COMMUNITY DEVELOPMENT

INTRODUCTION

Community is a population of people living within a legally established area. It is social group occupying more or less defined geographical area based on the feelings that people have for one another.  This definition, root from the concept of the society. Many communities especially in the rural areas of many countries are underdeveloped and therefore are working towards development which will enhance the life style and welfare of the members of these particular communities.

Development is a qualitative and quantitative improvement in the lives of the individuals residing within a defined geographical territory. It is an improvement in the lives and living situations of the members of a particular community. Development implies that man has the capacity to enhance his consciousness and show off his power over his environment.  However, there are number of factor that aids development in communities. But I will limit this work to discussing staff training, project supervision and project evaluation in relation to community development as part of the factors that aids development in communities. It is equally important to look at community development before going into the major focus of this work.

COMMUNITY DEVELOPMENT

Community development is the active involvement of people at the level of the local community in resisting or supporting some cause or issues that interests them. It is 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. 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.

It is a set of values and practices which plays a special role in overcoming poverty and disadvantages, knitting the society together at the grass root and deepening democracy. According to the united nation, community development is a process where community members to take collective action and generate solutions to common problems.[1] Community development is the process of developing active and sustainable community based and social justice and mutual respect. It is about influencing power structure to remove the barriers that prevent people from participating in issues that affect their lives. Therefore, community development expresses values of fairness, equity, accountability, opportunity, choice, participation, mutuality, reciprocity and continuous learning. It is a structured intervention that gives communities greater control over the conditions they live in the society.

Rural community development is a process conducted by community members. It is a process where local people can not only create more jobs; income and infrastructure, but also help their community become fundamentally better able to manage change. The “concrete” benefits of community development, such as employment and infrastructure, come through local people changing attitudes, mobilizing existing skills, improving networks, thinking differently about problems, and using community assets in new ways. Community development improves the situation of a community, not just economically, but also as a strong functioning community in itself.

However, some facilities and services for the rural people are taken for granted by those who live in more fortunate neighborhoods and communities. These are necessary facilities, but they are scarce in the rural and remote areas and often it need strong community organization and leadership to mobilize, develop and make these facilities a reality. However, there are factors that provide good insight to community development process. These factors include staff training, project supervision and project evaluation.

Most of these factors emerge because of the need of project sustainability. The sustainability of any particular project depends on its overall impact on participating households and communities, rather than simply on the sum of the outcomes of individual activities.

STAFF TRAINING

Staff training is a process that enables organizational staffs to acquire knowledge and skills they need to perform their jobs effectively, take up new responsibilities and adapt to changing circumstances. Thus, it enables organizational staffs to become better performed.

 A good training program is that which looks at program as not just a one-time event. It is different from orientation because it covers a much broader area. Training deals with the acquisition of skills necessary to do a particular job. This includes teaching staffs new skills and exposing them to unfamiliar ideas, and giving them the opportunity to practices techniques of working with people.

Training has come to be universally accepted as a vital input to improve the output of administration both quantitatively and qualitatively. Through systematic training, staffs are helped to acquire and apply knowledge, skills, ability and attitudes relevant to effective performance on the job. This significance of training, as a catalyst, is that it is a means of bringing about and sustaining desirable changes in staff’s behavior. Training is therefore, one of management’s most vital means of achieving objectives. It is not an end in itself but essentially a vital part of the total framework of effective management. Oribabor, P.E. (1986:95).

STAFF TRAINING IN RELATION TO COMMUNITY DEVELOPMENT

Most grass root communities do have much resource to empower themselves; the rural poverty is always unperceived. However, the literacy program of staffs can help. However, a good training program of developmental staffs can increase the pace of improvement and developmental effectiveness. Staff capacity must be built and developed to meet the needs of efficient service delivery in local areas. However, the effectiveness and efficiency of service delivery are appraised based on how successful the services are carried out by the local government through its work force. The local government is just an institution that can act or perform through actors who must be well equipped to take up the growing demand of efficient service delivery at the grass root.

