Ioan Hosu

PUBLIC RELATIONS and COMMUNITY DEVELOPMENT

2012

Contents
Introduction ........................................................................................................................................3 Theoretical framework for community development ...........................................................................5 Key actors in the process of community development ....................................................................... 19 Models and practices of community development ............................................................................. 26 Community evaluation, public agenda ............................................................................................... 44 Promotion of local initiatives ............................................................................................................ 51 Strategies for community development ............................................................................................. 64 Management and leadership .............................................................................................................. 72 Sustainability and institutionalization ................................................................................................ 80 References ........................................................................................................................................ 93

Introduction
The present material is destined for the persons concerned with the issue of community development. In this material we will try to point out the aspects we consider, at this time, to be important for an extremely complex, challenging, but also very attractive field, such as community development. The complexity and diversity of the issues in the field cover diverse themes, from environmental protection to economic and financial aspects, rural development versus urban development, the socio-economic and cultural health of human communities, aspects of socio-cultural integration etc. Even though we do not use up the set of themes and concerns of community development through our approach, we want to draw attention on certain elements which are useful and necessary for the community developer. This will be done by pointing out the aspects drawn from the theorists or practitioners activity in the field, with the expertise gained in Romania or at international level. Theoretically and methodologically, the issues are very nuanced, in which case the scientific status of the field is subject to a number of challenges. The increased dynamics of the problems local communities face, the wide variety of problems requiring quick solution cause non-unitary interventions, sometimes insufficiently tested or validated. All these things lead to a scientific erosion of community development. For practitioners, the issue of community development, of the scientific recognition or the conceptual consolidation is secondary. Their work of community developer offers many opportunities, challenges and satisfactions. The insufficient theoretical canonization and standardization is compensated by a large set of methods and techniques with a high applied value. These approaches prove their utility in the implementation of projects and programs able to lead to the development of human communities. The situation of community development in the Romanian society is similar to what we find at international level. Basically, theorists and practitioners are called upon to address complex issues of strategic importance for human communities. However, the institutional recognition of community development does not match the contributions to community development. For this reason, there is a need for clarifications designed to strengthen the position at professional or institutional recognition level. Even though so far there are few pillars in the universities
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and nongovernmental, non-profit environment, the field of community development deserves a special place and a firm institutional recognition from the part of those who manage the resources and development policies in the Romanian society. Although the position of the community development specialist is not fully individualized in the Romanian occupational field, I am convinced that, on the short run, those who will specialize in this area will benefit from the social recognition they actually deserve.

The material is structured on sections which cover an extremely diverse thematic register, perhaps too diverse for the purpose and objectives of this approach. Our intention is to present positions and experiences that reflect the achievements in the field, drawn from the national or international practice. We mention that this material is the result of activities which have been undertaken in community development projects since the 1990's. The experiences gained during this period cover an extremely wide thematic and community intervention registry: demarches of multiethnic communities development initiatives; the first rural development strategies in the Transylvanian Plain communes; the design and implementation of microregional programs in Transylvania; the design and implementation of programs leading to the professionalization and institutionalization of the community developer profession (see the community facilitator, the local promoter or the local development agent projects developed by The Civitas Foundation for Civil Society Development, The Center for Rural Assistance), programs for the development of entrepreneurship in rural areas, rural development programs etc. All these experiences, the analyses and documents resulted from field activities will be synthetized as follows. Among the most important materials underlying this approach we mention: Actori sociali si resurse ale dezvoltarii comunitare / Social Actors and Community Development Resources Ioan Hosu; Elaborarea strategiilor de dezvoltare durabil la nivel local Ghid teoretic i practic / The Elaboration of Sustainable Development Strategies at Local Level - Theoretical and Practical Guide, Ioan Hosu together with Mirela Mirean and Alexandru Svulescu; Community Facilitator - Training Guide / Facilitator comunitar ghid de pregatire, Ioan Hosu together with Marton Balogh, Amanda Bosovcki, Dacian C. Drago , Clin Hinea. In addition to these materials which present field experience or preparation and training stages of community development in the Romanian space, we will also make reference to theoretical models and relevant experience in the community development practice at international level.

Theoretical framework for community development

Theories and theoretical models / preoccupations for community development (CD) History, evolution, definitions, characteristics of the concepts and practices used in CD; The relationship between community development and economic development (sustainability).

