COMMUNITY DEVELOPMENT PROGRAMMES

Topic Cover –MA Sem-II (P-IX) Issues and Trends in Indian Politics

Submitted By

Dr. Jiwan Devi

Dept. of Political Science

HMV Jalandhar, Punjab, India

INTRODUCTION

• The community development programmes and accountability are built on the earlier understanding of what communities are, and how are they located, in the social and economic contexts.
• They also gave us some idea of the issues facing these communities. There are various ways in which these issues are addressed. Community development programmes whether initiated by Government or non-government agencies seek to address the issues and concerns of the communities.
• The concept of community development programmes focuses on the interventions for community development to be people centered and people led, that seek to change for better, the conditions of living of these communities.

HISTORY OF COMMUNITY DEVELOPMENT PROGRAMMES

• Community development efforts have a long history dating back to pre independence times.
• There were programmes like the Sevagram and Sarvodaya rural development experiments of Bombay State, Firca Development Schemes of Madras State, Pilot projects of Etawah and Gorakhpur.
• These efforts were because of a desire for new techniques, new incentives and confidence to undertake development work.

COMMUNITY DEVELOPMENT PROGRAMMES

The CDPs need to be understood with dimensions of their context, creation and culmination.

1. The context factors relate to the issues, problems, concerns of the community, the background of the community and the strengths and weaknesses of the community.
2. The creation refers to the specific programmes related to addressing the issues and concerns of the community with what intentions(values basis and goals), strategies and mechanisms.
3. The culmination would relate to the way the programme reaches its goals and with clear identification of people and processes that are accountable.

CONCEPT OF COMMUNITY AND DEVELOPMENT

• Community development has two terms community and development both of which need some understanding.
• Communities refer to people bounded in specific geographic areas and communities of interest.
• The past three centuries have seen major changes in the notion of community.
• We have moved from a predominantly agricultural and rural society, to an urban industrialized society, and now to a post-industrial society.
• In this latter period of de-industrialization, there has been erosion of community life and a decline in civil society organizations.
• These have meant a slow degeneration of traditional family networks, heightened inequality between groups of people as well as growth of institutions to meet the needs of the people, which were hitherto met by the community itself.

DEVELOPMENT AS A CONCEPT OF CDPS

• Development as a concept would imply that there is progress or change for the better in such a way to enhance the security, freedom, dignity, self-reliance and self-development of groups of people. This would involve twin concepts of social as well as economic development.
• Community development is a collaborative, facilitative process undertaken by people (community, institutions, or academic stakeholders) who share a common purpose of building capacity to have a positive impact on quality of life.

COMMUNITY DEVELOPMENT WORKS

• Community Development is about building active and sustainable communities based on social justice and mutual respect. It is about changing power structures to remove the barriers that prevent people from participating in the issues that affect their lives.
• Community Development Workers support individuals, groups and organizations in this process on the basis of certain values and commitments. Community development works for strengthening of face to face communities to meet the psychological needs of belonging, practical needs of mutual care, and the political need for participation and campaigning for rights and resources

APPROACHES USED IN COMMUNITY DEVELOPMENT

• using an asset-based approach that builds on strengths and existing resources;
• encouraging inclusive processes that embrace community diversity; and
• creating equitable conditions and outcomes for health and wellbeing;
• improving the health and prosperity of the community as a whole;
• fostering sustainable community initiatives;
• fostering sustainable self-sufficiency for the people involved;
• increasing personal worth, dignity, and value; and building awareness of and resolving issues in the community.

COMMUNITY DEVELOPMENT VALUES

• Social Justice - enabling people to claim their human rights, meet their needs and have greater control over the decision-making processes, which affect their lives.
• Participation - facilitating democratic involvement by people in the issues, which affect their lives, based on full citizenship, autonomy, and shared power, skills, knowledge and experience.

