IACD JANUARY 2017 NEWSLETTER

This E-Newsletter reports on our work in 2016. Sharing again with IACD Members and E-Newsletter subscribers highlights of what the Association did to support and promote our field of community development around the world. We ended 2016 challenged not only by a growing xenophobia and nationalism and emergence of the political far right in many countries promoting policies antithetical to community development, but also an ‘anti-experts’ rhetoric with politicians elected to office denying climate change and the need for a sustainable development approach for people and planet.  We shall watch this space vigilantly on your behalf and work ever harder to promote the values of community development.

Paul Lachapelle

President, IACD

Jan. 12, 2017

This E Newsletter highlights the work of the first year of IACD’s new four year 2016-2020 Strategic Plan adopted in New Delhi.

https://www.iacdglobal.org/about/strategic-plan-2016-2020

• We ran this year’s Practice Exchange Programme with a conference, in New Delhi, India in partnership with Grassroots.

This was the first in our roadshow of conferences focusing upon the contribution Community Development can make towards the UN Sustainable Development Goals. Members from across India, together with others from several other countries engaged in a Round Table discussion on the SDGs and what this meant for Community Development practice. Grassroots also led on our Practice Exchange programme this year. The conference was then followed by two Practice Exchanges, one to North India and the other to Nepal. Practice Exchanges are a key part of IACD’s Professional Development for members, offering the opportunity for small groups of Community Developers from around the world to come together to meet with host practitioners and visit field projects.

• Establishing a repository of CD teaching and learning resources from across the world.

A partnership with ACDA, the New Zealand Association for Community Development, GCDEX (https://globalcommunitydevelopmentexchange.org/) was launched on target in September 2016, following a trialling period from July. The repository can only be accessed by IACD members and is a place where community development teachers, practitioners and learners can share their teaching and learning approaches, tools and resources. They can upload and share relevant content with the wider community with the aim of educating, informing, and connecting with one another.

All the content of the GCDEX is categorised and separated into different sections and sub-sections to help differentiate the information and present users with an easy to navigate platform. It is indexed by way of global regions, resource types and topics.

• Supporting the further development of national associations/networks of community development practitioners and organisations supporting CD.

To date we have primarily supported the development of two new national CD networks, in New Zealand and Nigeria. We have also partnered closely on organising events with the members of the established European Community Development Network and the American Community Development Society.

We have publicised events, meetings and publications from a couple of dozen national networks and associations ranging from the Philippines Community Development Association and the Mongolian Community Development Network, to the Australian Association of Community Workers. News can be found on https://www.facebook.com/IACDglobal/

• Publishing Practice Insights magazine

Practice Insights was published in July and September and we are on target for the next issue in March. Articles have covered a wide range of issues and parts of the world.

In addition the IACD Publications Committee was in discussions with the Oxford University Press Community Development Journal in order to prepare a Special Issue on community development and Sustainability; and with the publishers Routledge to prepare a global Reader on Community Development. Both of these are planned for publication in 2020or thereabouts.

• Organising a major four day international conference in association with the Community Development Society of the USA.

IACD aims to organise an international conference every two years. These are the largest international gathering of community developers attracting hundreds of participants. In July 2016 our partner was the American Community Development Society.  In full partnership with CDS, IACD takes responsibility for designing the programme, approving the speakers and peer reviewing the workshop presentations. The local host takes responsibility for the residential and conference facility arrangements, receptions and field visits.

The conference took place in St Pauls Minnesota, USA. The theme was Sustaining Community Change: Building Local Capacity to Sustain Development Initiatives. And the conference addressed the part that community development can play in addressing the UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) agenda. Keynote speakers included Annette Dixon, Vice President of the World Bank. There were over sixty workshops, field visits, panel and plenary sessions and the association’s AGM. More information can be found at http://www.comm-dev.org/2016-conference

The conference also saw the adoption of IACD’s Policy Statement on CD and the SDGs, following a four month consultation with members that began in India. The full Statement was published on the website Policy Page and in the SDG Special Practice Insights magazine.

• Representing Community Development at the United Nations

This year we were also able to hold an official Side Event at the United Nations High Level Political Forum on the SDGs in New York in mid-July. At this we highlighted the role of community development in community capacity building and mobilisation around the SDG goals. The Side Event was a full house and received positive feedback. IACD has accredited status with the UN and we had been engaging in the consultative processes leading up to the adoption of the SDGs in 2015. IACD members also met with one of the Vice Presidents of the World Bank, Annette Dixon to discuss their support for community-led development and the SDGs.