Contexts and Evolution

Community development (CD) is currently a discipline that aspires to a clearer theoretical and practitioners methodologies individualization, despite the fact that it is relatively new in the institutional field of development. The moment of the distinct affirmation of community development practices can be placed sometime after the Second World War and is part of the reconstruction effort of Western societies. Even since the time of its creation, community development has been manifesting as a border discipline. Hence the problematic position in which the practitioner or the researcher of the phenomena in the field of community development sometimes find themselves. Due to the conceptual proximity with economic development, social development, urban / rural development, territorial development or with the sustainable development, there are situations where there is confusion between specific processes of community development and other types of community intervention. The rigorous definition of the community development concept is currently imperfect. Therefore, we will seek to identify a unanimous accepted definition or the perfect definition. We will review some attempts to define the concept in order to subsequently make references to intervention practices and models with regard to community development. Even from the beginning we will state that the attempts of conceptualization or the models of intervention emanate from extremely diverse areas: sociology, economics, anthropology, social work, geography etc. It should also be said that community development, as a practice system, existed long before the theoretical definition attempts in the social sciences. In other words, we are talking about relatively recent efforts of theoretical and methodological crystallization of this disciplinary field, despite the age of community development practices.
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For the Romanian scientists, the systematic concern, the scientific approach to urban and rural communities development or modernization can be placed in the early twentieth century. In the interwar period, the academia, we refer mainly to the contributions made by the sociohuman sciences, supported the efforts of modernization and development of the Romanian society, at social, cultural, economic or political level. The efforts made by the representatives of the academia represented the expression of the accountability science has to prove in managing the problems faced by rural or urban communities. A first consequence of the scientists and of the higher education institutions presence in the community life was the creation of institutional frameworks systematically serving the efforts of community research and intervention for modernization. In this context, the sociologist Dimitrie Gustis ef fort of creating the monographic sociological school and his theoretical and practical efforts of research and intervention in the Romanian rural can be mentioned. Gusti's conception has found supporters regarding the active involvement and participation of the researcher of social sciences in the community life. The model has generated a trend of supporters of social activism among Romanian social scientists. In the same context of the approaches initiated by D. Gusti, this time much closer to nowadays, we find names such as M. Dogan, M. Cernea. They are sociologists who succeeded to introduce the sociologists expertise in processes of design and development of communities. They and many others have continuously tried to correlate the efforts of theoretical crystallization with field evolutions, in Romanian rural or urban communities and beyond. Making reference to the Romanian society again, the major challenges and themes concerning the development of society or of the communities of any kind, broadly remain the same: the lack of vision and of projects for the reform, modernization and development of the Romanian society; decreased reliability and associativity,
inefficient public institutions plagued by mistrust; eventually large gaps between the development of the Romanian society and the other societies in the EU. In other words, the circumstances were not and are not very favorable to those who, like community developers, seek to create community welfare. Community developers aim to change precisely those socio-cultural, institutional or relational contexts in order to lead to or to create a favorable framework for social, economic, sustainable and equitable development for community members.

Theoretical Frameworks Regarding Community Development

Hence the need to establish the theoretical basis for the field of community development. Why is it necessary to insist on the theoretical substantiation of the practices and methodologies that community developers resort to? There are some questions that we will try to answer in this section. We will of course resort to this approach out of the desire to clarify the role and place of theory in community development efforts. A simple, but extremely powerful argument: Theories are explanations that can provide help in understanding peoples behavior and a framework from which community developers can explain and comprehend events. A good theory may be stated in abstract terms and help create strategies and tools for effective practice. Whether community developers want others to conduct relevant research or they want to participate in the research themselves, it is important that they have theoretical grounding (Hustedde, 2009: 20). Before presenting the most common concepts and notions present in many definitions of community development we will proceed to a summary of the most important stages in the evolution of the concept of community, from a socio-anthropological perspective, in the European and North American spaces. The first who showed systematic concerns for defining and studying of human communities were the sociologists. These theoretical efforts will form the foundation of the community developer profession in the second half of the twentieth century. The first sociological approach of the concepts of community and society belongs to the German sociologist Ferdinand Tonnies in the already classic paper Gemeinschaft und Gesellschaft (1887), a work which established two ideal community types. The two concepts proposed by Tonnies represent ideal models and designate two opposite states regarding the organization of social life: on one hand it is about the family, vicinity or the village (Gemeinschaft), social grouping forms characterized by close, direct, informal relations based on common traditions and common orientations; on the other hand we have the society (Gesellschaft) which is the result of industrial, urban-type social realities transformations within which the individual interest and competition count and human relationships are rather formal. Alongside Tonnies we find big names of the founding fathers of sociology: K. Marx, E. Durkheim, G. Simmel or M. Weber, each of the authors making major contributions to the effort of explaining the new realities generated by the West European industrialization and rapid urbanization processes. The concern of European theorists tracked the understanding of transformations taking place in the system of social relationships. Their analysis generates
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profound implications on how the discourse of social sciences is configured and later for how theories on social, economic and cultural development are based. The themes, phenomena and practices analyzed by European theorists represent defining dimensions of human communities: conflict-cooperation, inclusion-exclusion, poverty-welfare, adjustment-

