WORLD HEALTH ORGANIZATION
ORGANISATION MONDIALE . DE LA SANTE
REGIONAL OFFICE FOR THE WESTERN PACIFIC BUREAU REGIONAL DU PACIFIQUE OCCIDENTAL
REGIONAL COMMITTEE Eleventh Session Manila 12-17 August 1960
TECHNICAL DISCUSSIONS WP/RCll/TDl Add. 1 29 April 1960 ORIGINAL: ENGLISH
The attached paper formed part of the documentation for the WHO Public Health Conference and Study Tour held in September 1957. It is
considered that it could also usefully be used as a warking paper far the Tecnnical Discussions.
WP!RCll!TDl Add. 1
COMMUNITY DEVELOPMENT by
John B. Grant
~~
·17
•
Underdeveloped areas are characterized by two deficiencies: a low economic level, resulting in poverty, ignorance and disease; and a lack of technical consciousness of the public of how to eliminate these three social evils. The role of public administration in conununity development may be approached in two different directions: first, the contribution of conununity development to public administration and secondly, the contribution of public administration to community development. The conventional concepts of public administration are based on the belief that the services provided by governments are a result of an expressed need by the people at the grass roots through the legislative process. Governmental services are accordingly authorized and organized for the sole purpose of providing services to the people. However, universal experience points to the general slowness of progress of superimposed programmes. This diagnosis that the ailment of lack of initiative and responsibility of underdeveloped communities prescribes that the treatment required is to activate people by their own desire for progress to organize a co-operative programme of conununity regeneration, and the yardstick by which the success is judged is the extent to which the communities involved have themselves contributed to the projects concerned. As such, community development might be termed Operation Serenity. Conununity development is the technique for stimulating the people of local communities to initiate action towards their own improvement. It is not community development unless it secures a co-ordinated approach towards solving the interrelated problems of the community. In effect, community development is an effort to capitalize on the potentialities of the human spirit and whose results are measured by the effort put forward in selfhelp. However, community development should be viewed only as part of the wider process of national economic and social development. Organized community effort, whether by education, agriculture, health or communication, requires the three factors of money, personnel with specialized skills and organization for the most effective utilization of available funds and personnel. Community development is merely the most effective type of organized community effort, which replaces previous separate categorical administrative approach by each agency with a multipurpose combined approach at each level of the community -- municipal, district, state -- to assure co-ordination of development policy and plans. While separate departments are thus brought in under a common development control, they retain their own organizations and staff, but geared to a
*School of Medicine, University of Puerto Rico, and Rockefeller Foundation.
WP/RCII/TDI Add. I page 2
common overall plan. The weakness of the Puerto Rico Planning Board is the absence of an administrative mechanism to assure that the Commonwealth welfare agencies are geared to and controlled by a common development policy. There are two essentials for accomplishment of co-ordination and integration: first, there must be a specific body responsible far catalyzing co-ordination of separate agencies but not itself to operate them; second, such a body is ineffectual if created within one of the agencies to be co-ordinated. However, each agency must be represented on the catalyzing body. The foregoing applies particularly to underdeveloped and semiunderdeveloped countries, but it should also be pointed out, particularly since the last war, there has been a large increase in the United States of voluntary association at the community level to achieve social and economic objectives. The motivation has been three-fold: postwar economic conversion, the necessity of "one industry communities" to regain economic security, and communities who have farsightedly been broadening their economic base. Puerto Rico has beeri cited in community development for its Social Programme Administration, particularly the divisions of small industries, administration and civic employment. Puerto Rico would really have a community development policy, were the programme extended to the whole population and not limited only to resettlement communities. There is also the Community Education Division in the Department of Education, with which we are all familiar, but both of these are fragmentary. In fact, most countries today have some aspects of community development, although generally speaking, in a segmented rather than a national overall comprehensive programme. The most comprehensive documents on community development are the seminar document prepared by ICA for the discussions held last June together with the Selected Bibliography and the "Principles of Community Development" Ecosco (1955). Community development to be successful must adhere to precepts of administration. These precepts consist of: basic premises; principles upon which a national plan should be formulated; essential steps to inaugurate a loc~l programme; and finally, provision for training and evaluation, which are essential to insure successful national extension of any comprehensive development programme. The first of four premises is that any welfare activity directly aimed to eliminate poverty, disease or ignorance is successful in direct proportion to its integration with multipurpose community development rather than when undertaken as an individual welfare acti1~ity. Second, progress of community development will be proportionate to the consumerls technical consciousness of unmet needs which technical assistance can meet. Third, organization of the administration of services for community development must be built from the village up and not be superimposed. Fourth, any national community development programme should be planned within an overall programme for industrial as well as welfare development.
