Who are you and what can you do?

Who you are will determine how you read and interpret COMMENT and put it into practice. Are you an individual? A staff member of an organization? A consultant? A leader or project manager of your organization? You might be several organizations working together or even a foreign and an expatriate organization working together. You answers to these questions will determine a lot about what you can and can't do. For example, if you are part of an organization, it will already have defined its purposes and decided what it does and doesn't do.

 

Your purposes

Define your overarching purpose. In other words, "Why are you doing this?"

Whatever you find in the field as specific needs, you need to know why you are doing community development.

You probably have some kind of overarching purpose. Define for yourself what is driving you, and discuss it with your team. This will help you maintain your motivation if things get difficult, and it will probably help you make choices when you must decide between alternative paths of action.

Hold it just a little lightly. Your understanding of it will probably change as you learn more about what's happening at grass roots level.

 

Define your parameters

What are your organization's parameters? It has its own goals, capabilities, and perhaps a clear idea of kinds of projects it will take on and what it will not

It may have preferred ways of working, and maybe clear guidelines with which you must comply. For example, if your organization is agricultural, you probably won't look at medical programs.

 

Look at your skills

What kinds of skills do you and your team members have? You might find that you have some kinds of skills that you had not realized.  You will clearly want to plan programs that match your strengths, and this part is easy.

It's easy to make the mistake of presuming that what you do best is what is most needed. "If your only tool is a hammer, everything looks like a nail." You might be good at agriculture, but if water is your main problem, you probably need to learn how to do water projects.

But then ask, "What skills do we need? Do we lack any skills that are essential to CD in this context?"

You will probably need to identify areas of skills that you and your team might need to learn, and find ways to learn them on-the-job.

You probably won't need a general theoretical background in these skills areas, but you do need to know what to do and how to do it in your context.

"What about fly-in fly-out experts?" This is a difficult question, because some are good and some are quite useless.

• Some are very capable at asking insightful questions about the local context and can suggest solutions to local problems that would have otherwise have been unsolvable. Hard-nosed businessmen are good at asking awkward questions and demanding realistic answers.
• Many fly-in fly-out experts are not particularly good. Tell-tale signs: They can only tell you what you already know, they don't understand the local context, and don't know what questions will get the information they need to suggest solutions.

Either way, don't have unrealistic expectations. Most can only work in the own area of expertise, but it is often helpful to have a neutral person come in and look at the problem afresh.

Suggestion: You might want to do an Internet search on "skills audit".

 

Look at your role

Does your role invite trust or suspicion, ambivalence or interest? Before you even arrive, various factors can influence your role and your credibility in the community:

• Are you a foreigner? If so, does that bring other kinds of expectations? (e.g. monetary benefits, jobs, English lessons) Do people look on foreigners with respect or disdain?
• Are you in a government agency or working as part of a government contract?
• If you are in a private organization, what previous reputation does it have in the community?
• Will different groups within the community view you differently?
• Are there particular events in the past that will determine people's expectations of you? For example, other organizations might have done a very good or very bad job in the same region.