APPROACHES, METHODS AND

TOOLS FOR COMMUNITY

DEVELOPMENT

BY DANIEL S.WAMBURA,M.A
 APPROACHES
 Community capacity building(CCB); focusing
on helping communities obtain, strengthen,
and maintain the ability to set and achieve
their own development objectives.
 Social capital formation (SCF); focusing on
benefits derived from the cooperation
between individuals and groups.
 Community economic development (CED); an
alternative to conventional economic
development which encourages using local
resources in away that enhances economic
outcomes while improving social conditions.
APPROACHES CONT’D
 Community-driven development (CDD),
an economic development model which
shifts overreliance on central
governments to local communities.

 Asset-Based Community Development

(ABCD); is a methodology that seeks to
uncover and use the strengths within
communities as a means for sustainable
development.
APPROACHES CONT’D
 Community organizing(CO); a term used to
describe an approach that generally assumes
that social change necessarily involves
conflict and social struggle in order to
generate collective power for the powerless.

 Participatory planning (PP) including

community-based planning (CBP); involving
the entire community in the strategic and
management processes of urban planning; or,
community-level planning processes, urban or
rural.
PARTICIPATORY METHODS
AND TECHNIQUES

i) Rapid Rural Appraisal (RRA);

ii) Participatory Rural Appraisal (PRA)
iii) Participatory Action Research (PAR)
iv)Opportunities and Obstacles to Development (O&OD)
Note: Robert Chambers, a key promoter of PRA, argues
that poor and exploited people can and should be
enabled to analyse their own reality
(Robert Chambers (1997) Whose Reality Counts? Putting
the First Last. Intermediate Technology Publications,
London.)
OPPORTUNITIES AND OBSTACLES TO
DEVELOPMENT (O & OD)
• O & OD is a methodology used in community
participatory planning and is the basis for
owning the planning process and its results.
Some Terminologies used
• Opportunities – resources available within or
outside the community which can be used by
the community
• Obstacles – hindrances to optimal utilization
of the existing development opportunities
• Causes – reasons for existence of obstacles
 (O & OD) CONT’D

• Intervention – an act to address the obstacles

• Steps of implementation – activities to address
the causes
• The process uses a country’s key development
policies as a guide. For Tz, it uses TDV 2025
Five Years Development Plan 2011/2015,
2016/2020
• It has been institutionalised in the LGAs
structure of Tz.
 DATA COLLECTION (O&OD
TECHNIQUES
 Primary and secondary data
 Secondary data
Collected from the Village/ward records and other
institutions
 Primary data
Collected in the field using participatory tools. This data
includes:
• Spatial data
• Time related data
• Social and economic data
 TYPE OF DATA IN PARTICIPATORY
RESEARCH
Types of Data Participatory Tools

Spatial data Village map, Transect

walk
Time Related Data Historical time line,
Seasonal calendar
Social and Economic Household wealth ranking,
Data Institutional analysis,
Gender resource map and
Daily gender activities
calendar
SPATIAL DATA

Spatial data is the basis for

identifying existing opportunities
and obstacles in the Community.
Spatial data include land use, crops,
topography, rivers, institutions,
soils, and forests.
The tools for collecting this data is
Village map and the transect walk.
COMMUNITY MAP

• Community map is one of the

participatory tools that can facilitate the
collection of data.
• The Community map is an illustration of
the actual social and economic situation
in the Community.
• The Community map shows opportunities
and obstacles to development
 COMMUNITY MAP CONT’D
A map drawn by the Community will show all
the important features such as
•Boundaries in relation to neighboring
Village/wards
•Compass
•Economic activities taking place
•The existing institutions in the Community
•The existing infrastructure
•Available resources
 TRANSECT WALK
• Transect walk refers to the collection of
spatial information, through direct
observation while walking across a selected
route in the Village.
• Transect walk is a participatory tool which
enables the Community to confirm/verify
the information on the Village sketch map.
• Transect walk confirms environment data by
visiting and observing directly the
respective sites.
TIME RELATED DATA
Collection of time-related data is done using
historical time-line and seasonal calendar.
 HISTORICAL TIME LINES

• Historical time-line is a participatory tool,

which enables the Community members to
carry out a simple analysis of the major
historical events in their Community.
• The Community members identify the
major historical events, their causes, their
effects (positive or negative), and the
actions taken (interventions) in response.
HISTORICAL TIME LINES CONT’D
Historical time data is collected by a group composed of
female and male elders who are familiar with Village and its
Community.
ILLUSTRATION OF HISTORICAL TIME LINES
Year Event Causes Effects/ Interventi
Benefits ons
 SEASONAL CALENDAR
Seasonal calendar is a participatory tool
which presents diverse information in a
common time frame. It compares
Community activities, month by month,
across sectorial boundaries.
Examples of commonly used terms include
climate, human ailments, the occurrence
of foods, water, cash incomes, resting
periods, etc.
Group discussions should be informal, and
should be guided with simple questions
like“when do you plant maize?” or “When
do you harvest?”
SEASONAL CALENDAR FOR NRAO
VILLAGE
SOCIO-ECONOMIC DATA
Institutional Analysis
Institutional Analysis enables the Community and
facilitators to:
•Identify institutes and their activities.
•Appreciate institutes which collaborate with
Community in different areas of development.
•Be aware of the relationship between institutes in
serving the Community.
•Reduce work interference.
•Understand the institutions which are not within the
Community but which are useful.
 GENDER RESOURCE MAP
• Gender resource map is useful in
identifying resource needs and aspirations.
• Gender resource map exercise helps the
Community to indicate the gaps that exist
in ownership, division of labour and
responsibilities among men, women and
children.
• Gender resource map is useful in
identification of gender gaps for
rectification.
GENDER RESOURCE MAP

• Gender resource map helps to point out who should

participate more in certain tasks.
• Gender resource map helps to learn and understand from
the Community’s view point: who owns, controls and
provides labour over resources based on sex. It is also used
to identify gender gaps in order to rectify the situation.
GENDER DAILY ACTIVITIES
CALENDAR
The daily activities calendar is a participatory tool that
enables the generation of information by gender and age
based on the division of labour at the household level. This
participatory tool is useful in revealing gender
responsibilities and imbalances
• Most activities in the rural areas are distributed along
gender based social notions. This produces activities that
are generally done by women, men or male and female
children.
• Nevertheless, in most of these same rural communities,
people irrespective of sex are performing some common
activities, e.g. farming.
GENDER DAILY CALENDER
TIME MEN WOMEN YOUTH
HOUSEHOLD WEALTH RANKING
• Household Wealth Ranking is an evaluation of the economic
status of every household in the Community.
• In the rural process, criteria for household wealth ranking
set by Village assembly according to the Community’s
perception should be used. Each household is then ranked
as having a poor, satisfactory or good living condition.
HOUSEHOLD WEALTH RANKING
CONT’D
Importance of household wealth ranking
•To understand Village /ward social economic status
•Helps to identify target group especially when there are
deliberate plans for poverty alleviation
THE END

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