1

Ioan Hosu

PUBLIC RELATIONS

and

COMMUNITY DEVELOPMENT

2012

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Contents Introduction ........................................................................................................................................3

Theoretical framework for community development ...........................................................................5

Key actors in the process of community development ....................................................................... 19

Models and practices of community development ............................................................................. 26

Community evaluation, public agenda ............................................................................................... 44

Promotion of local initiatives ............................................................................................................ 51

Strategies for community development ............................................................................................. 64

Management and leadership .............................................................................................................. 72

Sustainability and institutionalization ................................................................................................ 80

References ........................................................................................................................................ 93

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Introduction

The present material is destined for the persons concerned with the issue of community

development. In this material we will try to point out the aspects we consider, at this time, to

be important for an extremely complex, challenging, but also very attractive field, such as

community development. The complexity and diversity of the issues in the field cover diverse

themes, from environmental protection to economic and financial aspects, rural development

versus urban development, the socio-economic and cultural health of human communities,

aspects of socio-cultural integration etc. Even though we do not use up the set of themes and

concerns of community development through our approach, we want to draw attention on

certain elements which are useful and necessary for the community developer. This will be

done by pointing out the aspects drawn from the theorists’ or practitioners’ activity in the

field, with the expertise gained in Romania or at international level.

Theoretically and methodologically, the issues are very nuanced, in which case the scientific

status of the field is subject to a number of challenges. The increased dynamics of the

problems local communities face, the wide variety of problems requiring quick solution cause

non-unitary interventions, sometimes insufficiently tested or validated. All these things lead to

a scientific erosion of community development. For practitioners, the issue of community

development, of the scientific recognition or the conceptual consolidation is secondary. Their

work of community developer offers many opportunities, challenges and satisfactions. The

insufficient theoretical canonization and standardization is compensated by a large set of

methods and techniques with a high applied value. These approaches prove their utility in the

implementation of projects and programs able to lead to the development of human

communities.

The situation of community development in the Romanian society is similar to what we find

at international level. Basically, theorists and practitioners are called upon to address complex

issues of strategic importance for human communities. However, the institutional recognition

of community development does not match the contributions to community development. For

this reason, there is a need for clarifications designed to strengthen the position at professional

or institutional recognition level. Even though so far there are few pillars in the universities

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and nongovernmental, non-profit environment, the field of community development deserves

a special place and a firm institutional recognition from the part of those who manage the

resources and development policies in the Romanian society. Although the position of the

community development specialist is not fully individualized in the Romanian occupational

field, I am convinced that, on the short run, those who will specialize in this area will benefit

from the social recognition they actually deserve.

The material is structured on sections which cover an extremely diverse thematic register,

perhaps too diverse for the purpose and objectives of this approach. Our intention is to present

positions and experiences that reflect the achievements in the field, drawn from the national or

international practice. We mention that this material is the result of activities which have been

undertaken in community development projects since the 1990's. The experiences gained

during this period cover an extremely wide thematic and community intervention registry:

demarches of multiethnic communities’ development initiatives; the first rural development

strategies in the Transylvanian Plain communes; the design and implementation of micro-

regional programs in Transylvania; the design and implementation of programs leading to the

professionalization and institutionalization of the community developer profession (see the

community facilitator, the local promoter or the local development agent projects developed

by The Civitas Foundation for Civil Society Development, The Center for Rural Assistance),

programs for the development of entrepreneurship in rural areas, rural development programs

etc. All these experiences, the analyses and documents resulted from field activities will be

synthetized as follows. Among the most important materials underlying this approach we

mention: Actori sociali si resurse ale dezvoltarii comunitare / Social Actors and Community

Development Resources – Ioan Hosu; Elaborarea strategiilor de dezvoltare durabilă la nivel

local – Ghid teoretic și practic / The Elaboration of Sustainable Development Strategies at

Local Level - Theoretical and Practical Guide, Ioan Hosu together with Mirela Mireşan and

Alexandru Săvulescu; Community Facilitator - Training Guide / Facilitator comunitar – ghid

de pregatire, Ioan Hosu together with Marton Balogh, Amanda Bosovcki, Dacian C. Dragoş,

Călin Hințea. In addition to these materials which present field experience or preparation and

training stages of community development in the Romanian space, we will also make

reference to theoretical models and relevant experience in the community development

practice at international level.

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Theoretical framework for community development

Theories and theoretical models / preoccupations for community development (CD)

History, evolution, definitions, characteristics of the concepts and practices used in CD;

The relationship between community development and economic development (sustainability).

Contexts and Evolution

Community development (CD) is currently a discipline that aspires to a clearer theoretical and

practitioners’ methodologies individualization, despite the fact that it is relatively new in the

institutional field of development. The moment of the distinct affirmation of community

development practices can be placed sometime after the Second World War and is part of the

reconstruction effort of Western societies.

Even since the time of its creation, community development has been manifesting as a border

discipline. Hence the problematic position in which the practitioner or the researcher of the

phenomena in the field of community development sometimes find themselves. Due to the

conceptual proximity with economic development, social development, urban / rural

development, territorial development or with the sustainable development, there are situations

where there is confusion between specific processes of community development and other

types of community intervention.

The rigorous definition of the community development concept is currently imperfect.

Therefore, we will seek to identify a unanimous accepted definition or the perfect definition.

We will review some attempts to define the concept in order to subsequently make references

to intervention practices and models with regard to community development. Even from the

beginning we will state that the attempts of conceptualization or the models of intervention

emanate from extremely diverse areas: sociology, economics, anthropology, social work,

geography etc. It should also be said that community development, as a practice system,

existed long before the theoretical definition attempts in the social sciences. In other words,

we are talking about relatively recent efforts of theoretical and methodological crystallization

of this disciplinary field, despite the age of community development practices.

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For the Romanian scientists, the systematic concern, the scientific approach to urban and rural

communities’ development or modernization can be placed in the early twentieth century. In

the interwar period, the academia, we refer mainly to the contributions made by the socio-

human sciences, supported the efforts of modernization and development of the Romanian

society, at social, cultural, economic or political level. The efforts made by the representatives

of the academia represented the expression of the accountability science has to prove in

managing the problems faced by rural or urban communities. A first consequence of the

scientists’ and of the higher education institutions’ presence in the community life was the

creation of institutional frameworks systematically serving the efforts of community research

and intervention for modernization. In this context, the sociologist Dimitrie Gusti’s effort of

creating the monographic sociological school and his theoretical and practical efforts of

research and intervention in the Romanian rural can be mentioned. Gusti's conception has

found supporters regarding the active involvement and participation of the researcher of social

sciences in the community life. The model has generated a trend of supporters of social

activism among Romanian social scientists. In the same context of the approaches initiated by

D. Gusti, this time much closer to nowadays, we find names such as M. Dogan, M. Cernea.

They are sociologists who succeeded to introduce the sociologist’s expertise in processes of

design and development of communities. They and many others have continuously tried to

correlate the efforts of theoretical crystallization with field evolutions, in Romanian rural or

urban communities and beyond. Making reference to the Romanian society again, the major

challenges and themes concerning the development of society or of the communities of any

kind, broadly remain the same: the lack of vision and of projects for the reform,

modernization and development of the Romanian society; decreased reliability and associativity,

inefficient public institutions plagued by mistrust; eventually large gaps between the development of

the Romanian society and the other societies in the EU. In other words, the circumstances were not

and are not very favorable to those who, like community developers, seek to create community

welfare. Community developers aim to change precisely those socio-cultural, institutional or relational

contexts in order to lead to or to create a favorable framework for social, economic, sustainable and

equitable development for community members.

Theoretical Frameworks Regarding Community Development

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Hence the need to establish the theoretical basis for the field of community development.

Why is it necessary to insist on the theoretical substantiation of the practices and

methodologies that community developers resort to? There are some questions that we will try

to answer in this section. We will of course resort to this approach out of the desire to clarify

the role and place of theory in community development efforts.

A simple, but extremely powerful argument: ”Theories are explanations that can provide help

in understanding people’s behavior and a framework from which community developers can

explain and comprehend events. A good theory may be stated in abstract terms and help

create strategies and tools for effective practice. Whether community developers want others

to conduct relevant research or they want to participate in the research themselves, it is

important that they have theoretical grounding ” (Hustedde, 2009: 20).

Before presenting the most common concepts and notions present in many definitions of

community development we will proceed to a summary of the most important stages in the

evolution of the concept of community, from a socio-anthropological perspective, in the

European and North American spaces. The first who showed systematic concerns for defining

and studying of human communities were the sociologists. These theoretical efforts will form

the foundation of the community developer profession in the second half of the twentieth

century.

The first sociological approach of the concepts of community and society belongs to the

German sociologist Ferdinand Tonnies in the already classic paper Gemeinschaft und

Gesellschaft (1887), a work which established two ideal community types. The two concepts

proposed by Tonnies represent ideal models and designate two opposite states regarding the

organization of social life: on one hand it is about the family, vicinity or the village

(Gemeinschaft), social grouping forms characterized by close, direct, informal relations based

on common traditions and common orientations; on the other hand we have the society

(Gesellschaft) which is the result of industrial, urban-type social realities transformations

within which the individual interest and competition count and human relationships are rather

formal. Alongside Tonnies we find big names of the founding fathers of sociology: K. Marx,

E. Durkheim, G. Simmel or M. Weber, each of the authors making major contributions to the

effort of explaining the new realities generated by the West European industrialization and

rapid urbanization processes. The concern of European theorists tracked the understanding of

transformations taking place in the system of social relationships. Their analysis generates

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profound implications on how the discourse of social sciences is configured and later for how

theories on social, economic and cultural development are based. The themes, phenomena and

practices analyzed by European theorists represent defining dimensions of human

communities: conflict-cooperation, inclusion-exclusion, poverty-welfare, adjustment-

maladjustment etc.

Defining characteristics / traits for communities

- Spatial grouping/place;

- Subjective feelings of belonging (identity);

- Norms and values inspired by culture and tradition;

- Social stratification;

- The relationship system, their type and quality.

The European theorists’ concerns have correspondence in the North-American space

considering that the American society has experienced an exponential urban growth. In this

context of urbanization and industrialization, of massive immigration (beginning of the

twentieth century), concerns for the scientific study of urban life, inter-human relations

emerge. They are addressed from sociological and psycho-sociological perspectives. The

rapid development of the United States generated imbalances in the traditional lifestyle. The

urban sociology’s role was to analyze and provide solutions to restore the social balance in

urban areas appeared overnight and which were facing inherent problems of development,

urbanization, respectively rapid industrialization. Here we can mention a few names of

reference from the North American space concerned with the study of the new forms of

manifestation of human communities, in the first part of the twentieth century: Robert Park,

Robert and Helen Lynd, L. Wirth etc.

The period after the Second World War brings the revival of the growth and development

processes for both the North American and for European space. The post-war reconstruction

requires reconsidering the role and position of community developers in the new social,

economic and ideological contexts. The discussions about the role and functions of the

community in the new post-war contexts continued (see Annex 3), some noting that they

assist to the "loss of community as a place", this also meaning the destruction of values and

implicitly the loss of social capital. Other schools of thought primary analyze and debate the

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way power and welfare is distributed in urban areas. They are actually the followers of

Marxist ideas that apply the theory of political economy in urban community spaces. But the

aspect which deserves attention in the development of discussions on communities is linked to

the introduction of the concept of network in the center of the debates about the community in

the late twentieth century:

”Communities, therefore, are the kinds and qualities of interpersonal ties between people.

Some ties are unique and personal while others are diverse and extensive. People have

portfolios of networks that can be used to connect them with others for various reasons at

various times. The concept of community as a group of natural, changing, mobile networks

that meet a variety of changing needs makes community personally meaningful in a society in

which 'place' is less peimanent and meaningful” (Bruhn, 2005).

Far from using up the debate on how human communities are defined, other community types

and forms can also be mentioned today, but for which place and tradition are no longer

constituents (ex. Virtual or online communities are no longer constrained by spatial aspects).

There are some great perspectives by which we can refer to human communities: The first

perspective is imposed by the territory/place occupied by the members of a community. The

analyses target spatial divisions (geographic communities; see for example the commune or

municipality as forms of building communities after administrative criteria). The second

major direction is represented by interest; here we speak about cultural communities. This is a

non-territorial dimension and is based on aspects of identity and culture (variables which

constitute ethnicity, religion, occupation, education, expressed preferences for certain things

or situations etc.). Finally, a dimension represented by the community organizations covers a

wide range of networks and connections more or less formal, from family or kinship ties to

entrepreneurial, professional or political associative structures. Between these types and forms

of manifestations of human communities there is great overlapping and merging, the members

of a community can simultaneously be part of multiple communities.

Community Development – A short Description

With respect to the concept of development, things are less problematic but they do not have

to be regarded simplistically. Therefore, the meanings given to development can be viewed

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from two perspectives: (i) a first sense is quantitative, thus development means more, bigger

in the sense of increasing numbers; (ii) the second perspective is that where development

means a qualitative change, the number or quantity is not the central variable describing the

development process, but the quality of the process, respectively the results. We will

appreciate that the development of a community is the result of an active and responsible

involvement of community members who, through their attitude and behaviour, will succeed

to generate increased quality of life. Therefore, by development we will understand change in

terms of the quality of the process (consultation, empowerment, participation etc.) and

secondary or tertiary, the focus on certain “products” (infrastructure, equipment, constructed

spaces etc.). Quantitative criteria of the development products are the result of community

processes and interactions. These changes of relations and attitudes have generated those

products, not vice versa. However, the discussions on process-product ratio in community

development can continue, the following already being a common expression: Community

development is both process and product.

We opt for a brief description and not for an attempt to give a definition, and this because of a

very simple reason, namely that it is almost impossible to give a valid definition for an

extremely dynamic and problematic reality such as the concepts of community, respectively

development. For those who still want to go through tens of definitions, out of several

hundred, they can be found below:

Box 1

Definitions of Community Development

“The deliberate attempt by community people to work together to guide the future of their

communities, and the development of a corresponding set of techniques for assisting

community people in such a process.” (Bennett, 1973)

“An educational approach which would raise levels of local awareness and increase

confidence and ability of community groups to identify and tackle their own problems.”

(Darby & Morris, 1975)

“A series of community improvements which take place over time as a result of the common

efforts of various groups of people. Each successive improvement is a discrete unit of

community development. It meets a human want or need.” (Dunbar, 1972)

“Finding effective ways of helping and teaching people to develop new methods and to learn

new skills. This process is, however, done in such a way as to retain community control and

community spirit.” (Frederickson, 1975)

“A process of creating special community organizations throughout society which will be

responsible for channeling demands to centers of power, to distributors of benefits.”

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(Hammock, 1973)

“A process, as a method, as a program, and as a movement; or as a set of purposes.”

(Hauswald, 1971)

“The process of local decision-making and the development of programs designed to make

their community a better place to live and work.” (Huie, 1976)

“All of the efforts made to establish and maintain human interaction while improving the

appropriateness of the physical setting to that interaction. Underlying values to this

development are the recognition of the individual’s right to select the extent of community or

privacy and the group’s right to identify its own needs for community development.”

(Koneya, 1975)

”An open system of decision making, whereby those comprising the community use

democratic and rationale means to arrive at group decisions to take action for enhancing the

social and economic well-being of the community.” (Littrell, 1975)

“An educational process designed to help adults in a community solve their own problems by

group decision making and group action. Most community development models include

broad citizen involvement and training in problem solving.” (Long, 1975)

“The involvement of people and the coordination and integration of all efforts directed at

bettering conditions.” (Lotz, 1970)

“The capacity of people to work collectively in addressing their common interests.” (Maser,

1997)

“The process which basically initiates and develops structure and facilitates program

development that includes users of the program. I identify Community Development in the

context of initiating and of developing supportive human relationships.” (Miles, 1974)

“A process in which increasingly more members of a given area or environment make and

implement socially responsible decisions, the probable consequence of which is an increase in

the life chances of some people without a decrease in the life chances of others.” (Oberle,

Darby, & Stowers, 1975)

“Facilitating those cultural mechanisms that provide for shared experience, trust, and common

purpose.” (Parko, 1975)

“A process. Our concern is with the life process -- continuity, adjustment, and fulfillment, and

finally the self-sufficiency of the people.” (Pell, 1972)

“The active voluntary involvement in a process to improve some identifiable aspect of

community life; normally such action leads to the strengthening of the community’s pattern of

human and institutional interrelationships.” (Ploch, 1976)

“The active involvement of people at the level of the local community in resisting or

supporting some cause or issue that interest them.” (Ravitz, 1982

“Many community development efforts are essentially efforts to help community residents

understand what is happening and recognize some of the choices they face in order to achieve

the future community they desire.” (Shaffer, 1990)

“People who are affected by change participate in making it ... A system provides for

communication among all groups in the community, including open discussion of issues,

feelings, and opinions. The community understands its problem-solving process and needs no

further instruction.” (Vaughn, 1972)

“A situation in which some groups, usually locality based such as neighborhood or local

community ... Attempts to improve its social and economic situation through its own efforts ...

using professional assistance and perhaps also financial assistance from the outside ... and

involving all sectors of the community or group to a maximum.” (Voth, 1975).