WP/RCII/TDI Add. I
page 3 The first of five principles to be followed is that the community development programme should be not only an integral part of an overall national development plan but the programme must be based upon the economic practicability of nation-wide extension. This economic baseline will determine the depth to which government organization can afford taxsupported technical personnel and facilities, i.e., whether one physician per one or ten thousand population; one agricultural extension agent per five or ten thousand population; one or four hospital beds per thousand of population, etc. This economic baseline also determines the extent to which community development will depend upon voluntary self-help. The second administrative principle is the necessity for establishing at each level of government - national, state and district - of a development organization having co-ordinating and planning functions. Such an organization would include representation from each agency of government concerned in community development. Experience has proved that co-ordination is generally ineffectual when its responsibility is given to one of the agencies which itself is to be co-ordinated. The Organization itself is not an operating one, but specifically created to catalyze co-ordination among existing agencies. The third principle is that the success of technical assistance depends upon the extent it can mobilize voluntary selfhelp. In Asian countries, it is estimated that the present agriculturalsocial organization results in villagers being idle for 30 000 million days per annum. Many improvements can be undertaken out of local voluntary resources provided they are organized and given technical advice and superv~s1on. The fourth principle is that the success of voluntary selfhelp depends upon the degree which technical consciousness is generated in the local community through the formation of village community development councils whose members are given sufficient in-service training to become conscious of local needs and the manner in which the local community can meet those needs with help from tax-supported facilities. The fifth principle is that the unit of organization for community development must be teChnically self-contained to provide services, supplies and supervision. The population covered must be large enough so that the overhead cost of these tax-supported services can be economically practicable but not so Jarge as to require duplication of the personnel and facilities required for providing each major welfare service. Empirical experience places such a population at not less than 200 000 or more than 500 000. An important factor determining the size of the unit is that it must coincide with a previously existing administrative political unit of government. This is essential to permit integration of the more intensive welfare services of community development with those previously existing. The five steps essential for local initiation are: the smallest development unit is responsible for the following: village survey to provide both a benchmark as well as an evaluation of local needs; constitution of a village development counCil; decision by the council and officers of the unit on programme and priorities, with the formation of council subcommittees for each welfare' service to be undertaken; in-service training of the subcommittee members, responsible to promote self-help in their respective fields, to develop a technical consciousness of the local needs.
WP/RCII/TDI Add. I page 4 India India. today has the most comprehensive community development programme of any country. I would like briefly to summarize the Indian Progr.amme in terms of fulfillment or non-fulfillment of the administrative precepts which have been outlined above. Community development constitutes an integral part of both the first and second Five-Year Plans. There is a Community Project Administration under a Central Committee whose participants are members of the Planning Commission. The Committee is assisted by an Advisory Board consisting of the Secretary, Ministry of Food and Agriculture; the Additional Secretary, Ministry of Natural Resources and Scientific Research; the Secretary, Ministry of Finance, the Government1s "nominee" of the Indo-United States Technical Fund; and the Secretaries of other Ministries concerned such as Health, Education, Irrigation, Public Works. The Community Project Administration is headed by an Administrator with an executive staff to advise him on all phases and is responsible far planning, directing and co-ordinating the community projects throughout the country under the supervision of the Central Committee, and in consultation with the appropriate authorities in the various States. A State Development Committee operates at the State level and consists of the Chief Minister as Chairman, with the Ministers far Development, Agriculture and Irrigation, Finance and such other Ministers. as are designated by the Chief Minister as members and the State Development Commissioner as Member Secretary. There is also a State Advisory Board, the members of which are the Secretaries of the principal departments concerned with the community development programme. In states where a number of projects are in operation, there is a Deputy Development Commissioner specifically in charge of community projects. In addition, there is an operating staff in charge of supplies, training, information, etc. All these officers work in close co-operation with their counterparts at the central, district and project levels. On the lower level, there is a District Development Officer who is responsible for the execution of the community projects as well as the general development in the District. He operates under the direction of the State Development Commissioner and with the advice of a District Development Board consisting of the officers representing agriculture, health, education, etc. The District Magistrate serves as its Chairman and the District Development Officer as the Secretary. The status of the District Development Officer is that of an Additional Collector. A Project Executive Officer is responsible at the project level for the rural community programme in the area. The Project Executive Officer operates under the direction of the District Development Officer or the State Development Commissioner. There is also a Project Advisory Committee which includes, "besides the principal officials concerned, leading public workers, a few representative agriculturists, the Chairman of the District Development Board, local representatives in the Parliament and State Legislatures, etc." The Project Executive Officer serves as Secretary of the Committee.
