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SOME APPROACHES TO CONCEPTUALIZING LOCAL COMMUNITY DEVELOPMENT
Carolina Budurina-Goreacii, Svetlana Cebotari, Moldova state university, Chisinau
E-mail: carolina.gor@hotbox.ru E-mail: svetlana.cebotari@mail.ru
Annotation. Local community development is a relatively new concept that tends to become gradually an independent discipline in the field of socio-human sciences. Therefore in this article we will focus on analyzing the aspects related to the formation and affirmation of the concept in terms of its evolution and dimensions in democratic societies.
Keywords: community, development, civil society, local, citizen's involvement, collective action.
Both foreign and Moldovan researchers used less the expression of local community development, giving the preference to examine the concept of community development. The word community would refer to " something that belongs to the community" [2]. On the other hand, the concept of community development does not exclude the defining aspects and characteristics of local community development. Moreover, they are often interfering, both focusing on positive change, but also on raising and improving people's living standards in the community. Because citizen is the human being who is involved in public affairs, it is important that no one is excluded from this process [6, p.677-678].
Therefore, from a chronological point of view, the concept of "community development" appears in the United States reform movements of the 1840s. The first definition of community development was given within the Conference that was hold in Cambridge in 1948. Thus, it was stated that community development would be "a movement focused on promoting a better life for the whole community, with active participation and, if possible, on the initiative of the community. It is also necessary to use different incentive techniques and tools to make the carried out actions produce changes at the local level" [10, p.1]. Subsequently, in the US there have been several social movements for the promotion of civil rights (the '50s), which have led to the recognition of community development as a practice. In 1955, the UN documents have
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defined "community development" as "a process whose purpose is to create the conditions for economic and social progress". Thus, "community development was focused on an increased and better participation of people in community affairs, on the revitalization of existing forms of local government, as well as on the transition to an efficient local administration" [8, p.9]. Reactions to the economic and social development model that was adopted by UNICEF and the WHO within the Alma Ata Declaration in 1978 have led to the outline of the current meaning of the term, namely the idea of involving people in their own development projects [1]. In a paper which was published in 1966 the English economist E.F. Schumacher stated that "development does not start from goods, but from people, from their education, organization, and discipline. Without these three factors, any resource remains only an empty, hidden and unused opportunity" [7, p.138]. This new approach and "closeness" to the human factor has led to the actual change of the emphasis on the concept of development. And when we look at the term of development in the context of community development, it is intended to develop positive changes and continuous progress at community level.
In the 1970s, the concept of community development was already introduced in such areas as: public administration, urban planning or public order. This is due to the emergence of two publications - Community Development (UK) and Community Development: Journal of the Community Development Society (USA). Also there were performed some university programs in the field of community development in these countries [5, p.17].
At the same time, in the Central and Eastern European states, the concept of community development began to be approached about 25 years ago, once with period of passing from socialist to modern communism, which was based on modernization and local participation. In fact, the Romanian sociologist C. Zamfir also noted that "in countries of transition, community development phenomenon has begun to be tackled by the social and state actors when the economic system has created a lack of opportunities for citizens from communities to integrate into a global process of development". In this context, community development programs were those that provided benefits to actively marginalized localities and reduce costs for mobilizing local resources, including the voluntary human resource [3, p.154-156]. In the Republic of Moldova, the concept of "community development" was taken over from the programs of the European Union and the World Bank. This term is currently found in the activities of non-governmental organizations, as well as in the local development strategic plans that are performed by the Local Public Administration (LPA) authorities.
From the stated above, we note that the foreign researchers have analyzed the concept of "community development" during the XIX-XX century, whereas that of "local community development" was practically missed or found occasionally. However, the Romanian sociologist A. Negru is one of the researchers who had examined both concepts. He believed that by definition, role and involvement "community development" and "local community development" are different. The
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author points out that "if within community development, any community has an active role to develop and implement development policies that conform to their own interests, then the local community development would generally be produced without the conscious and voluntary participation of its members, and changes within it are usually the result of the action of exogenous factors" [4, p.2]. We partly agree with this hypothesis, given the fact that many state actors are involved in the development process, both inside and outside the community. However, we believe that the involvement initiatives differ from one community to another, these ones depending on the degree of local development, the will of the citizens, the representatives of the civic society institutions and the LPA authorities to want a change. That is why we will insist on using the concept of local community development, which we consider to be an aspect of activation and interaction of all local, regional and national actors that harness the human and material resources on a certain territory (local community) in order to ensure the general well-being.