“A process of helping community people analyze their problems, to exercise as large a

measure of community autonomy as is possible and feasible, and to promote a greater

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identification of the individual citizen and the individual organization with the community as

a whole.” (Warren, 1978)

“A public-group approach dedicated to achieving the goals of the total body politic.”

(Weaver, 1971)

“Acts by people that open and maintain channels of communication and cooperation among

local groups.” (Wilkenson, 1979)

Source: APPLYING U. S. COMMUNITY DEVELOPMENT PROCESS LESSONS Paper

developed by Greg Wise, Extension Community Development Agent and Associate

Professor, University of Wisconsin-Extension – Sauk County specifically for the EPA/USDA

Partnership project. Contributor: Elaine Andrews, Extension Environmental Education

Specialist, Environmental Resources Center, University of Wisconsin-Extension.1998

Available: http://www.uwex.edu/erc/pdf/AppA_CommunityEdDefinitions.pdf

Theoretical definitions to the community concept would further represent milestones in the

efforts of elaborating a definition of community development; the number of definit ion is

impressive (see Box 1). The diversity of definitions given to community development is a

consequence of the fact that community realities are extremely dynamic; no community can

be considered a static social entity. Human communities continually adopt strategies and

actions to ensure their welfare, development or survival. Reality shows us that there is a large

variety of community profiles (in terms of resources, types of community behaviors, values,

problems and action strategies etc.), a large number of particular situations, therefore an

attempt to find a single definition for the concept of community development represents a

costly and somewhat useless endeavor. We believe that a useful approach which would enable

a framing of community development would be its association with a set of key words and

concepts that can generate operational definitions depending on the moments and contexts the

community development processes are initiated in.

Community development – what it means

1 – identifies and then solves community problems/needs;

2 – community members initiate and have control over the process;

3 – integrated approach;

4 – development is the community’s process and product;

The descriptors that are found in most attempts to define the concept make reference to

groups of people who develop a set of common actions that are based on common interests

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and concerns. What is characteristic of these groups is that special relationships and

interactions are established in the community development processes. They are based on

specific elements of the place where the community development process unfolds. The

communicative relationships and interactions between groups are central elements of the

community development dynamics. We can also see that other two concepts, which usually

appear together, appear with great frequency in these definitions and also in others:

identifying the community’s or community groups’ needs and identifying solutions that

exploit existing resources at local level.

“When I began community development in the early 1990s, some of the community

development values that I was made aware of included the ‘empowerment’ of

individuals and communities, working ‘with, not for’ people, seeing community

development as a ‘bottom-up’ process in which communities define the issues on

which we worked for change. The process, I was told, was as important as the end

result.” (Pitchford, Henderson, 2008: 42)

Principles of community development

Community members’ implication and participation;

Collective action and local initiative;

Community building;

Local decision;

Empowerment;

Skills development;

Problem solving approach.

Therefore, by community development we can understand processes of social, economic and

cultural change which are meant to lead to better situations, conditions and contexts of life for

community members. This process is characterized by the active participation and

involvement of those concerned. They generate solutions to the problems they face. Economic

development is the prerequisite for the social development of urban and rural areas and the

concept of integrated community development emphasizes the idea that there cannot be made

a separation between economic and social results. This integrative perspective emerges from

most models of community development, urban or rural areas where there is pronounced

socio-cultural and economic diversity.

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The Purpose of Community Development Processes

The ultimate goal of community development processes is to increase the standard of living,

and this increase in the quality of life is feasible only if changes emerge at community level

with reference to the way community members address the needs or problems they face. The

ability to identify needs, the existence of a common interest in solving problems, the

undertaken mobilization of community resources in order to increase the standards of living

are just a few constitutive elements for what we call community capacity building. To

summarize, the set objectives with reference to community development processes can be

achieved if the following steps are made:

- Community members become more accountable with respect to the situation or the

problems in the community; this accountability means involvement, participation and

assumption of responsibility;

- Increase in the capacity of organization and planning at community level;

Arguments in favour of community

development

- accurately reflects the needs of community

members;

- leads to awareness of the social, economic,

environmental, cultural problems;

- enables the development or transfer of

skills: organization, communication, analysis

and decision processes;

- it is based on the stakeholders’ involvement

and participation;

- participatory, democratic, bottom-up

approach;

- empowers the parties involved;

- creates or reinforces community social

networks.

Limitations of community development

processes

- provides a false sense of power control;

- a way by which authorities transfer the

responsibility for sensitive issues to

community groups or members;

- highly time consuming

- uncertain and difficult to measure results /

difficult evaluation of results;

- focuses on local problems, neglecting

macro-social aspects;

- difficult financing of community

development processes.

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Model analysis1 and the practices encountered in the field of community development entail a

series of specifications, either of theoretical/conceptual nature or of empirical/factual nature.

A fist level of analysis refers to the community frameworks in which different development

models are applied and the second level entails specifications which outline the degree of

coverage of the concept of community development. For both levels, the analysis endeavour,

from a theoretical or empirical/factural point of view, is a problematic one, as there is no

unitary, generally adopted or generally valid acception in the theory and practie of community

development. Only commun principles are traced, which form the basis of various community

development initiatives, as Botes L. (2000) asserts: “Development is not only the process

through which the achievement of economic results is desired, but by development we will

understand the process through which apathy and the lack of initiative, with which most of the

urban and rural spaces are confronted is eliminated”.

The text from above stresses the major aspects of most attempts to define community

development processes. We are dealing with average and long term contributions to the

consolidation of the capacity to act at community level, through the improvement of the

economic situation. Economic development appears as a premise for the social development

of ruban and rural areas and the concept of integrated community development stresses the

idea that economic and social results can not be separated. This form represents one of the

more recent acceptions on the evolution scale of community development processes, the

integrated model being recomended in urban and rural communities, in which there are ethnic,

cultural, religious differences.

Another analysis method for the community development processes can result from the same

text: centering on the process or centering on certain „products” (infrastructure, facilities,

1 Perspectives on community development - Department for local development (DDL), material drafted during a

program carried out with the support of FMAPL (Fondul de Mondernizare a Administrației Publice Locale/

Modernisation Fund for Local Public Administration), January 2006, beneficiary Cluj-Napoca City Hall, ening document of the final material.

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etc.), resulting from these community endeavours. Focalising on process brings forward the

endeavours through which decisions are adopted based on the participation of the community

or of the legitimate leaders of the community (the key words in this case are: consultation,

participation). Centering on immediate products implies the existance of a local elite, which

adopts decisions for obtaining immediate results for the problems existing within the

community (characteristics for this direction are the centrality in adopting decisions and the

activities carried out and regulated against the clock).

Another acception refering to the definition for the concept of community development would

be a procesual one, which tells us that we have a continuum between „case work” and

„community work” (Goldsworthy, 2002: 327) or at least this is what results from certain

assessments of the community development programs. Similar to the way in which such

initiatives have begun here, these were at first punctual interventions (case works) through

which it was attempted to solve a problem individuals or groups of individuals were facing in

a community. In time, once the intervention and acting capacity of the non-governmental

sector has developed, we witness the materialisation of a vision which refers to solving the

problems existing at local and community level.

In Romanian society, we may mention the presence of new approaches in the field of

community development; these have occured both due to the maturation of social society, as

well as to some positive evolutions of the relationships between the institutions of the local

public administration and private profit or non-profit organizations.

The change of perspective in the public-private relationship (more precisely, the institution of

various partnership practices) is the result of two types of actions: (i) a series of conditions

concerning the eligibility of certain projects financed from European funds after 1996; in most

of the projects, the establishment of public-private partnerships was imposed. (ii) Some

partnerships were rather formal, but in most of the situations we are dealing with positive

experiences acumulated by the local public administration and non-governmental

organisations in approaching community problems. Thus, the premises for the extension of

partnerships for community development were created, so that after the year 2000, the

colocation public-private partnership (the three PPP) has never been absent from the

politician’s speech or from that of the active participant in the field of community

development. These types of experience have contributed to the benefits for each party

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involved, both for the ones implementing the projects/programs and for the beneficiaries (the

community or the members of a community).

To better illustrate the conceptual evolution of what the community development processes

mean, we considered that it is necessary to mention one of the first attempts to define these.

„Community development may be defines as a process intended to create the conditions for

economic and social progress for the entire community, with its active participation and full

faith in the communities’ initiatives”. (United Nations - UN, 1955). If in 1995 things were

quite clear, nowadays most theoreticians and practitioners face great problems when they

have to define their endeavour: „The origins of the ideas of community development,

participation, community action are somewhat unclear, as different authors have connected

these concept to different social events or problems” (Precupeţu, 1998: 143-159).

The present endeavour for conceptual clarification requires reference to the two concepts

included in this collocation: development and community. By community development we

may also understand „planned evolution of all the aspects within a community, which may

lead to well-being (either economic, social, cultural or environmental)”. This process of

obtaining well-being is one in which the community members are actively involved and

generate solutions to the problems they are facing. In order to insure the success of such a

process, long-term compelling planning is needed, which includes all the groups and all the

community members; one way or another, this involvement must be a balanced one for all

community members and the planning process must be initiated and supported by community

members.

The final purpose of the community development processes is an increase in the standard of

living and this improvement of the quality of life may only be achieved if, at community

level, there is a common interest in solving the problems it is facing and if that community

manages to make a conscious effort for the purpose of increasing the standards of living. The

achievement of set objective in the community development processes may take place if the

following steps are taken:

Community members become more responsible of the situation or problems existing

in the community; this responsibility means involvement, participation and assuming

certain responsibilities;

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Increase of the organisation and planning capacity within the community.

These two qualities make the elaboration of short, average and long term visions (strategic or

operational plans) possible. At least when it comes to the models we will refer to in this paper,

the players involved in the diagnosis and planning stage of development processes are: the

local public administration and the local community - through NGOs and local initiative

groups.

19

Key actors in the process of community development

Initiators of CD processes;

Beneficiaries, partnerships, local initiative groups;

Institutional resources, CD key actors map.

Cooperation and partnership – community resources, institutional resources

The cooperation and partnership between various institutional players, inside or outside the

community, represents one of the determinant factors for the success of the processes for

planned community evolution. For rural communities, a special role in these processes is

played by the local public administration. The authorities’ involvement implies their

participation, both in the elaboration and in the implementation of local development

initiatives. The forms of analysis and planning are based on methods taken from the field of

sociology or economy. These influences are found both at a conceptual, as well as at a

practical level. The analysis of successful cases has proven that a correlation could be found,

in case of certain communities, between economic success (workplaces and better income)

and certain attributes of the community (for instance, social capital, attributes determined with

sociological methods and instruments) (McDowell, 1999: 109). At the community level, there

are certain preconditions that may help us identify the communities which will succeed or the

communities which will fail in their development endeavours. Be it conceptual clarifications

or practical initiative, a good knowledge of the community is necessary in respect of the

following aspects: population, workforces, community factors or community processes,

physical-geographical factors.

Partnerships represent, for most of the initiatives for community development, the elements

which contribute to the achievement of the objectives set for community development. In a

wider perspective, the term partnership could be defined as: the formal or informal manner in

which two or more parties decide to act together in order to reach a common target.

Reaching the common target results from a set of activities carried out within a timeframe,

according to the initial plan. There are differences between the concept of collaboration and

that of partnership, although from a semantic point of view, the differences are hard to

20

observe. The aspects which differentiate the two concepts are based on applicability and on

manner in which these are put into practice. Partnership does not start from the premise that

the parties must be equal, but it is imperative that they are treated as equal. This premise leads

to efficient partnerships (partnership cannot be built on a relation of subordination). Otherwise

put, in a partnership relation the power of decision making may be divided equally between

the parties or proportionally to the input or contribution of each party. Any form of

partnership increases the capacity to act and in the same time, increases the impact of an

action on the target group or on the objective set by the parties concluding that partnership.

The first step in establishing a successful partnership is the identification of partnerships

according to the set objective and bearing in mind their characteristics (communication,

tolerance, readiness to participate, openness towards cooperation, etc.) For these partnerships

to offer average and long term results, the formalization of the partnership relationship (by

formalization we must understand those commitments which are also legally confirmed) is

entailed. Rightful access to the available resources represents a useful advantage for both

parties. And as in any contract, the rights and responsibilities of the partners must find their

required motivation.

Good communication between the partners, based on relations of mutual trust and respect, is

the premise for the success of any type of partnership. Consensus and equality, correct

assumption of responsibilities by the parties of the partnership are aspects which insure a

good development of the activities.

Partnership, as a form of collective action at institutional level, must offer advantages in order

to stimulate the participation of both parties, namely the increase in efficiency, effectiveness

and impact of projects, increase in the parties’ credibility. Along with efficiency and

effectiveness, image benefits may represent, and in fact do represent, important stimuli for the

parties carrying out activities in a partnership. The mentioned benefits (efficiency,

effectiveness) may become behavioural models for the entire community. The level of

previous instruction and experience in such actions, those referring to a partnership, are only

two of the factors or predictor of the success of common actions.

Durability and efficiency are major challenges for any type of partnership, as we can mention

a series of obstacles that must be overcome. The obstacle category is represented quite well:

insufficient communication, lack of maturity in the assumption of affiliation to several

21

partnership structures, conflicts of interest, excessive personal pride, non-observance of

partnership obligations, etc. Each of the above mentioned situations is a possible sources of

failure when it comes to a good achievement of the intended project.

The results of an investigation, carried out in order to fundament the concept of Local

Development Agent (LDA), indicate the need to develop a wide offer of training and to carry

out a wider instruction campaign for potential players, both in the non-governmental sector

and in the entire community, concerning the need for and techniques of communication,

objectives and models used in a partnership. The development and support of a partnership,

avoiding competition between partners, setting clear rules for the partnership, permanent

communication, clear definition of the partnership are elements considered to be useful for

obtaining successful partnerships.

To complete the image about the possibility of common institutional action, we will mention

the main partnership forms, similar to how these are empirically encountered in the practice of

community development. According to various criteria, which can be considered

simultaneously or independently, a relatively complex typology of partnership was generated.

Hence, based on the existence of legal personality, partnerships may have one of the

following characters:

- formal (in case of complex or long-term tasks or when the partners have different

structures)

- informal (may be established when the target is specific enough and its achievement

raises no problems, the parties having similar structures, knowing each other, maybe

even having worked together before)

Another criterion for the classification of partnerships is the type of objective set, thus

identifying:

1. representation partnerships: federations, unions, councils, alliances, forums, coalitions,

etc.

2. operational partnerships which imply the existence of concrete projects and these

project represent the reason for the parties’ association. In this case, most of the time

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(there are also situations that invalidate this observation), after the finalization of the

project, the locally formed task group ceases to exist.

From the perspective of the term of application, partnership relationships may be set up for

short and long terms. The existence of financing sources represents another classification

criterion in partnerships with financing sources or in partnership relations with no financing

source. Finally, another distinction that is worth mentioning here refers to intra-sectoral

partnership (it refers to cooperation and action relationships established between organised

structures having the same characteristics: public authorities with public authorities,

companies with companies, NGOs with NGOs), inter-sectoral partnership (Scutaru, 2007).

The ideal situation for a community engaged in a community development process would be

that in which all the possible players presented below are involved:

Participants in the community development process:

Representatives of local, county or central authorities

Community members

NGOs

Education, Health, Justice

Media representatives

Syndicate representatives

Financial institutions (banks, investment funds)

Politicians

Members of the Chambers of Commerce

Representatives of religious cults / Representatives of social services

In what the Romanian society is concerned, the negative experience of individuals

accumulated in the communist period has lead to the depreciation of the idea of working

together for common good. Unfortunately, there are many fissured or ruptures between

community and the possible partners mentioned in the scheme from above. What is worse is

that „high politics” (referring to parliament members, members of the government and

23

governmental clerks) is „torn” from many of the problems of the community it represents.

