Self-sufficiency

Many community development workers need to train local people to continue the program after they have left. This is not just the practical "how to" training, but also involves complex issues of local ownership, leadership transitions, management styles, continued funding models, and possible changes of purpose.

If you start with the goal of handing over a program to local people, it is very different from a program that you will run with your own resources and then close down. You'll start factoring it into your planning from the beginning. For example:

• You'll use resources that are within their means.
• You'll encourage them to pay their own way as much as possible, so that they could still run it without your subsidy.
• You'll start training leaders as soon as practicable.
• You'll start addressing ways and organizational structures to hand over from the beginning, even if handover is years into the future.

Let's save you lots and lots of reading. The goals of self sufficiency are normally so the the local organization can:

1. Pay all its own costs
2. Maintain healthy growth through its own activities
3. Train its own staff and its future leaders
4. Train staff who can train other staff and its future leaders
5. Govern itself, including resolving significant problems without external help, and
6. Express itself in its own culture, including thought forms, art forms, facilities, and (often) organizational structures.