A community development project is a process that is undertaken by members of a community to take collective action in order to generate solutions to common problems that affect them. The concept encompasses any of the practices of civic leaders, concerned citizens, activists or professionals to improve specific aspects of communities’ shared experience with a view to making them stronger and more resilient in the face of external events.
In essence, the goal of community development is to empower individuals and groups with the skills and resources they need to make meaningful, positive changes in the places that they live. It is intended to help improve members’ living conditions in practical ways and to promote improvements in the economic status of disadvantaged communities. The skills required to achieve these aims are often developed through the formation of social groups that are working towards a shared agenda. People involved in community development seek to make lasting change possible by altering the community’s position within the context of overarching social institutions.
For any given project there are typically two areas of focus. The first component emphasizes social and infrastructure development and may involve improving access to education, health and other social services as well as providing youth, cultural and recreation centers in poorer areas that otherwise cannot afford to build them.
The second component seeks to improve community members’ income by developing projects for funding the capacity to support small and micro entrepreneurs or encouraging NGOs to provide credit that targets specific groups that would benefit. It also seeks to help young people, women and disabled persons to provide them with specialized skills that are in demand in their community and/or help them to build business opportunities that will help them to increase their potential income.
The projects can come in a variety of forms depending on the need within the individual communities. Some projects involve building wells for areas without a regular water supply while others could seek to build a school and fund teachers to provide educational opportunities for disadvantaged children.
Community development projects are provided in countries all over the world and this approach is internationally recognized as providing beneficial results wherever it is implemented. The main benefits of various projects include the improvement of local economic, social, political, cultural and environmental conditions for the participants. These results have been recognized by organizations such as the UN, OECD, WHO, Council of Europe, World Bank and the EU.
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