The indicators for this state of reality are represented by the punctual solution they suggest in

local or central public policies and these have most of the times no real positive impact.

Another problematic element, which the studies and analyses of various methods underline, is

represented by the way in which the public agenda of local public administrations is set up.

Most of the times, they find themselves facing double pressure: the population’s agenda and

the agenda of certain governmental institutions, which often have different priorities, the

unilateral assumption of local development objectives by local administrations, deficiencies in

the elaboration and implementation of public policies. Moreover, we may also add here other

elements which negatively influence the fulfilment and application of the local development

agenda; the lack of concrete programs for supporting the community; inefficient

communication with that community, etc. The examples presented above represent only some

of the undesired situations found at local level, which determine the lack of involvement or

participation of community members. The lack of communication and consultation with the

population would represent the main cause for the decrease in the community’s participation

in the initiatives of town halls and local councils.

„Pre-development” - the preliminary phase which should precede community development

processes - is the stage in which the interested groups or parties within a certain community

are informed and activated. As it can be noted in most endeavours, this phase if very poorly

represented. The lack of consultation and information is a shortcoming which is present not

only in the rural but also in the urban space.

Without these public consultations or debates, we witness the emergence of negative

behaviours exhibited by citizens; more precisely, we are dealing with the lack of interest that

citizens express towards those who lead the community. Also, negative attitudes are

manifested towards those who elaborate and implement public policies - they are permanently

suspected of having secret agendas and hidden interests.

The level of information of citizens, in respect of the city hall’s activities is extremely low and

one of the major problems is that citizens do not know the manner in which public money is

spent and this illustrates the lack of transparency or the lack of interest in communication with

citizens, concerning a matter which should be brought to everyone’s attention - the manner in

which public money is used.

24

In this case, we are dealing with an older reflex, namely that „those from above” are

responsible for the problems within the community. A major change, concerning the

involvement of the community in development projects, will occur when people consider that

their common effort may contribute to the community’s development (collective action),

without expecting for the initiative to come from the state. Waiting for initiatives coming

from somewhere from „above” means nothing but falling behind or standstill.

The state has an important role, but a certain line of action and intervention is required. We

must indicate the observation of Amitai Etzioni (1995), who appreciates that it is possible to

„build a community which is based on the state, given that the involvement of the state is as

little intrusive as possible”. The essence of community development processes is the one that

starts from below and is based on groups and categories of interested and participating

individual or institutional players.

The following quote, even though it does not belong to a Romanian author, is representative

for the current context of community development: „the lack of horizontal coordination

mechanisms for local programs and partnerships, as well as the lack of vertical coordination

mechanisms between various agents (local, regional or national) leads to a considerable

decrease in the importance and gravity of local initiatives” (Curtis, Haase and Tovey, 1996).

The process of community participation in local development processes has multiple

valences:

educational: the existence of models and practices which can be assimilated by the

active members of the community;

political: this aspect implies the community’s ability to impose certain decisions, as

well as the right to control the persons who represent its interests;

economic: mainly refers to supporting the community by means of participation with

money, goods or volunteer work;

organisational: in this situation, the existence of institutional frameworks is required,

which orient or mobilize resources in respect of the community development

processes; in this chapter, the importance of the local development department must be

highlighted.

25

The launching of development initiatives must start from a careful investigation of the space. I

consider that it is most appropriate to mention here the position expresses by Dumitru Sandu

(2005: 56-64) who pleaded for the „sociologizing” of this endeavour, as sociologizing

represents the use of certain standard instruments, common to all those involved in

community development programs. The standard set of instruments (both in the pre-

development, diagnosis and in the assessment phase) allows comparisons, through which the

efficiency of a certain endeavour or another may be verified. Later on, the initial model may

be corrected in order to increase the efficiency of the entire process.

26

Models and practices of community development

Major coordinates for the evaluation, support and promotion of community changes;

Institutionalization – the professionalization of CD steps;

Community facilitator; Local promoter; Local development agent (LDA).

The macro and micro-social context

The local development process in Romania at that time was marked by a series of constraints

specific to the transition periods in social and economic plan or to the institutional

transformations particular of the transition. Under such circumstances, in order to support the

community development processes were imposed measures that allowed the success of these

endeavors. Such measures were required by the needs and constraints existent in the local

communities, conditioning at the same time the efficiency and durability degree of the

development process. At that time and also at present we think that in order to provide a

sustained rhythm of the development process is important the undertaking and also the

application of some specific methods and techniques as well as the proper preparation of the

human resources for the implementation of measures related to local development. For the

attempt to solve a part of the identified issues, within the Civitas Foundation was developed

and implemented the project entitled “ Community Facilitator” – pilot project in Cluj and

Bistriţa-Năsăud counties. In 2001 the project was meant to be a solution, maybe viable, to

support the efficiency of the reform/modernization process of the local public administrations,

especially of those from the rural environment.

The support was offered by a new institution in the landscape of many rural communities

(non-profit non-governmental organizations specialized in economic or social development),

by the increase of institutional and operational capacities of the public administration

institutions and through the replication of this phenomenon, the program intended to

contribute to the stimulation of local development processes, to the increase of the number of

development initiatives on the local communities level.

27

The model we refer to intends to reach this goal: training of specialized human resources,

mobilization of resources and activation of community for the generation of development

opportunities on local level by appealing to established techniques in the community

development. The initiative was intended for the communities on the whole, depending on the

case to the local public administrations, and in the first phases the goal was to suggest the

community facilitator in the local public administrations.

“Community facilitator – pilot program in counties Cluj and Bistriţa-Năsăud”, initially

launched in ten rural communities from the two counties in the period between November

2002 and October 2003, the project had the financial support of Open Society Institute

Budapest and the European Union through PHARE 2000 Economic and Social Cohesion. The

declared goal was to promote and facilitate the local development by consolidating the

institutional and professional capacity of the local public administration in order to grow the

standard of living from the rural areas. In agreement with the above-mentioned we considered

the human resources underlie these processes by their capacity to determine and capitalize the

other resources of communities. Therefore, the Community Facilitator project firstly focused

on the quality improvement of human resources involved in the development processes. The

community facilitator model requires selection and training of an individual who manages the

development processes within the community where he/she carries out his/her activity. By the

management of development processes we understand the strategic component of the

community development, in the operational phase being involved other development agents

from local level. The pilot project carried out within the Civitas Foundation, as well as the

assessments performed by other organizations reveal a few of the most significant

assignments and functions of the community facilitator. Who is the facilitator and what does it

do:

– the facilitator supports and stimulates the action frameworks favorable to start the

development initiatives from the community, the involvement of formal and informal leaders

in the awareness and identification of potentials existent on community level;

– identification and mobilization of resources from the inside and outside the community;

– identification of the leaders in community, organization of initiative groups;

28

– assignments related to the training, information, mediation parts between various interest

groups of the community;

– coordination of activities specific for the community facilitating processes.

Facilitator’s position within community is a strategic one taking into account the fact that it is

in charge with the support of communities, the groups or the individuals in order to identify

and solve the problems they face, being a resource-individual for the community.

Synthetizing the assignments of the individuals who have the position of community

facilitators, we could say they have a promotion role of the community they work for (they

appeal to the most various tools and techniques: creating the web page for the commune,

promotion materials, participation in conferences, fairs, organization of community days) and

a development role (promotion and creation of the strategic conception upon the community

development, attraction of resources from the outside of community through projects in

various fields and mobilization of resources from the community). In a first phase of their

activity, these individuals were employed at the Civitas Foundation and based on the protocol

between the organization and the town hall where they carried out their activity, the public

institution provided the framework necessary to perform the facilitating activity. Afterwards,

as projects were developed the facilitators were employed within town halls, being enrolled in

most cases as specialty referees.

The choice of communities that made the object of the pilot project related to community

facilitation was made based on a few criteria like the geographical, social, economic and

ethnic. On the crossroads of such criteria we intended to involve in this pilot project diverse

rural communities in respect of ethnicity, economy or geography. Based on these criteria were

selected ten rural communities from Cluj and Bistriţa-Năsăud counties. The activities carried

out in these communities subsequently allowed identification of some attitudes, practices or

action models.

Based on the evaluations made throughout the project and also by analyzing the results

obtained by the communities assisted by the facilitators we could depict a series of elements

that may be successfully applied. Beyond the community specificity (socio-demographic,

economic or cultural) there are other elements that may lead the community facilitation

processes to positive results. Firstly it is about the individual holding the position or role of

29

community facilitator: the qualities, the experience or the training level are just a few

variables which play a role in the success of the community facilitating process.

In this meaning, the project activities concerned the training and organization of a body of ten

community facilitators who, in the second phase of the project were appointed in the town

halls from the counties mentioned above based on cooperation protocols concluded between

Civitas Foundation and the local councils of the selected communities. Among the

assignments of the community facilitators we will remind the following:

– Elaboration of a local development strategic study for each partner commune;

– Management for the strategy implementation;

– Elaboration of financing programs, together with the initiative group from the community or

other development agents;

– Support for the Local Council in the decisions related to the initiation of some development

programs and projects;

– Support for the local initiative groups: local entrepreneurs, farmers, NGOs etc;

– Promotion of commune’s image by designing their web pages.

The results concerned did not delay and were obtained as result of carrying out the activities

provided and recommend our initiative as viable and adaptable on a large scale, on the level

of public administration institutions from Romania, especially in the rural environment.

On first view, the evaluation of activities from the project point the initiative as a viable one

or at least this is how the good results show after the first 10 months of activity. The results

are extremely good for seven from the ten communities:

- Local associations already set-up or in course of set-up in all the ten communes

involved;

- Development strategies elaborated for all the ten partner communes;

- Around 100 projects submitted for financing in various fields (public administration,

environment, social services, multiethnic etc.). The projects were developed by the

30

facilitators and the initiative groups from the community, the extra-budget funds

attracted in communities by financing programs are worth over 6.000.000.000 lei,

funds attracted in the first year of activity of the 10 facilitators.

- Existence of a WEB page for each partner commune;

All these results alongside other significant achievements: opening of the local authorities to

initiative and partnership, growing public participation, transparency of the administrative act

are, in our opinion arguments in favor of the relevance of the model for the way in which

community and extra-community resources can be mobilized in development. The most

important resource activated in this endeavor was the establishment and operation of the

initiator NGO partnership with the Local Councils of Cluj and Bistriţa-Năsăud, which

supported the entire endeavor. It is not about financial support, but about the availability for

the stimulation of development processes from rural environment, but through its specific

activities it determined at the same time positive effects in important areas and at the same

time relevant for the final goal (growing the confidence in the common endeavors carried out

by non-governmental organizations and the local public administration).

In respect of the community facilitators, the contribution to the project also meant the

opportunity to acquire a significant practical experience in the community development. We

have to mention the fact that the community facilitators were mainly selected from the

graduates, students in the finals years or those attending the master degree programs in the

following majors: public administration, economy, sociology, social work, with

preoccupations in the local and regional development field. This aspect is extremely important

for the evaluation and research process initiated within the project, because their first duties

within community were related to the evaluation of the potential available in such community.

Such evaluations required the use of some well-built tools on the one hand and on the other

hand they required minimum manipulation knowledge of the collected data. After that based

on such data (inquiries, interviews, observation) the facilitator together with the local

initiative group, assisted by tutors elaborated strategic development plans of the community,

plans which in most cases underlay some campaigns of attracting resources from the inside or

outside of community.

As what public administration institutions are concerned, we think the existence of a function

with assistance and support role in activities related to local development played a significant

31

part in the improvement of institutional capacities and also in the improvement of human

resources quality employed in the process. The same situation was also found in the group of

small and medium enterprises owners from rural environment. They were assisted, depending

on the case by the community facilitators in their endeavors to obtain credits or grants.

Development of practical model – turning the community facilitator in local development

agent

The project’s goal was the development and extension of this model in many local

communities by capitalizing the partnership or cooperation relations existent with institutions

of the local public administration or with other NGOs.

The Rural Development Consortium represented the materialization of such cooperation

relations between two nonprofit organizations with experience in the community development

field: the Rural Support Centre from Timișoara - SON member (the organization developed a

similar program in counties from Banat Timiș) implemented the local promoting model while

the Civitas Foundation from Cluj-Napoca implemented the community facilitator in Cluj and

Bistrița-Năsăud counties. The establishment of the Rural Development Consortium aims to

promote and implement the model on national level. In this way the community facilitator

was promoted as a development model by the two organizations under a new, joint logo,

namely that of Local Development Agent (ADL). Implementation of this endeavor had the

financial support of the Open Society Institute Budapest and of the German Marshall Fund. 21

Relation: Local Initiative Group – Community Facilitator

Forming work groups in which are represented the interest groups of the community is the

most important task for the facilitator. In the absence of some initiative groups or due to the

insufficiency of representations of the interest groups within these initiative groups, the

chances of some development initiatives are substantially reduced.

The main gains resulted from the activity of some local initiative groups are: valorizing the

experience and ideas of the participants, and furthermore, the influence of a group is bigger

32

than that of the separate individuals. The size of these groups did not exceed the critical

threshold of 12-15 individuals, reason for which such groups managed to work well together.

The local initiative groups (we should mention that due to various reasons these groups did

not last in all communities) generally had an extremely heterogeneous internal structure and

this is why the facilitator had to resort to mediation and communication methods and

techniques meant to increase the group’s cohesion and to avoid disputes resulted from

divergent opinions/senses. A significant aspect in the operation of these initiative groups

refers to the language or terminology used at the meetings. Excessive formalization of the

language, of the relations between the group’s members or activities on group level has

negative effects in respect of involvement and participation of the group. The main reason for

which initiative groups were set-up was the community’s effort to carry out development

strategies. These development strategies had to be made in a participative manner so as the

development plan should include the needs and requests of all interested parties.

Assessment of logical framework of the project

Monitoring and assessment provide significant information to the team implementing the

project, enabling adjustments or corrections of the process. Second of all, this type of analysis

allows improvement of the implementation capacity of further projects, the improvement of

the management capacity on institutional and individual level.

The first phase of the assessment consisted in the verification of the way in which objectives,

activity content and results were established. Another set of indicators underlining the fairness

of the logical framework is given by the fact that all partners involved in the project

undertook and performed their duties which shows the good comprehension of the conditions,

objectives and activities imposed by the project.

The monitoring, assessment, reporting processes were based on standardized tools of data

collection. The project coordinator, the lecturers and the tutors were responsible to apply this

methodology. The content of monitoring and assessments operated like a prevention system

of the problematic situations (early warning system) for the project team, moreover the

conclusions of the assessment activities were sent to the sponsors who could constantly

require corrections related to the project implementation method. The corrections required

contributed to the adjustment and better implementation and they mainly concerned financial-

administrative aspects, as well as those related to the activities’ content.

33

The final assessment made among the facilitators pointed out the fact that the activities that

follow the human resources development for the community development would require an

average implementation period of about two years. The period given for the project does not

allow completion of the endeavors initiated within the project. It is mainly about the activities

related to the elaboration and management of projects and the organization of local initiative

groups.

Data analysis

The project evaluation studied each of the activities performed. For each phase or types of

activities were collected data and documents that allowed shaping of a true image upon the

content, quality of activities, as well as upon the results obtained.

The first logical phase carried out within the project was to prepare the team and the

infrastructure necessary for the development in good conditions of the project. The training

period was performed in optimal conditions and in a relatively short time. In this meaning, the

rich experience of the organization had a significant importance for the course of this phase.

The development of some similar projects and the existence of an institutional or expert

network were just a few of the elements identified by the project coordinator, considered as

the strong points both in the initial phases and throughout the project.

The next phase was to promote the project. In this phase were made public the adverts related

to: selection of communities/communes to be included in the project; the selection of the

community facilitators. The project promotion was made by appealing to the print media. The

impact was a positive one, the number of communes that required selection within the

program exceeded the number of communities provided for the project. The same occurred in

case of facilitators, namely there were more candidates than positions granted for the project.

As it was a pilot project it was very important that the selection process of the facilitators

would be a successful one so as the project itself should not have implementation difficulties

only because the selection was unsuccessful.