maladjustment etc.

Defining characteristics / traits for communities - Spatial grouping/place; - Subjective feelings of belonging (identity); - Norms and values inspired by culture and tradition; - Social stratification; - The relationship system, their type and quality.

The European theorists concerns have correspondence in the North-American space considering that the American society has experienced an exponential urban growth. In this context of urbanization and industrialization, of massive immigration (beginning of the twentieth century), concerns for the scientific study of urban life, inter-human relations emerge. They are addressed from sociological and psycho-sociological perspectives. The rapid development of the United States generated imbalances in the traditional lifestyle. The urban sociologys role was to analyze and provide solutions to restore the socia l balance in urban areas appeared overnight and which were facing inherent problems of development, urbanization, respectively rapid industrialization. Here we can mention a few names of reference from the North American space concerned with the study of the new forms of manifestation of human communities, in the first part of the twentieth century: Robert Park, Robert and Helen Lynd, L. Wirth etc. The period after the Second World War brings the revival of the growth and development processes for both the North American and for European space. The post-war reconstruction requires reconsidering the role and position of community developers in the new social, economic and ideological contexts. The discussions about the role and functions of the community in the new post-war contexts continued (see Annex 3), some noting that they assist to the "loss of community as a place", this also meaning the destruction of values and implicitly the loss of social capital. Other schools of thought primary analyze and debate the
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way power and welfare is distributed in urban areas. They are actually the followers of Marxist ideas that apply the theory of political economy in urban community spaces. But the aspect which deserves attention in the development of discussions on communities is linked to the introduction of the concept of network in the center of the debates about the community in the late twentieth century: Communities, therefore, are the kinds and qualities of interpersonal ties between people. Some ties are unique and personal while others are diverse and extensive. People have portfolios of networks that can be used to connect them with others for various reasons at various times. The concept of community as a group of natural, changing, mobile networks that meet a variety of changing needs makes community personally meaningful in a society in which 'place' is less peimanent and meaningful (Bruhn, 2005). Far from using up the debate on how human communities are defined, other community types and forms can also be mentioned today, but for which place and tradition are no longer constituents (ex. Virtual or online communities are no longer constrained by spatial aspects). There are some great perspectives by which we can refer to human communities: The first perspective is imposed by the territory/place occupied by the members of a community. The analyses target spatial divisions (geographic communities; see for example the commune or municipality as forms of building communities after administrative criteria). The second major direction is represented by interest; here we speak about cultural communities. This is a non-territorial dimension and is based on aspects of identity and culture (variables which constitute ethnicity, religion, occupation, education, expressed preferences for certain things or situations etc.). Finally, a dimension represented by the community organizations covers a wide range of networks and connections more or less formal, from family or kinship ties to entrepreneurial, professional or political associative structures. Between these types and forms of manifestations of human communities there is great overlapping and merging, the members of a community can simultaneously be part of multiple communities.

Community Development A short Description

With respect to the concept of development, things are less problematic but they do not have to be regarded simplistically. Therefore, the meanings given to development can be viewed
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from two perspectives: (i) a first sense is quantitative, thus development means more, bigger in the sense of increasing numbers; (ii) the second perspective is that where development means a qualitative change, the number or quantity is not the central variable describing the development process, but the quality of the process, respectively the results. We will appreciate that the development of a community is the result of an active and responsible involvement of community members who, through their attitude and behaviour, will succeed to generate increased quality of life. Therefore, by development we will understand change in terms of the quality of the process (consultation, empowerment, participation etc.) and secondary or tertiary, the focus on certain products (infrastructure, equipment, constructed spaces etc.). Quantitative criteria of the development products are the result of community processes and interactions. These changes of relations and attitudes have generated those products, not vice versa. However, the discussions on process-product ratio in community development can continue, the following already being a common expression: Community development is both process and product. We opt for a brief description and not for an attempt to give a definition, and this because of a very simple reason, namely that it is almost impossible to give a valid definition for an extremely dynamic and problematic reality such as the concepts of community, respectively development. For those who still want to go through tens of definitions, out of several hundred, they can be found below:

