IACD President Charlie McConnell and Vice President-elect Anastasia Crickley met this month with Stuart Hashagen, Chair of the European Community Development Network and EuCDN Development Manager Alex Downie to explore the building of a closer partnership between the two organisations, whilst retaining full independence. European Community Development Network (EuCDN) is a membership organisation, with the members being lead national-level community development organisations in their respective countries. These countries are: Belgium (Flanders), Czech Republic, Hungary, Ireland, Norway, Poland, Romania, Spain (Catalunya), Sweden, UK (Scotland), Ukraine (joining 2015). Eu CDN are exploring ways of broadening their membership and we discussed the possibility of having some sort of reciprocal membership across Europe. We agreed to promote each others events and publications and to jointly plan a European CD conference around the SDGs.
EuCDN works on inclusion, participation and democracy through the promotion and development of sustainable community development in Europe. In that way EuCDN:
- supports citizens, professionals and policy makers from different countries in Europe;
- endeavours to develop a Europe which functions on the basis of community and participative democracy;
- helps build European civil society through community development.
To achieve this mission, EuCDN carries out the following activities:
- Studies and research – national and international;
- Facilitation of agency development;
- Learning and practice exchanges, conferences and seminars
- Taking part in policy discussions on social development;
- Make studies of good practice widely accessible by disseminating the results
- Maintains its website with updates on community development across Europe; signposts to useful resources, and reports on projects and activities.
Recent years have been challenging for communities and community development throughout Europe. As austerity continues to be the central objective of many governments, communities continue to be main victims of cuts in funding, cuts in services and cuts in power. Combined with an increasing right-wing argument that migration from East to West is to blame for unemployment and low wages, this is a toxic combination that is destined to divide communities rather than unite them to oppose these damaging forces. Meanwhile, growing inequality and the increasing power of the corporate world add to the fragility and vulnerability of the weakest people and communities.
Paradoxically, many governments are trying to encourage community development through new policies and programmes, and the EU itself is concerned to protect and defend human rights, to extend democracy and civil society, and to encourage innovative solutions to social problems. At the local level, community workers and projects across Europe are working with people to defend their rights, to celebrate cultures, to reconcile different values, and to find better ways of meeting people’s needs.
As the leading network of community development organisations across Europe, EuCDN is able to encourage good practice, evaluate policies, and propose community development as an effective way to improve governance, working for social justice and greater participation. In 2014 we were delighted to complete our three-year project to establish a common framework for community development throughout Europe. This seeks to underpin the intention, practice, values and outcomes expected of community development in order to create the conditions for a just, inclusive and sustainable society, by supporting communities to engage in collective action.