The minimum conditions necessary for the facilitators’ selection were: basic training in the

social-humanistic field, well-developed empathy and communication abilities, knowledge of

English language, computer skills, specialty knowledge (public administration, NGO field,

development opportunities and resources etc.). In the facilitators’ selection process were used

34

tools (multiple choice tests, tests and questionnaires) that allowed actual evaluation of

knowledge, skills and motivational part concerning the participation in such project. At the

selection time we considered that the community facilitator is one of the resources the

community had to use in the debut of the development processes. This resource is a

specialized one, it is an individual with expertise in the resources mobilization and also in the

mobilization of the local communities. Necessarily, a minimum experience level regarding the

involvement of the future facilitators in development projects would have been one of the

mandatory criterion and not an optional criterion. The identification of the individual

corresponding to these requirements was not always possible. Another significant aspect

identified in the assessment process: the abilities or the capacity to communicate with the

members of the rural communities, to establish initiative groups, to establish and develop

local teams. The interviews made with individuals from the selected communities pointed the

fact that on the rural communities’ level it is nearly impossible to identify the individual who

cumulates all these abilities or knowledge. Accepting some individuals who did not hold any

similar knowledge or experience was made because these deficiencies could be compensated

by the lecturers and tutors of the project, through training or tutoring activities. This training

and support process worked well, but there were also cases that required cancellation of the

contract with one of the facilitators because of weak performances obtained. The communes’

selection was made depending on the cumulation of several conditions: the involvement and

support intention of the town halls, the existence of an individual from the community willing

to be part of the program, the commune development level. Following the selection process,

generally there were two types of communes: communities facing multiple problems, with no

resources (human, financial, logistic, etc.) to support the local development initiatives; in the

second category were identified communes with a good potential, with positive experiences in

the management of community development projects. These items became visible when we

assessed the data and information included in the development strategies elaborated by the

facilitators. The good potential of some communities, the possibility to access financing lines

from public or European funds, the existence of some initiative groups on local level are three

of the aspects that allowed some community facilitators to obtain the first actual results, more

exactly accessing resources for the community they were part of. On the other hand other

communities were not eligible in any ways for the financing lines and the facilitator had to

focus on setting up local initiative groups capable of mobilizing local resources for the start of

local development processes.

35

The facilitators’ assessment was mainly carried out starting from performance indicators

related to: the manner they succeeded to form local initiative groups capable of elaborating

projects intended to attract extra-community resources – see financings. Therefore, the

activities concerning the organization of some work groups formed of community members,

the ability to manage team work, in other words those activities that lead to the increase of

social capital on community level, were the key items for the success of the community

endeavors.

Training and tutoring activities

The lecturers and tutors teams used were selected from the individuals with experience in the

field; previous collaborations and the good results obtained before were the main arguments

to take them into the project. The confirmation of the right choice is given by the positive

assessments made by facilitators following the training sessions, as well as the tutoring

activities. At the end of each training session were used questionnaires to assess the content of

the training session and the utility of the information acquired. Also, the assessment forms

identified the type of information necessary for the facilitators’ activity.

Starting from such assessments, the facilitators’ training was mainly focused on the following

aspects: fundraising and project management, training modules related to the improvement of

the organization capacity of some local initiative groups to support the local development

processes. Selection of the training fields and of the contents was made so as to lead to the

formation of a common set of knowledge for all facilitators. The dissemination activities of

the project were made by a publication edited during the project. The role of the magazine

was to contribute to better information of the rural communities, of the local initiative groups

employed in local development processes.

Local development agent (LDA )

The assessment2 was carried out for the purpose of identifying the main aspects that can

fundament the support document for the policy paper in the “Local Development Agent”

2 Part of this document was carried out as part of a stufy of public policies in the Consortium for Rural

Development, that targeted the introduction of LDA (Local Development Agents) in the structures of the local

public administration.

36

project. For this purpose, a series of individual and group interviews have been carried out,

which aim to underline the main aspects, as these derive from the experience of the persons

involved in community development projects. It refers to the main groups managing these

processes: local promoters and community facilitators. In the present document, they will be

referred to as local development agents. Along with the development agents used in the

projects of the Civitas Foundation or CAR -Centre for Rural Assistance, interviews were also

carried out with other “categories” of community development agents. These were subjects

who carry out their activity in the projects of the World Bank (RDP - Rural Development

Program) or in community development programs carried out by non-governmental

organisations (EDRC – Ethno-cultural Diversity Resource Centre, ARDC - Romanian

Association for Community Development). The points of view of other persons from the local

public administration, partners in community development programs or projects were also

requested. The interviews carried out with the representatives of local or county

administrations have tried to discover the position of institutional players occupying the

position of main partners in these endeavours. The option to interview other persons

participating in similar community development projects was adopted from the desire to

underline the common or specific elements that can be drawn from such an assessments.

Local development agent - model assessment

The person we refer to as local development agent needs to be present in each of the

stipulated stages of community development projects. The LDA is the first person who comes

into direct contact with a community and therefore he/she holds a key role in the diagnosis

and assessment of the community. The members of the local development department:

identify the needs of the community

identify and coagulate the human resources in communities

Hosu, Ioan. (co-author) (2005). Assessment of community development models – community facilitator and

local promoter. In Strengthening the capacity of local public administration to adopt and implement development policies, Policy Paper, Argument for the introduction of the position of Local Development Agent. Cluj-

Napoca: AMM Publishing House (available on www.civitas.ro/publicatii, accessed on: 20.12.2007)

37

create an incentive environment in which the community members and community

leaders “explore their own community, becoming aware of the power they hold”

coordinate certain activities in the development projects, especially those which refer

to the organisation and development of community meetings - where discussions lead

identify leaders and support the creation of initiative groups

grant assistance to initiative groups on specific problems

mediate communication and collaboration between the different players involved in

the projects (citizens, local administration, NGOs, initiative groups)

inform community members about different opportunities

The support in local development endeavours comes from institutional actors, from inside

and/or outside the community. The category of institutional players contributing to local

development processes is represented by the private, profit and non-profit sector and by

public institutions.

The group interviews were carried out with local development agents (promoters and

facilitators) who represented both the rural (townships) and the small urban environment. Ten

individual interviews and two focus groups were carried out. The interview guide used was

the same for individual interviews and for focus groups. The suggested discussion topics

were:

- short characterization of the community in which community development activities

were carried out;

- the aspects to which the subjects consider that they have contributed directly;

- positive and negative aspects which have influenced the development of the activity in

the community;

- frameworks or conditions necessary to launch the community development process;

- the public or private institutional structures that can support local development

(practices, patterns found in the field);

38

- the role and place of the community development agent in these endeavours (abilities,

knowledge, relations with other institutions, etc.)

- the contribution and role of NGOs in community development processes;

- the contribution and role of the structures of public administration in community

development processes;

- satisfactions and dissatisfactions of the community development agent, recorded in the

community development process;

- final recommendations or considerations.

Communities

Rural communities and the multi-ethnic character, these two attributes best characterise most

of the rural community spaces in Banat and Transylvania. The localities in which local

development agents have carried out their activity may be characterised as average-level, in

the sense of social-economic and cultural development. The problems these communities are

facing are also classified as average-level, none of the communities being in a major crisis

situation (extreme poverty, massive migration - of population, delinquency, etc.). There have

been a series of specific elements at local level, which were extremely strongly represented

and which have made the intervention in the community more difficult, but on the whole, we

may state that we are dealing with communities exhibiting average-level problems. None of

the analysed cases was dealing with prosperous communities with positive dynamics (on

social-economic, demographical or cultural level).

Contributions of local development agents

For some of the respondents, the simple presence or “employment” of development agents in

the apparatus of the local public administration is considered a great benefit, because thus

they managed to mobilize the persons from these institutions (it mainly refers to the mayor,

secretary or members of the local council) for the stimulation and activation of the

39

development process at local level. The development agent’s presence and involvement in the

community also determines other achievements and “punctual” contributions: attracting

financing sources, participation in strategic planning processes (local development strategies).

The successful finalization of these activities leads to a higher level of trust within the

initiative groups of the community but also for the development agent. To the same extent, we

witness a positive motivation of those who take part in the development process. The

interviews suggest that, in many situations, short-time objectives need to be set to increase the

degree of trust and motivation of local initiative groups and also to gain the support of the

overall community. From the participants’ answers we may conclude that most of the

activities and contributions to community development were and are carried out in and

together with the institutions of the local administration - town halls or local councils from the

communities in which local development agents were present. To a smaller extent, activities

or contributions coming from the public institutions present at local or county level are

mentioned. These answers featured the problem of public-private partnership, to a larger

extent, with reference to the collaboration relations established between NGOs and public

institutions at local or county level.

A poorly represented action level is that referring to the collaboration with public institutions

represented at county level. The first aspect noted by the community development agent:

degradation or even absence of cultural coordinates (identity, tradition, values) in the

community space. A first observation which can be drawn is: the strengthening of the cultural

dimension of community life (in a broader sense, it may refer to the construction of a well

shaped local identity) may represent a first stage in the local development agent’s activity. In

activities with a cultural character, we can set up certain variables connected to sociability.

These endeavours may have a positive impact on certain social components, which favour the

local development processes, mainly referring to participation, associativity or social

responsibility - these qualities are the most important attributes of those who get involved in

cultural activities. On the other hand, many of the respondents have marked the beginning of

the activities in the community with these types of activities.

The contribution to the development of the community in which he/she carries out his/her

activity is the result of a complex of factors, which is difficult to rank and therefore we will

only mention these:

40

- the development agent’s presence in the structures of the local public administration

brings a qualitative and quantitative plus in the life of that community;

- the finality of the development agent’s activities materializes in the “generation of

well-being” for the community in which he/she carries out his/her activity. We do not

only refer to material or financial benefits, we should probably first of all refer to that

increase in social capital, which later on will lead to the achievement of material and

financial well-being;

- the availability of local public administrations to start and support local development

processes (attracting external funds, mobilization of the community resources in this

process).

The positive aspects mentioned by the persons interviewed equally include the problems the

local communities have faced, as well as the facts that have lead to the solving of these

undesired situations:

- reactivation of the community: this was mentioned as one of the major positive

contributions of community development (this was achieved considering that the

community landscape was an extremely heterogeneous one, from an ethno-linguistic,

social and cultural point of view). Indicators of the community development process

perceived as being positive: establishing an NGO (in most of the cases, they were

dealing with a local interest NGO), starting fundraising campaigns, the fulfilment of

infrastructure-related objectives, would be the most important actions initiated in the

early stages of community development processes. The achievement of these

indicators was possible after a longer period of activity of the local development

agent, who each time benefited from the support of powerful non-governmental

resource centres functioning at a regional or national level.

- Increase in the level of participation among the young population. Increase in the level

of participation of young people was possible through sports-related or cultural

activities.

The positive contributions to the community’s life are mentioned in two major categories:

41

(i) increase in the participation level of community members (it refers to activities

exhibiting an associative character - culture, sports, etc.);

(ii) attracting external financial resources with the support of the local public

administration.

Tis section underline the problems or negative aspects encountered in community facilitation

activities is, as expected, much more extensive and better represented in the respondents’

speech. The less glamorous aspects, the problems encountered are the ones that can provide a

real feedback for those who wish to implement community facilitation or development

programs in the future. Experience tells us that when we talk about successful cases, we tend

to take these models over. However, we also need to take into account the negative aspects

when we wish to adopt these models. The following aspects could be included in this

category:

- financial-economic obstacles (the aspects mentioned are the ones blocking local

initiatives from the very start; this element is the most important factor that

demotivates individuals, organisations or local institutions);

- the lack of information, the lack of training of the interlocutors in the community in

the key fields in which local development projects should be initiated;

- the lack of initiative of formal and informal leaders in the community (their inaction is

based on a previous negative experience that has lead to the instauration of an

erroneous conception “we also tried that, but it’s not possible”);

- the lack of strategic vision within the local public administration;

- persistence of an old conception concerning local development (“the only thing that is

important for the mayors is to introduce water, gas and the construction of roads”)

among locally responsible persons. Local authorities focus on investment objectives

for which there are no local resources and this often means that these cannot be carried

out and this leads to the discontent of the population, which does not see the

materialization of promises made during election campaigns;

42

- inefficiently “matured” development agents: (i) from a professional point of view

(meaning that they do not have a field of competence in which to manifest their

authority); (ii) from the point of view of their personality (lack of seriousness,

assumption of activities which result in immediate profit for them - image capital

which they exploit later on in election contest, editing only those funding projects

which result in an immediate financial profit for them, etc. )

- migration of some of the local development agents towards politics - this aspect

dissatisfies both the representatives of non-governmental organisations and those of

the public administration. When a local development agent expresses his/her intention

to enter politics, there is an immediate braking and blocking effect triggered by those

threatened or by future competitors in the political space (members of the local council

and mayors);

- the poor (financial and institutional) sustainability of the position of local development

agent is the cause for the instability or departures from the community.

The conditions or settings in which local development processes are initiated are localised

in the area of activity of the local development agents, community members or within the

local public administration. The settings or conditions that might generate development

have been pointed out, based on the positive experiences encountered by respondents in

the communities where they acted. Conditions or preconditions required for the initiation

of community development processes:

- diagnosis of the community;

- analysis of the community in order to determine the primary public for different

actions/activities at community level;

- information campaign and public debates;

- attracting decision-makers from local and county level in the community development

process;

- strategic planning - after this process, local development agents have determined

development priorities: those that can be achieved using local resources, objectives

43

that can be achieved using external resources (either referring to infrastructure-related

objectives or other social-cultural objectives, etc.)

These preconditions represent the technical endeavours that have mostly been covered by all

the local development agents. These activities should be carried out in a logical order, but

there have also been stages carried out based on a different algorithm imposed by local

realities and constraints, these being in fact adaptations which were most probably imposed

by the situation in the field. Some of the respondents (development agents) have stated that

they needed a period of time to become familiar with the community in which they were

going to work (this refers to a normal process of acquaintance and socialization with the

values, norms and unwritten “laws” of the community).

44

Community evaluation, public agenda

The community profile;

Identification of elements that facilitate/ block CD processes;

Identification of the problems in the agenda setting and the connection with CD

Modalities of obtaining public support; research-action.

The position of local administration in the development processes

People are made aware of this role in the ever increasing number of planning strategies of

authorities. These development strategies elaborated by the local public administration need

to consider the population’s priorities. On the other hand, the self-assessment of the

institutional capacity of local public institution (assessment of the activities carried out by the

local public administration) is required. This type of investigation should be carried out

periodically, because the information obtained grants the possibility to evaluate the efficiency

of the institutions of local public administrations.

Some of the responsibilities of the local public administration that would support the

processes of local development are: identification of resources and partners for local

development, responsibility to define local development strategies, responsibility to initiate

local development programs and to correlate these with the development programs and

strategies at national and regional level.

The new paradigms concerning local and community development underline the role of

reliable relationships and associativity at community level. Unfortunately, collectivist

practices and forced associations from the communist period have lead to the depreciation of

the idea of working together for common good. The community’s involvement in local

development programs implies the assumption of the lines of action in respect of strategic

planning by the development units: village or township.

45

However, the initiatives of non-governmental organisations are often oriented towards the

increase or development of civic initiatives, while public administration if first of all oriented

towards infrastructure projects. The latter initiatives, those referring to infrastructure, may

very easily be converted into election capital. The initiatives supporting the development of

the civic spirit are perceived by the elected ones as actions leading to the creation of a critical

crowd within the community.

For instance, the activity carried out by the LDA (local development agent) is not oriented

strictly towards the “generation” of economic capital, but the activity oriented towards the

increase of social capital (development of social networks, emphasis on trust and

participation, associativity and volunteering) might be more important. The preoccupation

with the increase of social capital is an important one in respect of development, both in the

European space but especially in the North American space (the problem of social capital is in

the attention of politicians, scientists and last but not least in the attention of the practitioners

dealing with local development and planning) (Hutchinson, 2004: vol. 70, iss. 2).

The multipurpose development of local communities must be of essence for a LDA or for the

structures managing local development, but the performance indicators which “matter” and

which are considered when the process is being assessed measure mainly “physical”

achievements (number of elaborated projects, quantum of financings, etc.). The success of

certain community development initiatives is considered from the perspective of these

indicators, while the aspects related to the training of leaders, creation of functional social

networks or the increase of social capital are left out. The assessment of the process,

according to the type of indicators, has left some people with the impression that community

development and economic development are equal.

The tasks and responsibilities of a community development structure are closely tied to the

attributions and responsibilities of the local public administration, as these are defined in the

legislation referring to the organisation and functioning of public local

administrations/authorities, but these cannot be reduced only to that. The differences which

always emerge, regardless of the culture and system we relate to, underline in fact, the

necessity of planning and developing a set of instruments which is appropriate for the always

changing intervention needs of the social-economic environment. Therefore, one cannot

identify standard attributes and responsibilities, which universally apply to any social-

46

economic, administrative or political environment, even if common traits or even models may

be found, being most of the times adapted to a national or at most euro-regional climate.