.. WP/RCll/TDl Add. 1 page 5 This brings us to the rural community or village. The average project area has a population of approximately 200 000 and is divided into three development blocks of 100 villages each. Each block has an Assistant Executive Officer aided bya technical team covering the welfare fields. A unique feature of community development in India is the "village level worker", who is assigned to an average of five villages with approximately 500 people each. The village level worker,. is trained to become a link between the village problems and the nation-building services. He can best be visualized if Puerto Rican agriculture extension workers were as fully trained in health and other welfare fields as in agriculture, and there was a ratio..of one worker to each 2000-2500 population. Another unique feature in the Indian Programme is that projects are initiated from the village up, instead of being superimposed from the government agency down. The programme complies with the five steps essential for local initiation. The village level worker in conjunction with the programme development unit first undertakes the village survey to provide both a yardstick as well as an evaluation of local needs. This is followed by the constitution of the Village Development Council. The Council, together with the officers of the programme unit, decides on programme and priorities with the formation of council subcommittees for each welfare service to be undertaken. Members of the subcommittees are provided with in-service training to develop a technical consciousness of the local needs and knowledge of what must be met, and who then assume the responsibility to promote self-help in their respective fields. Non-official consumer participation in India IS administrative machinery is assured through village council representation on the block council. These block councils nominate representation on the Project Area Advisory Committees. There is, thus, assurance of continuity of consumer representation from the village to the national centre. The foregoing sketch of community development in India markedly shows fulfillment of the administrative precepts previously referred to, namely, the four premises and the five principles as well as the five steps for local initiation. There is also an independent evaluation organization which issued a voluminous second report in April 1955. The training of personnel is being well provided at the local level, but in this field India has failed in two steps: the preliminary planning did not include measures to assure the quality of the teachers at the local training centres. This resulted in wide variations in the success of individual projects. However, a single most essential step to assure the quality of training, and which India also has not yet undertaken, would be to assign a project in each state to one university for development. It would be presumed that such a university project would demonstrate a unit with high standards, which would be the best assurance of the quality of the extension in that state and at the same time provide a field service centre to train instructors for local training centres.
ir'"
WP/RCll/TDl Add. 1 page 6 The fundamental concept of the Community Programme is that the main motive force for its implementation m~t come from the people themselves and that the vast unutilized energy lying dormant in the countryside should be harnessed for constructive work on the co-operative principle. The new pattern of rural society that is visualized is that of millions of rural families, organizing themselves in co-operatives of different kinds and taking decisions as free agents practising scientific agriculture on the largest scale possible and finding supplementary occupations in a variety of decentralized cottage and small-scale industries while the State assists by organizing research, supplies, services and credit. The basic considerations are not merely economic. There are non-material values and social gains which are equally important. The resource-requirements of the programme are very large. For the integrated National Extension Service, the Five-Year Plan has made a provision of Rs. 101 crores for the period ending March 1956. This is approximately $16Om. The United States Government has made a friendly and generous contribution of nearly ~16m. towards this experiment, about ~8.7m. in the form of equipment and supplies for the first fifty-five area projects and subsequently ~1.9m. and $4.9m. in two installments. They have also made available the services of some experts. The Ford Foundation has also been assisting generously in the launching and running of the programmes, particularly in the field of training. Five training centres for training key personnel have been financed entirely by the Ford Foundation for the first three years and fifteen pilot development units have also received finaneial assistance from the Foundation. In June 1955 there were fortyfive training centres for Village Level Workers. The course is one year. In 1953 the Foundation also agreed to provide '230 000 for setting up a Programme Evaluation Organization. Overall, there has been significant progress throughout the country under the scheme. Up to the end of March this year, two and a half million acres of land have been reclaimed and nearly a million acres brought under irrigation. Several thousand wells have been newly sunk or renovated and 150 000 tons of fertilizers and over 60 000 tons of improved seeds have been distributed. Over 6000 new schools have been started and 17 000 schools converted