• Organising a conference in Europe

The conference, which we held in Glasgow, Scotland, was organised jointly with the European Community Development Network (EuCDN) together with Community Development Alliance Scotland and Community Work Ireland), took place in November 2016 in Glasgow. Around 60 attended the full day conference with several panel speakers and workshop breakout groups. The conference was the fourth event we will have held on the SDG and CD theme since we began the roadshow of awareness raising in March 2016 in India. More information on the conference can be found on https://www.iacdglobal.org/events/european-community-development-conference  A Communique from the conference was published in the December issue of Practice Insights magazine.

• Organising a conference in Africa

An IACD Africa Region conference was held in Malete, Nigeria in partnership with the National Community Development Practitioners’ Association of Nigeria. Around 70 participated in this three day event, including plenary and workshop sessions. More information can be found at https://www.iacdglobal.org/events/iacd-nigeria-conference-2016-association-icdp-and-kwara-state-university-malete

• Organising a conference in Oceania

Following a request from our Oceania Regional Director, we agreed to organise an international conference in 2017, in New Zealand, in partnership with our member association there, the ACDA.  We agreed that this second international conference would take place in February 2017. The conference is called Sustainably Yours and also focusses upon the implications and opportunities of the UN SDGs for community development. Places are still available so do please join us. More information can be found on http://www.aotearoacommunitydevelopmentassociation.com/2017-cd-conference

• Publishing our ENewsletter and keeping our website and Facebook pages updated. IACD’s Official Facebook page is now used to post daily community and international development news from around the world. https://www.facebook.com/IACDglobal/

During this period we published quarterly ENewsletters, deciding to greatly increase the use of the IACD Official Facebook Page https://www.facebook.com/IACDglobal/  as the main medium of news from around the world on community development. The ENewsletter has c6000 subscribers who receive it free. This Facebook site has over 3,500 members.  Both are used for encouraging people to take out full (i.e. paid) membership of the association.

• Adopting a new logo for IACD, emphasising the critical community development link with sustainable development.

• Maintaining our close partnership with the international Community Development Journal, to which IACD members can get a reduced subscription. https://academic.oup.com/cdj

• Adopting our new Global Definition of Community Development at the 2016 international conference and AGM. We are delighted to report that the new definition was adopted by several national Community Development Associations during the year.

“Community development is a practice-based profession and an academic discipline that promotes participative democracy, sustainable development, rights, economic opportunity, equality and social justice, through the organisation, education and empowerment of people within their communities, whether these be of locality, identity or interest, in urban and rural settings.”

• Preparing international standards and a Code of Ethics for Community Development practice.

An important area of work begun in 2016, has been the project to produce a set of international occupation standards and a code of ethics for Community Development practitioners. This work, led by the IACD Training and Policy Committees followed upon the adoption of the association’s new Global Definition of Community Development at the July Board and AGM. We have to date identified numerous National Occupational Standards and Codes, from which we will be producing and disseminating a set of international standards and code of ethics. This initiative will involve a members’ consultation in the first four months of 2017, including a consultative workshop at the February conference.

• We did encounter technical problems with our website in 2016, which led to difficulties in processing on-line membership subscriptions. This led to the decision to create this new website, which was launched in January 2017.

Finally, as we have reported in earlier E Newsletters, 2016 saw two staff members leaving, Jackie Arreaza and Anna Chworow and two joining, Colm Munday and now Colette McClure. The Board would want to thank our staff for their work during the year.

IACD is primarily run by its volunteer Board of Directors who represent several global regions as Regional Directors. We also began to appoint Country Correspondents in several countries during the year; these are IACD members who volunteer to send in news on what is going on in Community Development, which is then shared on our Facebook site and website. If you are interested in becoming a Country Correspondent please let us know.

WE LOOK FORWARD TO SUPPORTING MEMBERS IN 2017. SO DO PLEASE GET INVOLVED IN OUR EVENTS THIS COMING YEAR, IN OUR PRACTICE EXCHANGE PROGRAMME, IN WRITING FOR THE MAGAZINE OR FACEBOOK, IN SHARING YOUR WORK WITH OTHERS IN OUR GLOBAL COMMUNITY.

We are very keen to encourage our E Newsletter subscribers to also become FULL IACD members. We need more people to join in order to strengthen the association’s capacity and our ability collectively to support Community Development around the world. We shall be sending out information about our Membership Recruitment Campaign in February.

IACD’s E Newsletter is supported by the Scottish Government