We can say that we have a set of elements - common denominator for all the institutional

structures concerned with local/community development: (i) identification of the specific

problems restraining the social-economic development of a community; (ii) responsible

assumption or initiation of solutions for answering to the community’s problems; (iii) detailed

programming-planning of actions and activities intended to lead to the implementation of the

projects and achievement of desired results.

One of the fundamental features of institutional structures managing community development,

regardless of their operational structure, is the task of researching the status of local

communities in order to identify appropriate solutions for the problems which are restraining

the local social-economic development.

The research, planning, marketing element highlights the difference between the common

administrative action, which can be defined as conventional, as opposed to that of Local

Development Agents (LDAs), who are or should be dynamic and capable of quickly adapting

to the permanently changing needs of the community. Additionally, the LDAs must possess

the essential capacity to forecast changes and to prepare the local communities it is in charge

of for the new demands which will emerge in a few years. Of course, these performances are

based on personal experience, on in depth macro and micro economic studies that must be

carried out with the participation of local and international interested experts and last but not

least, on the human and professional quality which the personnel of the local development

department must possess.

Research – action and participative research

The research-action endeavor frames in the large trend of theoretical analyses that concern the

role of democratic institutions in providing safety for the community or for the nations

members. Our interest is focused on the manner in which new organized structures are formed

(groups or organizations that are providers of collective products, in the meaning that such

collective products can also be public products: infrastructure, services, welfare etc.). We

47

fully approve Olson’s idea according to which the members of a group, in this case

communities, do not act collectively based on some instinctual feelings, but it is rather about a

rational type of endeavor in which the organized and individual interests meet (Olson, 1965).

The organized structures analyzed by us are represented by organizational entities which are

not completely subject to the economic type of logic or to the market laws. The Oslon

theoretical system appeals to a great extent to the economic thinking. By community

development, the organizations and institutions intend to stimulate or to create favorable

frameworks for the economic environment, but the initiators of these endeavors are essentially

the institutional actors which are not governed by a purely economic logic (public

administration, non-profit organizations, forms of association based on volunteering)

(Salamon and Anheier, 1996). Due to such reasons the present endeavor does not create and

does not suggest an analysis model in a canonical form as it is seen in the logic of collective

action, but the analysis is focused only on one dimension of the collective action theory

elaborated by Olson related to the appearance and development of group forms capable of

developing social actions. The presentation of some mathematical analysis models that will

include these social innovations (community facilitating processes) will represent the object

of other research endeavors.

The analyses performed during the work are focused on the way in which relations are

generated between two activity areas, namely the public and nonprofit areas. The relations

between the public and nonprofit areas had and still have a winding and problematic route in

our country and also in any part of the world. The role of the nonprofit area, also named the

third area is to supervise the way in which the state institutions perform their duties for the

citizens. The watch dog role of democracy is not the most comfortable because beyond

aspects that relate to a social critic of the public or private sector, the nonprofit organizations

must, in their turn provide solutions or alternative action models for those situations in which

the public or private institutions do not succeed to cover satisfactorily. The interventions of

nonprofit organizations must create a continuum between the public and the profit private

area, a continuum in the ideas platform plan or even of the services for the citizen or

community (Snavely, Desai, 2001).

The present endeavor is the response to the challenges related to the implementation of some

social innovations with the role to grow local participation meant to lead to development “in

and through communities”. The sociologizing endeavors of some projects of this type frame

48

in specific clinical sociological approaches and they are sometimes forced to give up the

methodological rigors in favor of elements that lead to better standard optimal formulas for

the innovation beneficiaries (Sandu, 2005). The applied sociology or the clinical sociology is

the most important name or denomination applied to a set of practices or research and

intervention models in the social area. M. Weber, G. Simmel, K. Lewin are just a part of the

creators of sociological systems who pleaded for what we call at present - intervention. The

attempt to define and establish the principles for the clinical approach in the sociology field is

placed somewhere at the beginning of the fourth decade of the 20th century in the USA.

Promotion of clinical approaches or of the research – action principles basically represent the

return to roots, the reason of being of the sociology, more exactly the role and the place taken

by the sociologist and the sociological science in the social area in the attempt to offer

solutions to the problems faced by the human communities. We will admit the fact that

sociology consolidates its scientific status in a period in which societies from the western

European area suffer major transformations due to the social-economic development imposed

by industrialism, the need to comprehend the changes faced by the individual and the society,

the need for prognosis and the need to avoid uncertainty generated by the social change. In

this period, namely the half of the 19th

century, there is a need to explain and to interpret

scientifically the issues of the societies and the communities in changing process. In the 20th

century we witness the multiplication of problematic situations on the society and community

level, situation that attracts the appearance of a high number of subjects arising from the

explanation and intervention field of sociology. The crisis of the American society from the

30s triggers a re-evaluation of the position adopted by sociologists and sociology on society

level or within the social-humanistic sciences community.

In Romanian sociology, Dimitrie Gusti suggests and applies militant models of social research

and intervention, the militant character of sociology is doubled by the initiation into

interdisciplinarity with the declared purpose of social reform. In essence, re-evaluation of

sociological type of approaches underlies the following principles (Ionescu, 2004: 184):

“Social phenomena can only be understood in their totality and

complexity;

We shall abandon the disciplinary restrictions that generate intellectual

rigidities to think properly, the social-humanistic subjects are not built against the

49

living; they relate to the existential, affective, individual, social, rebuilding the

endeavor to better comprehend the complexity of the bio-socio-psychic relations;

The sociologist is like the social life doctor; the word “clinical” is used to

make us think about the medical practice: we should focus on problematic areas,

near the people, “at the ill’s bedside” in the real community where there are

needs and social issues etc.”

I would like to underline the fact that the approach of some social innovations as those we

will refer to below requires interdisciplinarity related treatment and this aspect will be quite

obvious in the following chapters. The strategic planning processes, the community public

relations, the evaluation of community programs and projects are two aspects rising from the

administrative sciences area and the treatment of such aspects is made by appealing to

borrowings and exchanges from other areas or subjects. The theoretical and methodological

perspective is basically a sociological one but sometimes the analysis frameworks are rather

borrowed from much more often applied fields. Although we referred to theoretical

perspectives like: collective action, social capital, mobilization of resources, the data analyzes

were made by appealing to the inductive generalization and we did not build mathematical

models, as a games theory supporter would probably expect. This type of approach underlies

the analysis of one or more cases for the development of some explanations or theories valid

in a certain context or a certain set of conditions. This aspect represents a possible limit of this

endeavor if we refer to the supporters of formalism in the explanation and exchange of some

institutional frameworks (Scott, 2004: 120).

The practical model3 we suggest intends to be a solution to some major challenges of the rural

communities: the aspect of managing conceptions related to development. The information

from Rural Euro Barometer 2003, made by GALLUP Organization on the request of the

Foundation for an Open Society point out the fact that on rural community level the public

3 The present material was elaborated during the course of the pilot project COMMUNITY FACILITATOR

(2002-2003), and then it was published in a guide for practices’ dissemination related to community

development (see: Balogh, M., Hosu, I., Radu, S., Facilitator Comunitar – Ghid practic de dezvoltare locală,

[Community Facilitator – Local Development Practical Guide] Cluj-Napoca, Fundatia Civitas, 2004)

50

administration is most of the times the only institutional resort which involves in solving the

problems of the rural communities (73% of those questioned mentioned this fact).

Many other papers or studies from the community development area point out the fact that in

the rural environment from Romania the main development/initiative agent is the local

administration. This fact supports the viewpoint concerning the importance of human

resources existent in the local public administration as a main vector of development. The

same study (Rural Euro Barometer 2003, page 51) reveals the fact that 55% of those

questioned identifies public servants as the main individuals with initiative on community

level.

In this context the community facilitator model, as project of some NGOs may be regarded as

a public policy proposal intended to support the operational capacity provided by the

structures of the local public administration. On the level of 1995-2000, we are talking about a

low development capacity on local level, especially in the rural and small urban environment

from Romania. This status is firstly due to the low operational capacity on the public

administration level, and to the lack of strategic orientation on community level, in the

recognition of local potential and of other development agents from community level.

In the foundation part of the model were performed a series of studies and analyzes related to

the potential or capacity to mobilize and support with resources (internal or external) the

development processes on local level. The result of these endeavors was a set of work

hypotheses that guided the implementation, monitoring and assessment of the pilot project

community facilitator. In our conception this pilot project is an endeavor that we could name

standard for the mobilization of community resources within a collective action that regards

social-economic change (development).

51

Promotion of local initiatives

Interest, collective action, participation, social capital, community relations;

Communication for development – communicational resources for increasing participation

Community public relations: interface between community and development agents

Public, economic debates or those in the field of media are nowadays abundant in terms

referring to concepts which are highly utilised in the field of public relations and

communication: public opinion, organisational and institutional spaces, strategies, public-

private partnership, development, community, corporate social responsibility, etc. In what

follows, we will try to highlight the existence of a strong connection between two concepts or

even phenomena, which are in the centre of the current social space; these are the systems of

community relations and the problem of development. However, we will present part of the

major acceptations of the concept of development and highlight those aspects or elements

which are found in the theoretical-methodological inventory of an expert in public relations.

We will introduce in this work’s economy a new collocation, that of community relations,

intended to elaborate community marketing strategies, which contribute to the creation of a

better shaped local identity or to the desire to exploit or produce community resources (better

shaped local identity, high level of participation, social capital, symbolic capital, etc.). Hence,

we will try to present the existence of certain common traits between the practices of local or

community practice and the community publics relation systems (systems which may lead to

the: creation of community networks, increase in the degree of cohesion or in the level of

integration, namely participation).

The problem referring to development cannot be treated as being over-simple, meaning that

solving the problems of stagnation and economic underdevelopment at local level is not

caused by a single factor and the solutions to the problem of weak economic performance

does not only lie in political or administrative decisions, referring only to economic

52

indicators. The current concepts referring to development (here we refer to the development

of local communities) imply extremely diverse definitions, due to the wide range of

intervention area that a local development strategy has to answer to. From the numerous

challenges or finalities of local development endeavours we mention:

- insuring an investment climate which is favourable for the local business environment

- creating an incentive environment for small and medium enterprises

- support for the foundation of new firms and companies at local level

- selective support for certain types of business

- supporting the economic activities with high innovative potential

- attracting investors from the national and international space

- investments in physical infrastructure

- investments in educational and professional training systems, which can support the

normal development of the labour market

- creating areas with a special character, intended for the regeneration of the local

economic development process

- orientation towards socially and economically disadvantaged groups (Mireșan, Hosu,

Săvulescu, 2002).

For each of the previously mentioned finalities we can insert roles, tasks and functions which

are specific for an expert in community relations, mainly targeting: managerial conception of

those who coordinate and implement strategic planning processes, the degree of openness or

transparency of local authorities, the need to promote the community’s values at an internal or

external level, setting institutional frameworks which facilitate the establishment of intra and

extra community partnerships, etc.

The local economic development process has a direct correspondent in a series of indicators,

based on which we are capable to appreciate the increase of the standard of living for the

members of a community: level of income, access to high-quality medical and educational

53

services, infrastructural facilities for transport and communication, etc. However, other two

secondary objectives confer value to this mainly material well-being: these refer to two social

advantages, namely self-confidence and the freedom to choose the goods and services

resulting from local economic development processes. The problem of choosing and self-

confidence are elements which confer durability to the economic development process. In this

case, durability refers to the quality of human resource - responsibility, commitment, capacity

to adapt, mobility. All these attributes may be acquired only if there is preoccupation with or

if community public relation strategies are being elaborated for the administration and growth

of these non-financial resources of local communities.

Local development refers especially to those preoccupations of the structures within the local

public administrations, which refer to the permanent improvement of the investment and

business climate for the increase of the local economy’s competitiveness, as well as for the

increase of the standard of living for community members. Community development places

the financial capital or the economic aspect on second place, as the indirect contributions

provided by the growth of social capital are primordial for the increase of the quality of life.

Still, there are a series of elements which differentiate between the two adjacent concepts:

community development and local development. In both concept forms there are common

elements but also aspects which confer their distinctiveness. In both cases, we have processes

which lead to an increase of the standard of living of a population within a certain habitat.

Considering that the two approaches mainly target the same results, it sometimes happens that

during the development of certain phases some common elements emerge. But, beyond the

conceptual differences, there are a series of different empirical approaches, mainly determined

by local traits or local particularities.

Current conceptions referring to development highlight the importance of social change

processes, with positive consequences in the social-political and economic space, in the sense

of creating economic advantages. Mentality-related changes materialise in embracing another

type of attitude, which rejects self-sufficiency or the acceptance of the condition of assisted

individual. A change in the value system, different reference depending on the individual’s or

community’s performance, may only be achieved through investments in the field of human

resources; more precisely, investments in high standard education and in professional training

adjusted to the requirements and dynamics of the work force. Each of these elements requires

financial and logistic resources, which can be provided by efficiently operating local

54

economies. Local development projects imply change and change can be translated as

unknown, uncertainty, new, surrendering what we know and finally as learning new action

models. The individual, group or local community opposes all these elements brought by

change, especially when nobody considers to explain the manner in which things will evolve

or the manner in which the individual’s or community’s life would change. Public

consultations, public information campaigns, public debates, establishment of permanent

communication channels which insure the public agenda’s transparency are only some steps

at hand for the specialist in community public relations, engaged in major social change

projects.

A first remark that can be asserted up to this moment: local development generates a chain of

processes with multi-sectorial / multi-dimensional implications (economic, political, social

and value-attitude-related, both at individual as well as at institutional level). It is difficult to

specify which of the following dimensions represents the motor of development: economic

capital, social capital, the elaboration system of public policies concerning local development,

etc. For each of the mentioned dimensions we find theoretical arguments which prove the pre-

eminence of one or the other considered dimensions. Local economic development, seen as a

social process, takes place in a certain spatial-temporal context, for which it is difficult to find

a single cause responsible for the emergence and successful development of the respective

process.

One way (the 1960s in the United States of America) through which the stimulation of local

economic development was intended was to stimulate the establishment of public-private

partnerships. These partnerships were supported from federal financial sources and they

encouraged the establishment of local committees, to which municipalities would offer a

rather broad autonomy for the recharge of local economy. In the following two decades, the

same policies were continued for attracting private financial resources in local economic

development projects. Economic restructuring was managed by specialised institutions,

separately from local authorities; these would usually function as non-profit corporations.

Private organisational frameworks managing the local economic development initiatives were

and are accepted (applicable especially for the American space - high level of acceptance

coming from the public opinion) to a larger extent as compared to the initiatives which came

from the private sector (Green, 2002: 397). These examples are illustrations from a social-

cultural and economic space which is different from the European one. Certainly, structural

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elements may differ in the two geo-cultural areas, the European and the American space; still

the same forces, which may influence local economic development, are kept: public-private

partnership and public policies intended to support and generate local development. Research

concerning local economic development indicates that the central point for these analyses is

occupied by the relationship between political institutions and the manner in which public

policies are elaborated for local economic development.

There are several forms in which local authorities may organise the activities which lead to

the recharge of local economy, but each of these endeavours exhibit risks and possible

blockages. The possibility of centralising the endeavours for local economic development

within the mayor’s office (it could refer to a position created under the direct command of the

mayor or to the position of „city manager”), the mayor’s subordination or control means or

may mean an excessive political involvement of the activities referring to local economic

development. Another formula might be that in which an independent institutional structure,

responsible for local economic development, is created. The advantages of this formula would

be: high level of specialization in the field of development, better coordination with the

programs or activities supporting local economic development (urbanism, construction of

homes, infrastructure, etc.), better public visibility and better control of the citizens in respect

of this institution’s activity. The main disadvantage would be related to the assignment of

resources for operation. In both cases, the institutional formulas through which

responsibilities are granted to certain departments within the local public administration

exhibit the risk of becoming bureaucratic, of slow reaction to the challenges launched on the

market and last but not least the risk of subordinating the objectives of local economic

development to commandments of political nature. We have mentioned this new position of

city manager because we wanted to highlight the fact that this new structure may and must

include in the job description, the responsibilities afferent to community public relation

systems. A good relationship to the internal public and to the external public may have the

following immediate consequences (Barr, 2005):

- the detection and appropriate handling of relationships with various categories of

public within the community leads to an increase in the level of cohesion,

participation, confidence (we refer to the social capital: system of norms and values

promoting cooperation as the fundament for well-being at individual and social level)

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- the study and rational planning of the system for external public relationhips leads to

the creation of favourable premises for investments in the community.

