustainability of community-driven projects. Looking at the record of social well at gross root level, very less attention was paid on development of deprived communities. Starting from the experience of community-driven organizations (i.e. the Citizen Community Boards in Pakistan), the paper attempts to answer two questions: (1) is there a relationship between community empowerment and project sustainability; and (2) is this relationship between community empowerment and project sustainability mitigated by the sense of community? Further, the paper elaborates on the concepts of ‘‘community empowerment’’, ‘‘sustainability’’ and ‘‘sense of community’’. A hierarchical regression analysis is used to test the relationship between community empowerment and sustainability of community-driven projects. This analysis highlights the central role of the sense of community in mitigating the relationship between community empowerment and sustainability. Community empowerment is significantly related to the sense of community. These relationships between sense of community, community empowerment and sustainability of community-driven projects are applicable to empowerment theory and measurement.

International Journal of Managing Projects in Business, 2016

Purpose– The purpose of this paper is to examine the relationship between project-based organizing and the initiatives labelled as “development” by critically engaging with some unchallenged assumptions inherent in the notion of both projects as a means through which social change can be achieved and the wider possibility of delivering social good as an objective of development.Design/methodology/approach– From a phenomenologically informed critical participatory perspective the authors focus on contradictions within the practices of community development (CD) by attending to the interplay between the dominant project form of organizing that frames those practices and the rhetoric of “development”.Findings– Drawing on two CD examples, the authors illustrate and discuss the contradictions and damaging consequences of the developmentalism-projectification double-act. The position is that social good is local and contextual and draws expediently and contingently on the means through wh...

Environment and Planning A

Community-based initiatives are widely seen to play an essential role in a societal move towards a low carbon, sustainable future. As part of this, there is often an assumption that such initiatives share expectations (i.e., a guiding vision) of large-scale change, and that their activities contribute to this change. Here, we ask to what extent this assumption reflects members' own perspectives on and interpretations of the visions, aims and ambitions of their community initiative, and what this implies for a larger vision of sustainability transitions. In doing so, we respond to calls for a better understanding of the "everyday politics" of what could be seen as processes of societal transitions in practice.

Public Administration and Development, 1983

The project approach to development assistance has been attacked for its inability to make results self-sustaining. This has been attributed to a short time horizon, an inability to pick up recurrent costs, and a tendency to either by-pass or fragment local institutions and therefore to neglect the need for local capacity building. At the same time, claims have been made that projects are politically advantageous due to quick high visibility results and they are useful instruments for experimentation, social learning and capacity building. This article examines both arguments and concludes that there is a need for radical changes in project development processes, but that there should not be a rush to abandon the project as an instrument for development. George Honadle and Jay Rosengard are staff members of Development Alternatives, Inc. (DAI), a Washington based consulting and research firm specializing in rural development, 624 Ninth St. NW, Washington, DC 20001, U.S.A. 027 I -2 0 7 S / X 3 / 0 4 0 2 9~~-0 7 $~) I .OO 0 1983 by John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

Mohamed Tejan Tarawally Deen , 2023

This work examines the concept of rural transformation concerning The Sierra Leone Community Driven Development Project-Phase II (SLCDD2) that was implemented by the National Commission for Social Action (NaCSA) on behalf of the Government of Sierra Leone (GOSL). The Islamic Development Bank (IDB) contributed US$ 46.68 million out of the estimated total project cost of US$ 51.93 million. The project became

Environment and Planning C: Politics and Space, 2018

'Community' is frequently identified as an important element of sustainable development policy, with communities thought to be particularly effective spaces in which to encourage individuals to adopt sustainable lifestyles. The potential power of a community-based approach derives from the ability of community groups to tap into existing social networks and local bonds of trust to communicate messages and enact change. To date, there has been little consideration of the position and influence of newcomers to communities within this rationale. This paper explores this issue through two government-funded, community-led sustainability projects in rural Scotland. We observe that the majority of those most actively involved in these two projects had migrated to the communities and were considered 'incomers' by both themselves and other 'local' residents. Drawing these observations together with literature on rural migration and participation in community activity, we explore the potential implications for the outcomes of initiatives seeking to influence lifestyle change. We question whether projects that are established by, and primarily comprised of, individuals who are not necessarily considered 'locals' locally align with the rationale behind a 'community-led' approach.

2005

Participatory monitoring and evaluation (PM&E) offers new ways for strengthening learning and change both at community, project and institutional level. PM&E can and has been used for various purposes, including project planning and management, organizational strengthening and learning, understanding and negotiating stakeholder interests, and the assessment of project outcomes and impacts. For example, at community level, PM&E systems can serve as a tool for strengthening the local capacity to track changes, assess the effectiveness, environmental sustainability and livelihood impacts of their projects. The process involves scientists and communities negotiating and agreeing on what changes they expect from projects; what they need to do to achieve these changes; what local and scientific indicators will track these changes; and which success and failure factors need to be monitored to ensure that the projects are on track. This research project seeks to investigate whether PM&E sys...