         Formal training of staff is aimed at enhancing the staff capacity and sharpening their awareness as well as managing the delivery of services and resources. There is a link between staff training and service delivery. For example, the delivery of health related services requires the training of staff to handle such services like immunization of infants, giving oral vaccines to babies, etc. also construction of infrastructure like shopping centers, motor parks and public libraries requires training of staffs in works department of a local government area. All these point to the fact that efficient service delivery to a large extent is enhanced or related to staff training.

This factor of development is very important because completed developmental projects require proper management to ensure that they serve the needs of the community at its best. For the needs of the community to be met by a particular developmental  project, it is not enough to commission and execute a project, its management is really very important for a proper functioning and  workability of that particular project. For this, staff training is very important for the impartment of needed skills and knowledge for the management of completed developmental project. With staff training, the operational consistency and accuracy of a developmental project is workable.

In a long run, staff training therefore is an emphasized means of promoting sustainability in community empowerment and development. This factor of development is more appropriate to areas that are isolated from commercial centers and are characterized by strong community cohesiveness. This factor of development promotes institutional sustainability.

Staff training is very important to community development because Poor training and development of the local government employee, which has over time resulted to poor input and output has become a menace to public service and Human Resources Management. To this extent, an untrained man in the modern world may … be a menace to the society. He is a quack; he knows only the laws of things; he has no idea of (their) why. Hence, if there is any trouble anywhere breakdown in a machine or a mistake in a ledger – all he can do is to fumble and punch up trouble anyhow, leading to a more serious breakdown or greater confusion. Really there is no place for the untrained worker, or even the intelligent amateur, in these days specialized work. Akpan (1979:13).

PROJECT SUPERVISION

This is a close evaluation and guidance on the construction of a particular project. Project supervision has an important effect on project success. It is proper execution and control of a developmental project, which makes the undertaking of the project efficacious and easy. It controls and monitors the construction of a project. Project supervision improves project delivery. Project supervision helps to develop and implement project work plans and review as appropriate to meet changing needs and requirements. It helps to ensure that a project is completed on time, on budget and complies with the needs of the community.

PROJECT SUPERVISION IN RELATION TO COMMUNITY DEVELOPMENT

Project supervision focuses on the sustainability of project activities. It is not only one of the factors central to or that enhance community development, but it is also a critical challenge for all developmental agencies. It is not possible to claim a lasting impact in terms of rural poverty reduction without ensuring this aspect of development. This is one of the key concepts of development.

In relation to community development, project supervision involves a comprehensive close watch on the activities of workers with regards to commissioned projects for the development of a particular community. It is giving a critical and close watch to efforts to promote development in communities. Project supervision help to ensure project sustainability; it makes sure that a project is properly done with good materials, as well as good with good technical mechanism to ensure a long service term to the community. It aims at making sure that developmental projects are not done with inferior materials or by nonprofessional individuals.

Project supervision, given its nature as it is, is a critical consideration of developmental projects, ensuring that developmental project contracts are carried out well. This goes a long way to promoting development because if developmental projects are not well done, the pace of development in a particular community will be less and the life of the people in the community may not be enhanced as planned. Therefore project supervision focuses on institutional sustainability. The objective is to leave a legacy of functional infrastructure and institutional project that will be self-sustaining when the project ends. With this factor of development, project sustainability is more or less ensured.

This factor of development equally works beyond the commissioning and executing period of a developmental projects, it continues its work on the long run to ensure that completed developmental projects are maintained. In the long run, project supervision, as a factor of community development, addresses the structural dimension of poverty that perpetuates social inequality. In doing this, that try to access weather or not each developing community is being developed at the same pace with others. This is because, so communities are tend to be given much attention than others and therefore developmental projects are always being commissioned in that particular community at the expense of the development of other communities that equally need development. However, inadequate supervision of project may result in the construction of developmental projects where it may not be needed or where it may not be sustained.