Another formula which may be adopted by local authorities might be that referring to the

assignment of these responsibilities to local organisations/institutions, which are specialised in

local development (technology parks, business incubators, special status areas, etc.) The

advantages resulting from adopting these formulas are:

professionalization of the endeavours referring to local development, including

the public relations and public communication component;

the possibility to attract sources of private financing during projects developed

together with local communities (for instance, by creating or promoting certain

local brands).

The main criticism brought to this model is that individuals or groups responsible for this

process act more in the interest of businessmen and less in the interest of the public, of the

citizens. In this case, there is a major risk for these structures not to capitalize the citizen’s

trust in a society, which was and still is used to seeing public, local or central institutions as

the administrators of public well-being or of the path towards well-being. This fear of the

citizen may be justified, as long as there are high levels of activities associated with

corruption, low levels or even absence of decisional transparency. What is certain is that in

the field of local economic development, the establishment of strong connections between

public authorities and the private sector is required. The resulted institutional formulas have

allowed the professionalization of future endeavours for local economic development, have

benefited from autonomy in respect of the modes of action, have permanently provided

support for the process of elaboration of local policies in the field of development (local

development strategies) and have permanently been under a form control which insured the

transparency and fairness of the actions carried out.

A better circumscription of the concept of local economic development might result also if we

tried to answer some questions (which are otherwise standard in the specialised literature of

the social-human field): which are the most appropriate instruments for reaching superior

phases on an economic and social level, which are the obstacles for reaching these desiderates

and finally, which are the expectations of the main interested parties (Green, 2002: 394). A

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possible answer for these questions represents the elaboration of local economic development

strategies. A short consideration of some local development strategies has revealed that in all

these strategies there are important communication and public relations components, which

are indispensable to the local programming and planning process (components of image,

credibility, visibility, attractiveness, etc.)

In the context of a global economic competition, local communities have become aware of the

fact that their well-being is based on development strategies that imply multiple sides,

including the idea of relationship, trust, commitment and cooperation (Warner, 2000):

i) requires long-term commitment and investments

ii) requires the establishment of numerous partnerships (with the business sector,

community leaders, with interested groups or types of public )

iii) implies the performance of numerous activities developed within a managerial

conception adapted to global competition

iv) long-term strategic thinking and vision.

This list actually accentuates the importance of certain elements, which occupy central

positions in the field of public relation systems: commitment, starting relationships based on

trust, partnership relationships.

Local economic development represents, defined in the simplest manner, the community’s

effort to attract and keep within the community investments and new businesses. This effort

implies the existence of certain mechanisms, which support the growth and consolidation of

the economic sector at local level. Beyond the financial-economic mechanisms, attracting

investors also implies systems for establishing relationships, which stimulate cooperation,

cultivate the parties’ trust (in this case, we are not referring only to relationships that are

mutually favourable from a financial point of view, but we must bear in mind a different

aspect which is frequently called forth by those responsible for public relations and big

companies: the dimension of corporate social responsibility).

Strategic planning is the key activity of the local development process; this results both from

the theory, as well as from the practice of local economic development: “Strategic

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development is defined as the systematic process of organisation management, of establishing

future relations with the external environment, as well as identifying the requirements of the

interested parties from outside the organisation [...] the strategic planning process includes

strategy formulation, analysing the strong and weak points, identifying all the interested

parties, implementing strategic actions, as well as classifying the aspects referring to

management.” (Berry and Wechsler, 1995).

In the definition from above, we may note the importance of the term relation when we talk

about the strategic processes intended to lead to the community’s well-being.

The challenges faced by local authorities during the strategic planning process or of decision-

making processes in general are, according to some, refer only to the observance of legal

regulations. This conception is more than superseded, if we do not take into consideration the

fact that in today’s community spaces there are many types of public, with very different

interests or that these types of public have the possibility to influence the decision-making

processes (Snow, Zucher, Olson, 1980). To these new situation in the social space, we may

also add the fact that efficient local governments currently turn to public consultations and

debates with topics of general interest or of interest only to a certain category of the public. In

this moment, we may add another element which supports the need to include public relations

in the strategic planning processes or in the decision-making processes: permanent monitoring

of the performances of community leaders or of the public institutions by the local media or

by the civil society.

Along with strategic planning, the managerial dimension, as part of the local development

process, represents a key factor which leads to the fulfilment or non-fulfilment of the

objectives of local economic development. The management component within this process

will insure the institutionalization of this entire endeavour by trying to avoid, as much as

possible, any discontinuity, fragmentation or conflict between the parties involved.

Discontinuities may be the result of inconsistent or inconsequent policies, unequal

relationships between partners (poor communication and information of some of the

interested parties). Leadership and communication potentiate, mobilise the entire human

ensemble present in the planning process, thus contributing to a better coordination of the

effort to implement the strategic vision.

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The strategic document (development strategy) resulting from the consultation and

participation of interested parties, must provide the vision over local development, targets,

objectives, programs, projects and the successful implementation of the strategic model

drafted for the community together with it.

The finality of any procedure for local economic development is the growth of local economic

competitiveness, based on a local economic development strategy. The strategy elaboration

process implies the participation of specialists in wide domains: economy, marketing,

administration, urban planning, etc. This great diversity of professional fields involved in the

strategy elaboration process may generate problems in establishing the priorities of local

development (McGowan, 1998). This shortcoming is a minor one; however, there are major

problems and blocks that may intervene, both in the elaboration and in the implementation

phase: mistrust of individuals in public institutions (generated for instance by corruption);

subordination by the political element (locally elected figures) of the strategic planning

processes; lack of co-financing resources from local budgets; persistence of the “assisted”

mentality in case of many communities, lack of a professional body which can manage the

local economic development processes. The solutions brought by the CPR (community public

relations) expert are intended to reduce the problems emerging during the elaboration of the

strategy and later to reduce the risks which may emerge during the implementation of these

strategies.

Community public relation systems are and must be seen as functions of the public

management; moreover, we believe that public relations lay the foundations of stable and

durable community and local development models. Social durability is achieved by using

action models from the system for community public relations intended to create a favourable

climate for the development of local communities by cultivating: trust and participation (of

the individual) and transparency and responsibility of institutions.

Our intention is to analyze a social practice that may be framed in the category of collective

actions on local level that require mobilization of resources in community areas from the rural

environment, in a society that still has centralism reflexes both on individual and institutional

level. The social practices or innovations analyzed, the community facilitator and local

development agent represent the steps of a common action of some community actors who

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intend to satisfy some local requirements. More precisely, we refer to situations in which we

analyze behaviors of some organized groups pertaining to the public and private areas. We

consider the fact that the actors we refer to are initiators and also beneficiaries of

participation, and the action plan is rather public and less private. These are just a few of the

coordinates we follow, in fact they are also defining items for more or less institutionalized

participation (Kaufman, Wilkinson, 1967, apud Sandu, 2005: 43).

The methodological framework of analysis or the research strategy was chosen so as to allow

a good comprehension of the way in which are mobilized the resources within the collective

actions with local, public and group character. Our theoretical and methodological endeavor

starts from the assumption that the community development processes include the two

concepts around which the paper is elaborated, namely the collective action and the resources

mobilization (part of the tools with the help of which the community developers operate: local

development strategies, public-private partnerships and the community public relationships,

all found within specialized organizational structures).

The success of each investigation endeavor of the phenomena from the social area lies in the

manner or the strategy of performing the research. Any research strategic endeavor has its

pros and cons, being imposed by three factors: (i) the research objective, (ii) the particularity

of the phenomenon analyzed, (iii) the researcher’s control upon the events and processes

studied.

The research method employed is the multiple case study. The choice for this research

strategy was mainly influenced by the characteristics of the researched phenomenon, the

community development – seen as a form of the collective action correlated with mobilization

strategies of the resources.

The community facilitation processes relate to the development of a community; the

facilitation process is complex and somehow unique, even if it is not absolutely unique for the

researcher. In the attempt to answer as precisely as possible to the questions launched in the

introductory chapter – how is development possible, which are the community sources for

development – we considered the case study as the most appropriate strategic step to answer

the introductory interrogations.

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The research goal is to explain the way in which community resources are mobilized within

some collective actions that lead to development. The comprehension of processes and

phenomena mentioned above depends on exploratory, descriptive and explanatory studies that

used quality or quantity research methods (Yin, 2005).

The analysis of some community frameworks implies the use of research methods that cover

the complexity and diversity of realities from the field, the complementary approach is

required from methodological point of view, mixing the quality and quantity methods. The

information obtained from the inquiry or the information resulted from interviews does not

represent component elements in the general assessment of the phenomenon studied. We will

not consider the standard related to the performance of an institution, the situation in which a

community is established following the analysis of some survey information. The general

assessment of an institution or community is obtained following the combination of sources

and methods (interviews, direct or participative observation, analysis of documents, inquiries

data), action that would lead to a double advantage for the research endeavor: (i) on the one

hand the data collected will be rich, detailed, profound; (ii) we provide what is called

triangulation of methods and data, the direct implications being the growth of validity and

constancy.

We refer to the collective action which translates in community participation and mobilized

resources. The main assumption of the work is that community development is the result of

some collective actions that occur on community level, aimed to mobilize community

resources. As depicted from the paper, the community development concept has a significant

ideological charge supported by concepts like community participation, social capital,

resources mobilization, communitarianism – each of these concepts includes “guide-images,

beliefs through which it attempts to found public actions” (Sandu, 2005:42)

The analysis framework was designed so as to respond to the main goal of the research:

description and explanation of the manner in which the two key concepts of the paper

(collective action and resources mobilization) find applicability in the community

development field. The data collection and analysis methods were chosen by observing two

principles that underlie the knowledge in social sciences: adequacy and simplicity principles.

Referring to the adequacy principle, Culic (2004) underlined the importance of choosing the

proper conceptual framework for the researched issue and then following the simplicity

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principle the researcher will make an analysis framework that will describe reality as good as

possible. The two principles aim to elaborate a simple and efficient model for the description

of the studied phenomena.

The actual design of the research intended to include analysis units as homogenous as

possible and a simple and efficient model that will describe the dynamic and problematic

community realities, as those from the community areas. Despite the fact that the analysis of

the community facilitator model underlies a methodology of the case study type, we tried to

develop a series of sentences that will also capitalize value on theoretical level. Although we

had a series of ten communities, there is only one model of community development and

facilitation in ten communities. The endeavor is comparative only on community level, as

under the aspect of investigation methods we followed a high standardization of the

facilitators’ data collection tools. This quality type of approach was consolidated with a

research – action type of approach trying to test, correct and develop the model suggested.

The case studies and especially the research-action methodologies gained ground in the

research applied field, and had the support of numerous partnerships between the local public

and central administration and the non-governmental organizations. The research - action

type of endeavor plays a part in the enrichment of the scientific process, both on theoretical

development level and on the level of solutions provided by the science for the social

development.

The goals of the study mix exploratory, descriptive and explanatory objectives for the

suggested community model so as to describe the significant moments during the evolution

and development of community initiatives: the institutional type of aspects, the cooperation

and partnership practices, associations on community level, presentation of the historical

context that led to success or failure. This type of data was collected by appealing to: informal

semi-structured interviews or strongly formalized with community members; the analysis of

some documents or reports provided by the community leaders or by the community

facilitators present in the community. The group debates, the participation in community

assemblies or in the meetings of the local initiative groups completed the image about the

social structure, the type of relations and interactions or inter-community relations. This map

of the community, of quality nature, allowed calibration of the type and volume of

interactions in the community area. Despite the fact that we opted for the use of all data that

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could be generated from the interaction with the communities members or with the

community facilitators, there is the risk that data’s validity could be affected. In order to

avoid this deficiency we appealed to triangulation, both of the methods and data, the purpose

being to increase the predictive validity, which is reduced, anyway, when we use quality

methodologies (Rotariu and Iluț, 2006).

In the first phases of the research we used less standardized tools and then the reporting

manner of community realities was presented much more systematically and it was

standardized to a high extent.

Adopting a quality type research strategy intends to describe aspects related to the social

diversity, the presentation of common elements or of those that make the difference between

the studied cases with the purpose of identifying models or mechanisms that generate the

appearance or manifestation of some social phenomena or processes.

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Strategies for community development

Meanings and models;

Development of CD plans and strategies – steps and stages of the process of elaboration of

CD strategies;

Implementation of community development strategies.

Participatory planning processes and community development

Experience shows that there are various ways in which local communities are organised in

respect of economic development. The study of local political, social and economic

conditions may lead to a first level of understanding of the mechanisms or principles

according to which local economic development projects may be coordinated.

The starting point for local development is the existence of local initiatives and the

community’s responsibility for its own well-being. Constantly waiting for an initiative

coming from “above” means nothing else than falling behind or standstill. The fact is known

that, in highly centralized systems, local communities rely entirely on the government’s

initiatives when certain problematic situations need to be solved. The direct involvement of

governments, through payment transfers or investments in local production capacities has lead

to solving the community’s problems, but it also created a reflux according to which all the

initiatives come “from the centre”. The reform processes in public administration, the

principle of administrative decentralization and that of subsidiarity have offered a new

approach for the activities in the public sector, resulting in a transfer of responsibilities (at

least partially) from the central to the local level. Thereby, decentralization has triggered the

idea of community development, an idea according to which local development agents take

the initiative in drafting and implementing local development programs.

Beyond the possible definitions for strategic development, there is a set of steps which need to

be taken (Mc Gowan, 1998:305):

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- Assessment of the external environment: this endeavour is necessary because in the

absence of these assessments, the initiators of local economic development processes

risk missing the set goals; the external environment must include more than the

communities found in the immediate proximity; because we are currently witnessing a

global competition in which local communities are engaged, the “offers” or support

packages provided by communities or municipalities from the furthest geographic

regions should be taken into consideration. Distance is less and less important for an

investor and the important variables are the support packages that part of the local or

central communities benefit from, fiscal facilities, cost and the quality of work force,

namely the innovation capacity, etc.

- Assessment of the internal environment of the organization/institution which

administers the strategic planning process: an internal audit of the organisation may

identify the strong and weak points of the organisation, as well as the degree of

managerial and organisational efficiency in strategy implementation, etc.

- Selection and implementation of strategic objectives: the selection of strategic

development objectives is carried out after the assessment of the internal and external

environment of the organization; determining and implementing the local economic

development objectives; existence of a monitoring plan concerning the

implementation; increased attention will be given to problematic objectives, meaning

those objectives which are questionable in respect of their achievement.

The role of strategic planning is to set priorities in respect of:

- investments referring to infrastructure

- creating the support frame for local or regional institutions active in the field of

economic development

- developing the existing social capital on a local and areal level

- identifying incentive measures/regulations for the business environment.

Along with strategic planning, the managerial dimension, as part of the process, is also a key

factor which leads to the fulfilment or non-fulfilment of the objectives of the local economic

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development. The management component within this process will insure the

institutionalisation of the entire endeavour by trying to avoid, as much as possible, any

discontinuity, fragmentation or conflict between the involved parties. Discontinuities may be

the result of inconsistent and inconsequent public policies or of uneven relationships between

partners (poor communication and information of some of the interested parties). Leadership

and communication potentiate and mobilise the entire human ensemble present in the

planning process, thus contributing to a better coordination of the implementation efforts of

the strategic vision.

In agreement with the perspective provided by the World Bank4, the idea of a partnership

between public players, private players and those in the nongovernmental sector is the one

that must lead to economic growth and improvement of the quality of life. From the

perspective of this institution, local economic development processes may be built up by

following a plan consisting of five stages:

First stage - the effort to organise the strategic planning process

The effort to organise consists essentially in the identification of the institutions, private

companies, organisation and individuals, who are interested in the development of the local

economy. Along with human or institutional resources, the financial, logistical resources

required for the elaboration and implementation of the local economic development strategy

must also be identified. Identifying the above mentioned elements is the responsibility of a

local public institution (which usually undertakes to insure the formal and informal setting for

the elaboration and implementation of the strategy; this is usually the mayor or a person found

in his/her direct coordination).

Second stage: represented by the set of activities based on which the local economy’s profile is

determined

Each municipality or community benefits from a series of factors, according to which that

community may gain advantage in the development of the local economy or according to

4 http://web.worldbank.org : ,, The purpose of local economic development is to build up the economic capacity of a

local area to improve its economic future and the quality of life for all. It is a process by which prublic, business and

nongovernmental sector partners work collectively to create better condition for economic growwth and employment

generation.”.