into what are known in India as Basic Education Centres which embrace, besides ordinary formal education, special education in agriculture and the crafts. Over 10 000 miles of roads have been built in project areas and there are nearly 500 production cum training centres in selected areas. There is fullest expectation by the end of the first Five-Year Plan in March 1956 that the programme will have included 700 blocks with some 70 000 of India's 550 000 villages. In 1954 President Magsaysay established a community project administration in the Philippines, much similar to that of India, to take over and expand the very considerable work in community development which was initiated in 1949 by the Department of Instruction. Ceylon also has a community development programme. These two countries, with the exception of India, have developed multipurpose community programmes further than any
WP/RCll/TDI Add. I page 7 of the other thirty-four countries reported at the ICA seminar on community development. I wish there were time to review their administration in .terms of the precepts reviewed in the case of the Indian programme and to show that failure to follow these precepts has resulted in segmented noncomprehensive programmes. Puerto Rico already possesses most of the essential potentials required for a successful community development programme. Only two innovations would be required: one would be to set up in the Planning Board, and at district and municipal levels, the mechanism for coordination. The advisory development councils at each level would include representation of the consumer, as well as the purveyor of government welfare services. The second step would be to extend the scope of the present ~griculture extension worker to enable him to serve also as the liaison between tho barrios in which he is assigned and the other welfare agencies. This would require a careful study as to how much the present training of agricultural extension workers would have to be modified and extended. Actually, this is what occured in India in the two states in which they had developed agricultural extension workers when the community development programme was inaugurated in October 1952. I would conclude by reemphasizing two convictions. The overall of community development programme is more the harpessing of the human spirit and that material results are merely the means whereby the cultural and moral goal is expressed. Second, that a multipurpose approach to the solution of community problems is much more effective than the categorical one. If these convictions are substantiable, then Community Organization along the lines outlined should become an integral part of government policy and planning. Time is the inexorable factor in social evolution. The future of Puerto Rico is in the hands of present events. SUMMARY Community development is the technique for stimulating the people of local communities to initiate action towards their own improvement.
It is not community development unless it secures a co-ordinated approach towards solving the inter-related problems of the community. Community development replaces previous separate categorical administrative approaches and separate levels of the community - municipal, district, state - are thereby brought under a common development control and geared to a common overall plan. Essentials There must be a specific body responsible for catalyzing the coordination of separate agencies. This bOdy must not be created within one of the agencies to be co-ordinated. Each agency must be represented on the catalyzing body.
WP /RCIl/TDl Add. 1 page 8 Basic premises (a) Any welfa::e activity directly aimed to eliminate poverty, disease or ignorance ~s successful in direct proportion to its integration with multipurpose community development rather than when undertaken as an individual welfare activity;
(b) Progress will be proportionate to the consumer's technical consciousness of unmet needs; (c) Organization of the administration of services for community development must be built from the village up and not superimposed; (d) Any national community development programme should be planned within an overall programme for industrial as well as welfare development. Principles to be followed The community development programme must be based on the economic practicability of nation-wide extension. The economic baseline will determine the extent to which government organizations can afford taxsupported technical personnel and faCilities, e.g., whether one physician per one or ten thousand population. A development organization with co-ordinating and planning functions must be established at each level of government. The success of assistance depends upon the extent to which it can mobilize voluntary self-help. The success of voluntary self-help depends upon the degree to which technical consciousness is generated in the local community. The unit of organization must be technically self-contained to provide services, su~plies and supervision. Its size must coincide with a previously existing unit of government. Essential steps for local initiation The smallest development unit is responsible for: (a) (b) (c) Village survey to provide an evaluation of local needs; Constitution of a village development council; Decision regarding programme and priorities; --~.
--
(d) In-service training of the subcommittee members responsible for promoting self-help ~n their respective fields. The author summarizes the Imian comprehensive community development programme which he considers more comprehensive than that in any country.