In the long run, project supervision involves empowering community members to overcome hardship and make use of developmental project to enhance their lives. It equally teaches the community members on how to gain access to social services provided by the developmental project for the members of the community.

PROJECT EVALUATION

            This refers to the systematic investigation of an object’s worth or merit. It involves processes such as discussing a viable evaluation plan. It is therefore a systematic method for collecting, analyzing and using information to answer questions about projects, policies and programs, particularly about their effectiveness and efficiency. Project evaluation is a process which supports a project by measuring the extent to which the objectives are met, identifies the achievements, identifies areas for improvement, encourages decisions to be taken, including changes to objectives and the project methodology.

Project evaluation is a systematic and objective assessment of an ongoing or completed project.  The aim is to determine the relevance and level of achievement of project objectives, development effectiveness, efficiency, impact and sustainability. Evaluations also feed lessons learned into the decision-making process of the project stakeholders, including donors and national partners.

            Project evaluation involves several steps related to the project: It involves discussing and defining the aims, the collection of data following the objectives of the project and the subject of the evaluation, the analysis and the interpretation of this data leading to informed conclusions and amendments of the project in the light of the evidence acquired.

PROJECT EVALUATION IN RELATION TO COMMUNITY DEVELOPMENT

Many rural communities are dependent on limited natural resources; therefore the evaluation of completed projects is necessary to ensure that communities are getting the necessary services intended by commissioning a particular project. With project evaluation, the workability of a particular completed development project is accessed. It is like a feedback to the commissioners of developmental project, informing them how things are working out as intended or how things are not working out as intended.

When a project is evaluated, it stands to strengthen household and community resilience of livelihood shocks considerably. Project evaluation helps in the implementation of project purposes, and the way a project is implemented can have a considerable influence on its long-term sustainability. For example, if project evaluation fosters participatory approach, remaining flexible in the face of inevitable setbacks, and strengthening the capacity of community members to plan and manage the projects made available for them.

With project evaluation, it is ensured that developmental projects have a lasting impact of improvement and life-betterment on the vulnerable communities the projects are meant to serve. In other words, project evaluation helps to have a better contextual understanding of project environment and makes it easy to conduct accurate and sophisticated problem analyses and needs assessments. All these contribute to the enhancement of project effectiveness and greatly increase project sustainability.

This factor of development involves the establishment of a consistent set of sustainability indicators as part of a comprehensive developmental plan. It contributes to the improvement of basic service delivery by enabling tracking of sponsored community development initiatives. Without reliable information on both the intended and unintended changes resulting from project interventions, project managers will be unable to make adjustments in the design and implementation of projects in response to contextual factors. . Nor will they be in a position to formulate or carry out appropriate exit strategies which is a critical component for ensuring sustainability. This includes a setoff standard sustainability indicators against which progress towards intended goals can be measured.

CONCLUSION

Good local organization and leadership coupled with help from specialized agencies can move a community towards development. Staff training, project supervision and project evaluation as factors of community development teaches some useful lessons, which as simple principles, helps to expedite community development. However, these principles focus on methodology aspect of community development. This method helps in fostering community development efforts.

REFERENCES

1.   Rudolph K. Schnabel. Understanding Community Development: A Guide for Native American Community Leaders and Professionals. Participant’s manual.

2.   Journal of Public Administration and policy research.

3.   B C Timber Sales, Environmental Management System, Environmental Field Procedure. EFP 02 Project.

4.   Guy Tilkin and Alden Biesen. Project evaluation.

5.   Project Management/Supervision Responsibility and Control CSTM 102.

6.   Paul Bullen. Community development models and language. http://www.mapl.com.au/ideas/. March 2007.

7.   Community Development Programme 2007-2013 .Submission to the Department of Community, Rural & Gaeltacht Affairs.

8.   Community Development UNTERM. RETRIEVED 7. JULY 2014

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