• Equality - challenging the attitudes of individuals, and the practices of institutions and society, which discriminate against and marginalize people.
• Learning - recognizing the skills, knowledge and expertise that people contribute and develop by taking action to tackle social, economic, political and environmental problems.
• Co-operation - working together to identify and implement action, based on mutual respect of diverse cultures and contributions.

ASSUMPTIONS IN COMMUNITY DEVELOPMENT

• Individuals, groups and local institutions within community areas share common interests that bind them together.
• This commonness also propels them to work together.
• The interests of the various groups are not conflicting.
• The state is a supra body that is impartial in the allocation of resources and that through its policies it does not further inequalities.
• People’s initiatives are possible in the communities because of their common interests.

DISTINCTION BETWEEN COMMUNITY DEVELOPMENT AND COMMUNITY WORK

• Community development is best used to refer to a process, or a way of doing something, which entails the mobilization, participation and involvement of local people on common issues important to them.
• Community work, on the other hand, is often used as a general term and refers to initiatives or activities that are delivered at a local level that may not actively involve members of the community as participants but merely as users of services

COMMUNITY DEVELOPMENT PROGRAMMES IN RURAL, TRIBAL AND URBAN AREAS

• There are a number of community development programmes launched by the government as well as voluntary organizations.
• Basic to all these programmes is people’s participation and development.
• We now look at some of such programmes in rural, urban and tribal areas.
• These are only indicative and attempt to give an insight into the design and functional aspects.

RURAL COMMUNITY DEVELOPMENT PROGRAMMES

• Community Development Programme drew its inspiration and strategy from erstwhile projects of rural development in the 1920s and just before Indian Independence, as well as the international influences on community development project that developed both in the Great Britain and in America.
• The first major rural development programme launched after independence in October 1952 in 1955 development blocks was with the following main objectives.

1. To secure total development of the material and the human resources in rural areas.
2. To develop local leadership and self-governing institutions.
3. To raise the living standards of the rural people by means of rapid increase in food and agricultural produce.
4. To ensure a change in the mind-set of people instilling in them a mission of higher standards

TRIBAL COMMUNITY DEVELOPMENT PROGRAMMES

• The tribal communities received some help through Special Multipurpose Tribal Development Projects (MTDPs) created towards the end of 1954.
• These MTDPs could not serve the interests of the tribal people since the number of schemes were numerous.
• Later the Community Development Blocks where the concentration of tribal population was 66% and above were converted into Tribal Development Blocks (TDBs). Due to failure of this to address tribal communities needs, Tribal Sub-Plan Strategy (TSP) was evolved for rapid socio-economic development of tribal people

URBAN COMMUNITY DEVELOPMENT PROGRAMMES

• Urban community development programmes can also be promoted by government or by voluntary organizations or member organizations.
• Such community initiatives have been reported in the work of urban sanitation, urban housing and urban health.
• All of this requires an external element of support or initiative coming from a few individuals or groups.
• Case studies presented below are only indicative to the extent to which community groups can actively work towards claiming citizenship and their fundamental right for a decent living.
• Organizations world wide like the Slum and Shack dwellers International and their partners in various countries have made a world of difference in housing and sanitation issues..

SWARNA JAYANTI SHAHARI ROZGAR YOJANA (SJSRY)

• This scheme launched in 1997, has two components of the Urban Self Employment Programme (USEP) and the Urban Wage Employment Programme (UWEP)
• These were substituted for various programmes operating earlier for urban poverty alleviation.
• Like its rural counterpart this scheme also builds on the group approach at dealing with self-employment issues

CONCLUSION

• The concept of community development as a process facilitated by external agencies, with people and their development as a central focus.
• In community development the social worker is concerned with issues of social justice, equity, self-reliance and participation.
• The leadership of community is encouraged. the various community development programmes within the rural, tribal and urban areas in some detail.
• There are initiatives that are both people led and government and NGO inspired.
• There is a need for convergence of all these programmes especially those for poverty alleviation that are truly participatory and community monitored and implemented.

THANK YOU!