Next, we will refer to the concept of local community development, which, in a narrow sense, it is both a process - by developing and consolidating certain capacities to act collectively, and a result, because there is a collective adoption of measures for the development of the community [9, p.58-73].
In a broad sense, when we refer to the local community development as a result, we are looking at improving the living and working lives of citizens by implementing development programs and participating at decision-making process at community level. Within the local community development as a process we participate in a planned involvement of conscious community intervention, where the process aims to introduce positive changes for increasing the social capital of community, but also to solve the collective problems.
However, when citizens are expected to participate in concrete actions, they often invoke various reasons for non-involvement: lack of time, money, etc. Mobilizing community resources requires professionalism and patience. Thus, in the first phase it will be necessary to perform a plan or strategy.
Local community development processes should be adapted to local peculiarities, as there are great differences between communities at cultural, economic and social level. Also the mentality and ethnicity may differ. At the same time, they should focus on: citizens, institutions, organizations, families, groups of friends, economic agents, socio-cultural actors and politicians, taking into account the cultural aspects and traditions of the community that are subsequently presented as an economic effort.
In other words, the local community development is a process in which the living conditions of citizens are improved by their voluntary, conscious and planned involvement. At the same time, developing their own capacities to act by using internal and external resources and preserving common traditions and values - all contribute to positive change that can take place in a shorter time and for the benefit of citizens.
In democratic societies, the local community development occurs in the course of several actions that are focused on solving common problems of people who share the
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same geographic space, have important economic, social or cultural relations. In fact, the sectoral approach of local community development clarifies this hypothesis:
- technical and economic development of the community. This involves the introduction of new technologies, machinery and equipment that ultimately serve economic purposes as well. Thus, by allocating public money from the local budget and by purchasing the technical equipment from the obtained grants, the representatives of the LPA authorities and the associative sector contribute to the improvement of the agro-industrial sector of the local community;
- the development of the structure and use of the workforce. This refers to increasing the level of education of the population and the promotion of new professions. Both aspects should be developed and updated simultaneously, in accordance with the needs and realities existing in a community. At the same time, the diversification of professions would help re-qualify the active population in the localities, thus introducing more employment opportunities and ensuring a better life;-the development of the social division of labor, which refers to increasing the occupational differentiation and division of activity into branches. In local communities, this aspect is especially important because citizens are aware of the importance of specializing their roles at the workplace. Also the tendency to produce certain products for marketing or exchange would have positive contributions not only for themselves but also for society;
- the political development of the local community by decentralizing the power and increasing the level of the political actors' accountability in front of the citizens for the taken actions. Citizens' involvement in decision-making process must become a widespread practice at local level, as they know their problems best, and authorities can intervene to solve them by concrete solutions;
- the demographic development, which involves population growth in a community over a period of time. If this indicator is positive, then there is a bigger investment on the part of the LPA authorities by providing human resources for local actions. On the other hand, the associative sector will get more involved by intensifying efforts to increase civic engagement in communities.
We see therefore that the local community development covers virtually all the dimensions of development: economic, social, political and demographic. To this, it can be added the cultural dimension, ie the respect for common traditions and the values shared by the members of the community.
In conclusion, we mention that the concept of local community development involves a process in which community members come together to take collective actions and to generate solutions to common problems. General economic, social, political and cultural welfare often evolves from these types of collective actions that are carried out locally. The local community development ranges from small initiatives within a small group of people to large initiatives involving more citizens. At the same time, in order to make the local community more efficient, long-term efforts are planned. They must be inclusive (for all members of the community) and fair, ie correct - for the benefit of the community.
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