The Board of EuCDN, the European Community Development Network has issued a statement expressing its solidarity with the twenty professionals, many of them members of the Hungarian Association of Community Developers (HACD) recently made redundant in Hungary.
The Hungarian Association is a long time partner of IACD, co-organising, also with EuCDN, the 2004 international community development conference that led to the publication of the important Budapest Declaration (see the Policy Statement on the Policy and Advocacy page of this website), which called for an expansion of investment in community development across the continent. Thirteen years on rather than investment we have seen significant cuts in professional community development posts across Europe.
Twenty redundancies at a time still of austerity cuts across the EU may not seem significant, but it does reflect a worrying trend impacting also upon national CD agencies and associations across the continent. In 2016 we saw the closure of England’s national community development centre, the Community Development Foundation (an IACD member). Cuts have also hit national CD bodies from Sweden to Romania and at grassroots level there have been savage cuts in community development posts. From what we can see only Ireland and Scotland (where IACD is based) seem to have bucked the trend, with their national and local governments still investing in professional community development, albeit at lower levels than 2004. Non governmental organisation employers have also been hit hard by austerity cuts.
Community development as a professional practice has some strong roots in European countries and IACD’s membership in Europe is higher than any other region. But staff posts still tend to be short term, and there is generally non existent legal underpinning for investment in community development. So when public service cuts are made it is often community development type posts that are the first to be hit, albeit at the same time that the very same public authorities are calling for the capacity of local communities to be made stronger to deal with social, economic and environmental change. Marilyn Taylor’s article in the latest issue of Practice Insights addresses this.
As an international association we try to support local and national CD associations and we support EuCDN’s statement of concern. Next year we shall be working with the Irish national association, Community Work Ireland, to host the World Community Development Conference in Ireland. This will provide a platform for community developers across Europe and internationally to support each other and to share practical ideas on how to defend the profession.
