There has been a range of initiatives in South Africa aimed at determining how community-based approaches such as Community Asset Management (CAM) can be enabled and supported…
Abstract
There has been a range of initiatives in South Africa aimed at determining how community-based approaches such as Community Asset Management (CAM) can be enabled and supported through mainstream public infrastructure delivery and development practice. One of the critical issues emerging is around the need to clarify and specify roles and processes in CAM projects where the effective role of the community itself is central to the success and sustainability of projects. This paper calls attention to the importance of community participation and empowerment in these development projects, and begins to highlight the paradigm shift that this would require with respect to professional roles in the delivery of the built environment.
As a first step towards better defining the new roles and structures that are required, this paper identifies the prevailing attitudes and perceptions of the traditional built environment professionals in South Africa towards participatory projects. In so doing it draws upon a survey whose findings are presented and used as a basis for determining the key obstacles and constraints facing professionals in the effective implementation of participatory, community-based projects.
The conclusions and recommendations offered are intended as considerations for researchers and development agents who are grappling with the complex but critical issues of how to enable effective asset-based community development.
Details
Keywords
Robert Brown and Michael Theis
The reader might be forgiven for not being familiar with the term Community Asset Management. Indeed, doing a web search for ‘community asset management’ yields a disparate range…
Abstract
The reader might be forgiven for not being familiar with the term Community Asset Management. Indeed, doing a web search for ‘community asset management’ yields a disparate range of responses, suggesting connections to lessons from financial crisis, to knowledge management technology, to nutrition support in home care, to name but a few of the more interesting articles found in a preliminary web search. It certainly was not part of the lexicon in international development when the Max Lock Centre began using the phrase several years ago at the start of Department for International Development (DFID) - UK funded research on Community Asset Management (CAM) in India and Eastern and Southern Africa. Indeed, lack of recognition was one of the two reactions most often received when the term was first mentioned in discussions with various stake-holders in community development in these locations. Once the ideas behind CAM had been explained however, most quickly remarked something along the lines of, ‘Oh yeah, we're doing that’. (See for example MUTTER 2001; see also KRETZMANN and McKNIGHT 1993)