The World Community Development Conference

Since 2018 IACD, together with national partners has organised the World Community Development Conference (WCDC). This is a global gathering of members and other participants organised to network, share and learn from community development practice from different countries and across global regions. Each WCDC has a theme related to a topical political, social, economic, environmental issue affecting communities and of concern to the discipline and practice of community development.

Attracting several hundred participants, these gatherings bring together keynote speakers, panel debates and dozens of workshops and practical learning sessions, presented by practitioners, educators and researchers and key influencers within the discipline. Each WCDC also provides opportunities to visit local projects in proximity. Following the conference an extended Practice Exchange visit of 3/4 days may also be organised for a smaller group of participants wishing to learn more about community development in the host country.

All WCDC’s are organised with host partners, normally a national community development association or agency, and supported by the host local authority and national government.

The IACD Board has recently decided to move away from an annual World Community Development Conference due to the cost and time of organisation of such a large scale event. The next WCDC will be in 2025 or 2026, so stay tuned! 

World Community Development Conference 2023 'From the Edge'

Anastasia Crickley (IACD Past Vice President and former Trustee for Europe) - Short Reflection on WCDC 2023, Darwin

The Darwin WCDC given its location in Australia and Larrakia country provided a unique opportunity to take the action to demonstrate IACD's capacity to be global. Michelle (Dunscombe, IACD Vice Chair and Trustee for the Oceania Region) and her colleagues made this not just a visible marker for the conference but also provided a programme of different interventions from the diversity of people which form part of IACD and in particular from the peoples whose cultures have been part of what is now called Australia for more than sixty five thousand years.

Each session began with a respectful acknowledgment of the lands and people where we were. The very diverse inputs were challenging - because they directly forced both immediate de-colonisation of one's own best held assumptions and finding ways to go beyond agreement for the sake of inclusion and fear of being on the wrong side to seeking to create conditions for respectful and real dialogue. This journey which many of us are familiar with in our own contexts is by no means at its destination.

A number of other global issues always not far from our consciousness emerged again in Darwin. It was interesting to note that while these have local reflections most also have global connotations e.g., the state community development relationships, the nature and level of change sought, focusing on collective outcomes rather only than individual assistance, the status of community work/ community development. I left reinforced in my commitment to community development as a discipline in its own right, but with a commitment to encouraging other disciplines to use our diverse methods and approach; to the need for an inclusive profession based on values standards and education; to the need to acknowledge the diversity of methods and analyses which underpin practice while being clear about the overall understanding of what it's about; and to the need to ground our work globally, nationally and locally in the issues and oppressions of the day as experienced and identified by all and in particular by marginalised and minority communities.

The conference programme, keynote speakers and much more information about the WCDC23 can be found here: https://www.wcdc2023fromtheedge.org.au/
Videos of the conference can be found on our WCDC23 playlist on our YouTube Channel

Opening of the WCDC23 with Garramilla Dancers.