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which it can initiate and support the strategic process of local economic development. These

characteristics, which favour or inhibit local economic development, result after the

identification of the existing strong and weak points at local level. This may include attributes

referring to human resource, favourable geographic positioning, good institutional or

managerial ability, etc. The purpose is to establish a local profile which indicates, in

comparison with other communities in the area, region or at a national level, the competitive

advantages which may form into motors of the local development.

Third stage: the actual achievement of the local economic development strategy

This document results after the consultation and participation of the interested parties and it

must provide the view over local development, targets, objectives, programs, projects and the

action plans that are going to be implemented. It is also important to identify the human and

financial resources necessary for putting the elements included in the strategy into action. In

order to achieve the set development objectives, the local authority will grant the necessary

budgetary resources.

Fourth stage: implementation of the local development strategy

Putting the action plans into practice represents in fact the implementation. The permanent

monitoring of the manner in which the action plans set in the local development strategy are

put into action is just as important. The monitoring activity will be the responsibility of an

institution, which can carry out this activity in a constant and professional manner.

Subsequently, based on the monitoring reports, the required corrections will be made to the

local economic development strategy.

The fifth stage is the one in which the adjustment or reassessment of the strategy for local

development takes place

As mentioned in the previous stage, certain objectives or local economic development

measures may be reconsidered based on the monitoring reports. The strategy must be revised

at least once a year, as it is not uncommon for numerous changes to arise in the local,

regional, national or international economic environment, which require the replacement of

certain objectives or adjustment measures which can lead to the fulfilment of the set

objectives.

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From the elements which insure the successful implementation of the community

development plan/strategy, we mention:

the existence of a common vision supported by the members of the community

the support and commitment of the members of the community - political and community

dimension

local leadership

the assignment of the resources existing at a local level with maximum efficiency

realistic assessment of the situation

the elaboration and implementation process of the community development strategy, which

includes all the interested groups or parties from the community

a good coordination of the planned activities

overcoming the traditional limits and identifying innovative solutions

keeping to the planned activities and introducing changes if the realities within the

community require this.

The main principles of the strategy are as follows:

- knowing local features - assessment and diagnosis of the local, regional, national and even

global environment

- public-private partnership - existence of certain collaborations both in the elaboration, as

well as in the strategy implementation phase

- the reality principle - the strategic plan will present the locality’s potential, its development

stage, the foundations from which durable economic development may be launched

- the continuity and sustainability principle - the strategic program will be permanently

improved also after its implementation

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- the principle of harmonization with the development objectives existing at a county, regional

or national level.

However, the flexibility and freedom in taking certain decisions have generated various

phenomena. Here we will refer only to the aspects concerning the initiative of local

authorities:

in a first category we may include those local communities, which due to the

lack of assistance and resources granted by the government, did not manage to

cope with the problems existing at a local level. In some cases, the local

authorities’ state of passivity has contributed to the permanent deterioration of

the economic and social environment and these negative states have lead to a

drastic decrease in the standard of living of the members of the respective

community.

in the second category, we may include those communities, which knew how

to exploit the advantages resulting from the political and administrative

decentralization processes which have occurred in the past years.

Unfortunately, this category includes a smaller number of cases. In most

situations, the involvement of the local authority in the active support of the

community development initiatives was the result of strong pressure coming

from the community, which considers that local authorities are responsible for

the state of the local economy. The successful situations recorded in the field

of local development exhibit certain common features: (a) the main players -

the local public authority - did not hesitate to search and later exploit the

favourable occasions for local development; (b) the local development agents

took on risks and mobilised their energy towards transforming their own ideas

into concrete projects or programs; (c) these communities tend to be

independent and wish to cooperate within legal or formal partnerships.

Aspects concerning the subjective components of mobilising community resources

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The structural changes within society (see the forced industrialization in communist states

after 1945, restructuring of central and east European economies after 1990) generate strong

psycho-political and emotional effects, which support the migrationist decisions of the

population, especially of the young. In certain situations, we feel this influence directly,

especially when it comes to poverty. The differences between communities, in respect of the

standard of living, generate contradictory feelings concerning satisfaction/dissatisfaction at an

individual level; these states generate decisions such as involvement/non-involvement in the

community’s life.

However, there are a series of elements which determine the mobilization/demobilization of

individuals, elements which are harder to intercept or which are not taken into consideration

when talking about collective actions. In this category we include (Rose, Mishler, Haerpfer,

1997):

The solidarity of the individual’s community. At the community level or

within the individual’s reference groups, solidarity determines feelings of

satisfaction/dissatisfaction at individual level, it structures perception and the

system of norms and values at individual level. With other words, the intensity

of individual-community connections generate psycho-social effects that

favour or prevent the participation in collective actions, namely they strengthen

or weaken the trust in others. As we known, these two attitudes represent the

premises for building social capital.

The individual’s feeling of pride due to his/her appurtenance to the community

in which he/she lives (in this case we refer to the ethnic group he/she is part

of);

The way in which extra community realities are perceived (other geographic

regions or areal) completes the subjective frames which generate positive or

negative attitudes in respect of participation, associativity or social solidarity.

We believe that the variations in the intensity or direction of manifestation of the situations

mentioned above directly influence the way in which that individual mobilizes his/her

resources in the social action.

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Certainly, there are also successful models or strategies for community development. These

strategies have achieved their objectives, in certain situations, meaning that they have

determined an increase in the standard of living for the communities in which these were

applied. By referring to the transfer and implementation of successful models for local

development, we believe that their import or imitation in a simple form does not insure the

success they had somewhere else. The implementation of successful models requires careful

analysis of the space and community which adopts a successful model. We have to mention

the fact that each successful model is the result of applying general frames for certain specific

social, economic and environment-related contexts. Thus, the role of socio-human analysis

and diagnosis is to identify the elements which favour or may impede the successful

implementation of these “best practices”. The common element found in almost all the

successful situations is the presence of local partnerships, the main objective of which is local

social-economic development; consensus, unitary and coherent action of local development

agents most certainly represents the guarantee of local community development.

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Management and leadership

Management and leadership;

Human resources and community development organizational structures that support CD

processes;

Perspectives – the public sector and the non-profit private sector.

The final goal of the community facilitation processes is to obtain a quality progress related to

the organization of the local communities having difficulties. When we refer to this type of

communities we do not think only about the economic aspect, but also to the nature of the

relations within the community, of the capacity to support through own efforts the local

development initiatives.

The community development processes are the result of some common endeavors initiated

and managed by several actors, both in the inside and outside community. Regardless their

status or quality (the institutions of the local or central public administration, interest

organizations or groups, public or private sponsors, non-governmental organizations) this type

of institutional network aims to support the community facilitation process, the final goal

being to grow the standard of living of a local community. The consensus related to the vision

upon the development is one of the central elements that underlie the success for this type of

processes. Along this common vision there are a series of other factors that favor, restrain or

even block the success of the community development initiatives. It is suffice to remind the

community characteristics, those of the organizations or of the institutional network involved

in the community facilitation process, the type of issues approached in the first phase etc. The

analyses and assessments performed within the pilot project made at Civitas Foundation, as

well as other assessments made by other organizations point a series of aspects that we should

insist upon:

– the role and involvement of sponsors;

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– the experience of non-governmental organizations – we mainly refer to the expertise and the

role of such organizations in the community facilitation processes;

– the availability and the involvement degree existent within the community;

– the quality and performances of the institutional network on local level (private or public,

profit or non-profit): human resources from the organization, leadership, stability of the

organization from financial or technical resources point of view, the relation with the

community, the institutional network or partnerships, the services provided etc.

The evaluation of the community development models shows that no specific model can be

indicated to describe the phases or the measures to be adopted in order to reach the goals of

the facilitating process, more exactly community development. The reviving of local

initiatives, the initiation of programs from the local communities are the last results of the

facilitating process, these endeavors follow the increase of the number of services or their

quality for a certain community. The establishment of some institutional partnerships, the

building of these institutional networks intend (see: studies and assessments made by the

Partnership for Community Development and the Resources Centre for Ethno-cultural

Diversity in cooperation with the Romanian Government) to elaborate and to implement

strategies, local policies, initiatives or programs to support development of the capacities and

performances among the members of the assisted communities. It is about individuals from

local initiative groups or those active within institutional frameworks from the community.

The key phases of the community facilitation process as resulted from the practice of some

organizations and institutions that appealed to this model:

• planning the facilitation process

• community meetings

• establishing the goals and the performance indicators to be reached

• actual implementation.

The entire process is supported or assisted by the institutions or organizations from the

community or outside the community and this requires configuration of institutional

competences and duties undertaken by each of the institutional actors – it is about non-

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governmental organizations, institutions of the local public administration, sponsors, business

sector etc.

Planning phase

The evaluations made within some similar projects implemented underline the importance of

this phase. The objectives established in this phase are numerous, and we will mention a few

of those that must be achieved: (i) the facilitation process will start only when there are

confirmations or assurances from sponsors that they will support at least a part of the

activities related to the community facilitation process; (ii) the community analysis and

diagnosis (social capital, involvement, participation etc.); the community analysis generates

the list of issues and a part of the solutions agreed by the community members, furthermore

the priority list as perceived on community level is also obtained; (iii) elaboration of a

common “agenda” for all actors involved in the facilitation process. In this phase as well, are

initiated training and informing sessions through which takes place the transfer of knowledge

from facilitators to some of the community members directly involved in the community

facilitation process.

Community meetings

The high level of acceptance and participation from community can also be determined by the

efficiency and professionalism with which the community facilitators approach such

meetings. The way in which the meeting is prepared, the meeting agenda, inviting all

interested parties, the way in which debates are conducted, permanent information of the main

actors related to the course of the process are just a few of the elements which the facilitators

must manage as effectively as possible.

The obtainment of the consensus regarding the future activities is followed by the clear

establishment of responsibilities for each actor involved in this process. In cases when at the

beginning of the facilitation process the role of the community’s representatives is a minimum

one, throughout the facilitation process this role must become more significant. The

facilitator must not substitute in any way the community actors. At the end of the process the

facilitator will have only advice, not decisional roles. For the good performance of the process

each facilitator would have to elaborate a “manual” to expressly present the tasks, the phases,

the activities within the process, as well as each party’s responsibilities. This set of rules must

75

not make bureaucratic the facilitation process even if some sponsors insist on excessive

formalization of each phase. The practice shows that the excessive formalization and easiness

decrease the interest and participation of community’s members.

A pre-condition necessary for the implementation phase of the development strategy is to

connect activities, programs and projects with other development programs, either county,

regional or national. The coordinator role or centre of the institutional network must be taken

by the local public authorities. The local administration has the authority to establish the local

public policies while other partners from the private or associative sector may have the

expertise level or the experience to ensure the success of the community development

programs. The experience of the development endeavors points that a great extent of these

initiatives stops once with the financing. Funding withdrawal must bring a reconsideration,

reorientation of the development strategy on community level. Under no circumstances

development will not be considered only in economic terms. Reaching some superior

performance standards for a given community is certainly a significant indicator and is not the

only criterion to be taken into account when the community development process is

evaluated.

Implementation

• The facilitator provides technical “support” to the community partners (NGOs, interest

groups, APL). Support does not mean assuming responsibilities or substitution of actors from

the community who must participate and assume responsibilities in each phase of the

facilitation process. The application of the strategic development plans will start with a pilot

period in which performances, abilities, involvement degree are tested for each of the parties

involved.

• Periodical evaluation of the process allows adjustment, if the case may be, of some parts or

even of the entire process. The Community facilitator project seen as a pilot project of Civitas

Foundation suggests a community development model for those communities in which the

local institutional network (APL, NGO, private sector) did not manage to elaborate or

implement efficiently local development processes or programs. The community facilitation

processes are focused on the rehabilitation of the institutional or social network that will

enable community’s development.

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The specialized literature and the practice in this field point a series of obstacles in the way of

implementation or normal operation of the facilitation processes for the community

development purpose. A series of factors are structural, other factors are imposed by a certain

context, and others are generated by the professional’s function – community facilitator.

Source documents for the data included in the analysis

1. Town hall selection documents (registration files, evaluation forms, press releases)

2. Community facilitators’ selection documents (press releases, contest tests, evaluation

forms)

3. Activity reports of the project staff

4. Activity reports of the facilitators

5. Job description - community facilitator

6. Official reports of the community meetings

7. Documents related to activity planning and distribution of duties (action plans, activity

calendars)

8. Evaluation of the projects elaborated, submitted and awarded

9. Materials elaborated by facilitators (projects elaborated, development strategies, analyses of

the community potential etc.)

10. Information upon specific activities (editting and distribution of Infociv, planning of

training sessions, presentation conference of the final conclusions)

Community facilitators: who they are and what they do5

5 Fragment from Bosovcki, A., Dragoș, D., Balogh, M., Hintea, C., Hosu, I., Facilitator comunitar – ghid

de pregătire [Community Facilitator – Training Guide] page 22-24)

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We will present below a few of the results of a study carried out by a non-governmental

organization from Cluj-Napoca, Partenership for Community Development (PDC), entitled

“Community development – sector’s status” which evaluated some organizations active in the

community development field (Careja, 2003).

From the data and information included in this study we selected the aspects related to the

community facilitation process. In this process the community facilitator has a significant role

and the success or failure of the mobilization of local resources in the local development

processes depends on this role to a large extent. As pointed in the study:

,,…facilitators are individuals with special training who go to communities and fulfill on the

spot a series of functions with the general purpose to prepare the community for future

actions. Although “facilitator” is the common term accepted, some associations prefer

synonym terms like “community development agents”or “local promoter”.

Facilitators are one of the main elements of the strategy used by most of organizations which

apply community development projects. Obviously, not all organizations use facilitators, but

they adopt alternative working strategies with the communities …” From the data collected

through questionnaires or some individual or group interviews the research makers depicted

some of the facilitator’s functions and tasks. We will list a few of these basic rules below:

1. the facilitator supports the local communities to identify and solve the problems

encountered by the individuals and/or the groups from the community

2. the facilitator is a resource – individual for the community it lives in.

The experience on the field acquired by various organizations, in different projects points out

the fact that the relation facilitator community is a problematic one, whether in the meaning of

total involvement of the facilitator, or in the meaning of rejecting its presence in the

community. The first of the two rules is more dificult to observe because of the fact that – as

the respondents emphasized – between the facilitator and the community a very close

relationship is born and the fine line between guiding and actually working instead of the

community members can be ignored (out of the wish to help as much as possible). This

involvement over the line will trigger in time a false perception among the community

members, namely that there is one individual who can solve any type of problems, case when

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we can identify the community’s dependence on this individual. Or, this very dependence of

the community to the individual – facilitator function should be avoided. The facilitator is

present in each of the phases of the community development projects, being the first person to

come into immediate contact with the community and therefore it has a key role in the

collection of information about such community and in the community’s evaluation.

As seen from the data collected in the research, the community facilitator has the following

duties:

identification and mobilization of the resources from community (mainly the human

resources);

supports and stimulates the creation of an action framework favorable to launch

development initiatives that come from the inside of community. The main duty here

is to involve the formal and informal leaders in these processes, to help in the

awareness and identification of community’s potential.

holds the coordinator role for the most important activities within the project – this

will occur only in the first phases of its presence within the community. Complete and

long-term commitment to solve the most important duties leads to the community’s

dependence on this individual.

identifies the leaders and helps in the organization of the local initiative groups and is

on the same support line of the main activities carried out on community level.

together with these initiative groups will identify the community’s difficulties

The mediation aspect between the most important local actors (initiative groups,

citizens, leaders of local organizations, representatives of the local public

administration) is the basis for the creation of some lasting partnerships on local level

and outside the community

The communication/information aspect with the community members and leaders in

respect of various opportunities. This project enables the facilitation of the access to

informational resources, extremely important for the community development

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processes. Given the outage nature of most of this information a communication in

real time is necessary with the leaders and local agents to exploit these opportunities.

When the main target of the non-governmental organization is not represented by

communities but by other relevant factors on local level, like, for example the public

administration, the facilitators of these organizations have the role to assist the local

authorities in activities aimed for the local and regional development.

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Sustainability and institutionalization

Viabilization of community;

Challenges and evolution.

