Community-Led Development in Practice: We Power our Own Change

In the last decade, the international development sector has been re-examining its ways of thinking, being, and doing, and we have seen a growing consensus around the need to centre communities in development. However, there is little clarity on what such centring entails and how it can be achieved. This edited volume addresses this gap by highlighting what community-led practices look like and how they compare across different sociocultural and organisational landscapes.

Bringing together the work of over 30 international authors, ranging from experienced community-led development practitioners to acclaimed scholars, the book reflects on and critically analyses grassroots initiatives, national-level organisations, and larger-scale international operations. The case studies demonstrate the similarities and differences in community-led practices according to organisational size and spread, while documenting the process of human change that these practices unleash. The volume’s overarching structure reflects the characteristics and processes of community-led development, captured via nine different dimensions: participation inclusion and voice; local resources; sustainability and exit strategies; accountability; responsiveness to context; collaboration (including working with sub-national governments); community-led monitoring and evaluation practices; and facilitation.

The book will be of interest to funders, organisations and practitioners looking for non-Western, non-dominant, everyday stories of change. It will also be useful to policymakers, students, and researchers from the fields of community development and international development theory and practice.

Elene Cloete is Senior Director of Research and Advocacy for Outreach International, Kansas City, USA. Her practice and research interests include the following: the role of motivation, basic psychological needs, and self-regulation in development; community leadership; the hidden benefits of improved sanitation; and locally led monitoring and evaluation practice. Elene is a social anthropologist by training.

Gunjan Veda is Global Secretary for the Movement for Community-led Development, a Majority World-led network of networks with 2000+ local organisations and their INGO allies. Her work includes creating collaborative partnerships, and interrogating structural violence in existing systems, forms of knowledge production and publication to make them more inclusive and equitable. Gunjan has previously worked within the non-profit sector in India and was a policymaker in the Indian Government’s Planning Commission. She has published two books: Beautiful Country: Stories from Another India, and The Museum of Broken Tea Cups.