After the analysis of the community problems, an analysis of the financing “market” must

also be carried out in order to determine the schedule of actions referring to fundraising

activities. The project elaboration and management component appears to be in fact the most

important component of the local development agent’s activity. In many cases, the project

elaboration process for attracting funds in the community precedes the diagnosis and strategic

planning process. This hurry to elaborate projects to be filed for financing comes both from

community development agents and the representatives of local authorities. Both parties wish

to achieve results in a very short period of time and for these results to be as concrete,

palpable as possible. Unfortunately, in several cases there was a general opinion that the role

of the community development agent resumes simply to aspects related to project

management. Contrary to general opinion, the tasks and obligations of the community

development agent are greater in number and these do not simply aim at activities referring to

project management.

Aspects perceives as relevant by the participants in the community development processes

Positive aspects encountered in community development processes

- promoting positive practices referring to community development. These positive practices

are, as the case may be, aimed at: supporting punctual projects, improvement of the

relationships between the community members or of the inter-ethnic climate, promoting local

development;

- there is great freedom in the manner in which the community development process can be

initiated (no formal or bureaucratic constraints);

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- association and high level of participation - it refers to situations in which the agent manages

to establish the quick and efficient involvement of community members;

- continuing previous initiatives - continuity.

Negative aspects encountered in community development processes

- short-time presence/intervention in the community (certain communities and certain

members of rural communities have a slower reaction to the stimuli/challenges of

community facilitators/promoters);

- problems concerning the accommodation of local development agents with the

particularities of these activities (either due to local problems or to the lack of certain

qualities that the facilitator/promoter should possess);

- problems due to the difficulties in forming initiative groups at local level;

Initiation of the community development process

After analysing the received answers, we concluded that local development processes are

sustainable only if:

there are local players who support and participate in this process (local initiative

groups);

there is support both from the inside and from the outside of the community;

support may take on very different shapes (human, financial, logistic resources,

etc.)

Support for the development process

The institutional structures that have the potential to support these processes are: public

administrations (local and central), non-governmental organisations (outside the locality, as

well as the ones inside the community), private companies (here we can mention

philanthropic activities or sponsorships, but a more comprising concept needs to be especially

mentioned, that of: social responsibility).

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The role of the local development agent (facilitator/promoter): who he/she is and what he/she

should know

The role and attributions of this person can be found in each stage/phase of the community

development process:

the community development agent contacts and is in direct contact with the

community. The relationship to the community is maintained through formal/informal

leaders, initiative groups established at community level or through community

organisations;

collects, stimulates and analyses the data about the community as a whole;

motivates and mobilises community members in respect of their participation in

actions that are in the community’s interest;

supports community members in identifying and solving problems encountered at

individual, group or community level;

trains or develops abilities, skills of (formal or informal) community members through

instruction and training actions addressed to the members of the community;

insures the direct access of (formal or informal) leaders of the community to resources

outside the community (information, opportunities, relationships, contacts) which may

be of local interest;

the development agent: good communicator, organiser, planner and holder of basic

knowledge in the field of collective action psychology, adult education;

social communication abilities that allow him/her to carry out social dialogue at

community level.

Non-governmental organisations and community development processes

The main aspects extracted after the assessments referring to non-governmental organisations

are:

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The non-governmental organisations that can viably and for a long time support de

community’s development are those created at local level;

The non-governmental organisations of resource centres outside the community have

the role and task to start and lay the foundations for the main settings of community

development;

Non-governmental community organisations become durable/viable structures only if

there is support coming from the community (community members and local public

administration).

Local public administration and community development

The major aspects concerning the role of local public organisations in the process of

community development:

The local public administration (LPA) possesses the means and instruments that

augment the resources of NGOs for community development - complementarity ;

LPA has or should have major responsibilities concerning: information, dissemination

and support in the enactment of decisions that are favourable for community

development;

Readiness to establish viable partnerships with organisations or institutions within or

outside the community;

Development of the legal framework (decisions and provisions) which supports the

activities of the community development agent or of the organisation supporting the

process of community development.

Positive impact resulting from these activities

In this chapter, we can mention a series of elements referring to public settings or private

settings (here we refer to the development agent). The most numerous satisfactions are

granted by the positive results obtained from the achievement or successful implementation of

punctual projects or programs. These achievements may be/are assumed both by

institutions/organisations and by the individuals who were part or beneficiaries of those

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programs. The main benefits mentioned are: accumulated experience, new knowledge or

working practices, material or financial benefits for institutions or individuals from the

community. Apart from the aspects mentioned by the interviewed subjects, the most

important benefit must also be mentioned here: regaining trust in one’s powers, in increasing

the motivation level of the individuals in the community for the purpose of engagement in

other actions that lead to the increase of the level of well-being at community level.

Another set of statements underlining satisfactions refers to the aspects resulting from team

work. One of the main tasks of the community development agent is to form initiative groups

consisting of community members. These initiative groups must be established in such a

manner that they can function for a long period of time and, in time, are able to take on part of

the functions and attributes of the local development agent. Some of the respondents have

underlined the fact that the main satisfaction in their work was the creation of teams or

functional groups, which have managed to function as homogenous groups. In fact, this

aspect, referring to the creation of efficient working groups at local level, may be considered

the main indicator of success of the work carried out by a local development agent.

Dissatisfactions

Roughly speaking, the dissatisfactions of the interviewed subjects were:

Lack of trust in the representatives of the community or the lack of support of certain

community members. In this type of situations, it might only be a problem of

adaptation of the development agent or it may refer to an incorrect approach

concerning the development process;

Long time required for the homogenisation and structuring of the initiative group at

local level (this demotivates both the development agent and the active members of

the community, who usually expect palpable and quick results);

Assignment of predominantly administrative tasks to the local development agents;

Selective support of certain development agencies (“some are more equal than

others”). In this case, we refer to the support that some development agents have

received from certain county institutions, while others did not enjoy the same support.

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Lack of a legal framework governing the attributions, responsibilities of the

development agents;

Lack of legal framework concerning the functional settings of community

development processes (for instance: lack of a parliament of communities, defective

legal framework in respect of local or community development: the law does not

protect them and community cannot support them - we are referring to local

development agents);

Some NGOs are “chameleon-like”: do not know the community’s needs, have no

consistence, solve only current problems and frequently change their field of activity.

All these elements create a negative image of NGOs before the structures of public

administrations.

Recommendations

From the recommendations extracted from the assessment we mention as follows:

- The local development agent should cooperate with a person from the community with

similar training or knowledge as he/she does. This person might be one familiarized

with the working methods and techniques of the development agent. Moreover, his/her

correspondent from the community should be interested in the development processes

of the community he/she lives in or in which he/she carries out his/her activity;

- Community development processes should be adapted to local particularities (the

recommendation of a data chart or a model is not feasible, as there are great

differences between rural communities of: cultural, economic and social, nature,

referring to mentality, ethnic structure, etc.)

- The development of complementary activities (social-economic development and the

development or maintenance of cultural patrimony, local identity);

- Community development may be seen as a multi-dimensional and bipolar

phenomenon for each dimension. In this respect, we can include three major

dimensions:

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D1: - development of community capacities versus development of

organisational capacities (it refers to the community organisation supporting this

process);

D2: - combining the implementation of actual projects versus work with

community members;

D3: - building long-term relationships with the community versus assessment

of the external environment of the community;

- Community development must address not only community members or groups, to the

same extent, the agent’s efforts must also be oriented towards local institutions or

authorities (NGOs are the only ones that cannot support development, therefore an

important aspect of community development would be the development of public or

private institutions from within the community);

- Implementation of the position of development agent in those communities, which are

ready (mentalities, resources, institutions) for this endeavour; the mandatory character

concerning the adoption of the position of development agent would quickly transform

him/her into a public clerk who “translates into and from English or participates in

meetings with topics referring to European integration”.

- The local development agent should maintain an unbiased attitude towards the

different interest groups existing at local level (either political, economic or other type

of groups);

- The community development process must be centred on: man, tradition, community

and second of all, to be presented as an economic endeavour or as “good business”;

- Correlation of the endeavours of the local development agent with other interventions

at community level.

Empirical verifications: community-regional

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Regional institutional resources used in community development processes6 - sociological

approach

A total investigation concerning the current frameworks, in which regional development

processes take place, should be mainly carried out starting from comparative type approaches,

on several dimensions. These dimensions of comparativity are as follows:

I - a possible plan of comparisons may be drafted starting from a general interior-exterior

dimension. This first level of analysis may provide the determination of compatibility or

incompatibility in respect of the legislation governing local development in Romania and in

the EU (internal-external legislative framework).

II - another analytical plan is represented by working practices and models, compared

perspective, Romania - EU (best practises internal-external)

These compared perspectives are joined by analyses that may also intercept systems of value

and attitude, which come to support the social cohesion measures, strategies for the

mobilisation of those resources which support regional development processes.

Along with these aspects having a comparative nature (Romania - EU), a second analysis

level is centred on internal aspects of the regional development process. Here, a multitude of

aspects can be considered and from these we can mention:

a. Assessments concerning the achievement or application level of governance strategies in

relation to regional development processes;

b. The degree of application or implementation of the legislative framework existing in the

field of regional development;

c. Degree of adequacy of the Romanian legislation in the field, according to the existing

realities;

6 The study was carried out in a project financed by OSF Romania: Map of players involved in the accession to the EU -

March-October 2003; the objective of the research was to assess the activity of the institutional structures responsible for

regional development after five years from their establishment.

88

d. The efficiency levels of the implementation of the EU legal framework;

Certainly, the aspects deserving special attention might continue, but the present study intends

to investigate the most important legal, economic, institutional-managerial aspects. In this

case, we wish to approach the problem from a comparative, multi-dimensional perspective of

the regional development processes, even if we do not expect to present this phenomenon in

an exhaustive manner. The present study is focalised on central aspects, which may indicate

the directions or principles governing the regional development in Romania at this point in

time.

The sociological dimension of the analysis has attempted to grasp the manner in which the

institutional relationships of public and private agents involved in this field evolve, trying to

grasp the perception of these players concerning current working practices and models.

From an institutional point of view, there are some major observations included in numerous

sociological studies:

- Development agencies do not have enough space and have a small number of employees.

This opinion is shared both by the beneficiaries and the employees of development agencies;

- The specific endeavours and activities for programs and projects have a strong

bureaucratic nature. The procedures are laborious and complicated for most of the applicants.

Everyone agrees that a simplification of the procedures is required. Excessive

bureaucratization only discourages most of the potential applicants;

- Another negative aspect referring to RDA (Regional Development Agency) is that these

institutions should offer more support in the drafting and management of projects. The

employees of RDA acknowledge this shortcoming, but the insufficient number of employees

represents the main problem in this case. Therefore, perhaps a closer collaboration with other

institutions and organisations that might offer assistance in the rectification of these

shortcomings is required. At local level, here we refer especially to the rural space, the

activity of the RDA would require close collaboration with local leaders.

- The functional autonomy of the institutions administrating regional development is

strongly limited by the low level of autonomy, when it comes to decision making and access

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to financial resources. Due to the lack of these instruments, for some, RDA represents only

“form without substance”.

- A particular aspect is the one referring to the role and place of politics in regional

development processes. Some say that the presence of politics in the activity of Development

Agencies is normal, because these apply one party’s conception referring to the manner in

which a region should develop. Of course, the involvement of politics should be limited to

tracing the main directions or principles. In reality, the Agencies feel political pressure both

from central level, as well as from county-level structures. However, the most critical aspect

is that beneficiaries are convinced of the political factor’s involvement in the assessment or

judging of the bidding process. The political “game” is the one providing the algorithm for

financing (number of financings per county, financing limits, etc.). For that matter, in the

period in which these interviews were carried out, mass-media presented situations in which

political influences have lead to the defalcation of European funds. These are only signalled

by mass-media and investigations are going to be carried out to determine whether the

accusations in the press are true or not. Even if these do not turn out to be real, many believe

that the level of involvement of politics is much too high and that most of the time it plays a

negative role.

In what the assessment and monitoring of the projects carried out by Development Agencies

is concerned, the high number of bureaucratic activities is a serious handicap for many

possible beneficiaries. Some of the subjects, who have benefited from these types of

financing, have declared that they do not wish to ask for any more funds from these

institutions due to very consistent reasons: excessive bureaucratization, delays in payment, the

obligation to possess great amounts of money at the beginning of the project, execution of

activities even if the project financing is a couple months late, etc.

The private players involved in regional development have an indirect role in this process.

Among these players, we may find non-profit organisations, but also profit-oriented

organisations. In this category we include: trade companies, investment funds or commercial

banks, non-governmental organisations acting in the field of regional development or research

institutions or institutions of higher education.

In compliance with this phenomenon, it is expected for the system of regional policies in the

EU to go through a phase of fundamental transformations. Change can take place either in

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respect of the constitution of Structural Funds or in the value of the financings Romania will

benefit from.

Due to these reasons, Romania’s strategy must be oriented towards the increase of the

competitiveness of Romanian companies on the European market and the qualification of

workforce in fields with high levels of benefit. In the field of regional development and not

only, it is expected of Romania to observe certain principles, such as: partnership,

subsidiarity, decentralization, programming, concentration, additionality.

We must clarify the national policy referring to regional development, which in this point in

time seams fragmented:

- regional approach, based on strategies and regional plans, with the purpose of developing

the potential of each region

- national approach for the prevention of unbalance and support for the potential existing in

the territory

- local approach, which concentrates public resources, state aids and pre-adherence funds in

various types of areas: disadvantaged areas, areas of industrial restructuring, assisted areas,

these overlapping without any clear argumentation.

If Romania’s regional policy adopts the principle of “zoning”, the coherence and synergy of

various instruments must be carried out; the role of the Regional level must be clarified from

the perspective of implementation of Structural Funds and also, the European Agreement

concerning state aids must be observed.”7

Practice and the analyses carried out indicate that, up to this moment, no social practice or

model could be introduced for describing the stages or measures which need to be adopted for

the purpose of community development. The recharge of local initiatives, the initiation of

programs by local communities are endeavours intended to increase the number of services or

their quality for a certain community. The establishment of institutional partnerships, the

construction of these institutional networks is intended to elaborate or implement strategies,

local policies, initiatives or programs to support the development of the capacities and

7 The Commission’s observations concerning the National Development Plan 2002-2005

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performances of the assisted community members. This refers to individuals within the local

initiative groups or those who are active in the community’s institutional units. The success of

development initiatives depends on the initiators’ level of determination. After 2000, a

strategic reorganisation is recorded at community level, in the sense that sustained attitudes

and actions emerge for the purpose of acquiring planning and implementation competences in

community development projects and programs. These endeavours emerge under the pressure

of major changes involving the Romanian society, the affiliation to Euro-Atlantic structures.

The emergence of a market of “community developers”, both on the political , as well as on

the private (profit and non-profit) component, has lead to the diversification of the expectance

horizon and range of actions intended for the development of local communities. The

activities of non-governmental organisations, of local initiative groups form this register and

these organised entities present themselves as undertakers of collective actions intended to

mobilise the resources for development.

The types of community intervention presented, community facilitator and local development

agent, have generated new attitudes (anti-resignation) and faith that for certain problems

(referring to the management of poverty or well-being) solutions can be found at local level.

The two models analysed are the result of the initiative of certain NGOs (Centre for Rural

Assistance - member of SON and the Civitas Foundation) which have tried to underline the

need for professionalization in the field of community development, by introducing new

positions in the community landscape. The need for professionalization is not the

consequence of rationalization or streamlining of administrative actions, but the mimetic

answer based on the successful models of those near us.

Small successes (solving a problem, winning a project, etc.) occurring in the early phases of

community development initiatives have the role to positively motivate local initiative groups,

to mobilise resources and stimulate participation. An important element results from this and

it refers to the appropriate administration of the resources of the new forms of institutional

organisation, aimed at generating community development. Efficient administration of

partnerships, along with the capacity to carry out participatory development strategies,

represent two of the competences leading to the mobilisation of intra and extra community

resources.

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Resources and links

• Civic Practices Network

http://www.cpn.org/

• The Policy Research Action Group

http://www.luc.edu/curl/prag/

• Community Tool Box

http://ctb.ku.edu/en/default.aspx

• Sustainable Development Communication Network

http://www.sdgateway.net

http://www.iisd.org/sd/

• International Association for Community Development

http://www.iacdglobal.org/

• Community Resource Group

http://www.crg.org/

• Southern Rural Development Center

http://srdc.msstate.edu

• The Rural Life Center at Kenyon College

http://rurallife.kenyon.edu

• The Community Development Society

http://www.comm-dev.org

• United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) Rural and Community Development

http://www.rurdev.usda.gov/

• Council for Urban Economic Development and International Economic Development

http://www.iedconline.org/

93

References

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specializare pentru lucrători în mediul rural. Timişoara: Editura Waldpress

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