Box 1 Definitions of Community Development The deliberate attempt by community people to work together to guide the future of their communities, and the development of a corresponding set of techniques for assisting community people in such a process. (Bennett, 1973) An educational approach which would raise levels of local awareness and in crease confidence and ability of community groups to identify and tackle their own problems. (Darby & Morris, 1975) A series of community improvements which take place over time as a result of the common efforts of various groups of people. Each successive improvement is a discrete unit of community development. It meets a human want or need. (Dunbar, 1972) Finding effective ways of helping and teaching people to develop new methods and to learn new skills. This process is, however, done in such a way as to retain community control and community spirit. (Frederickson, 1975) A process of creating special community organizations throughout society which will be responsible for channeling demands to centers of power, to distributors of benefits.
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(Hammock, 1973) A process, as a method, as a program, and as a movement; or as a set of purposes. (Hauswald, 1971) The process of local decision-making and the development of programs designed to make their community a better place to live and work. (Huie, 197 6) All of the efforts made to establish and maintain human interaction while improving the appropriateness of the physical setting to that interaction. Underlying values to this development are the recognition of the individuals right to select the extent of community or privacy and the groups right to identify its own needs for community development. (Koneya, 1975) An open system of decision making, whereby those comprising the community use democratic and rationale means to arrive at group decisions to take action for enhancing the social and economic well-being of the community. (Littrell, 1975) An educational process designed to help adults in a community solve their own problems by group decision making and group action. Most community development models include broad citizen involvement and training in problem solving. (Long, 1975) The involvement of people and the coordination and integration of all efforts directed at bettering conditions. (Lotz, 1970) The capacity of people to work collectively in addressing their common interests. (Maser, 1997) The process which basically initiates and develops structure and facilitates program development that includes users of the program. I identify Community Development in the context of initiating and of developing supportive human relationships. (Miles, 1974) A process in which increasingly more members of a given area or environment make and implement socially responsible decisions, the probable consequence of which is an increase in the life chances of some people without a decrease in the life chances of others. (Oberle, Darby, & Stowers, 1975) Facilitating those cultural mechanisms that provide for shared experience, trust, and common purpose. (Parko, 1975) A process. Our concern is with t he life process -- continuity, adjustment, and fulfillment, and finally the self-sufficiency of the people. (Pell, 1972) The active voluntary involvement in a process to improve some identifiable aspect of community life; normally such action leads to the strengthening of the communitys pattern of human and institutional interrelationships. (Ploch, 1976) The active involvement of people at the level of the local community in resisting or supporting some cause or issue that interest them. (Ravitz, 1982 Many community development efforts are essentially efforts to help community residents understand what is happening and recognize some of the choices they face in order to achieve the future community they desire. (Shaffer, 1990) People who are affect ed by change participate in making it ... A system provides for communication among all groups in the community, including open discussion of issues, feelings, and opinions. The community understands its problem-solving process and needs no further instruction. (Vaughn, 1972) A situation in which some groups, usually locality based such as neighborhood or local community ... Attempts to improve its social and economic situation through its own efforts ... using professional assistance and perhaps also financial assistance from the outside ... and involving all sectors of the community or group to a maximum. (Voth, 1975). A process of helping community people analyze their problems, to exercise as large a measure of community autonomy as is possible and feasible, and to promote a greater
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identification of the individual citizen and the individual organization with the community as a whole. (Warren, 1978) A public-group approach dedicated to achieving the goals of the total body politic. (Weaver, 1971) Acts by people that open and maintain channels of communication and cooperation among local groups. (Wilkenson, 1979) Source: APPLYING U. S. COMMUNITY DEVELOPMENT PROCESS LESSONS Paper developed by Greg Wise, Extension Community Development Agent and Associate Professor, University of Wisconsin-Extension Sauk County specifically for the EPA/USDA Partnership project. Contributor: Elaine Andrews, Extension Environmental Education Specialist, Environmental Resources Center, University of Wisconsin-Extension.1998 Available: http://www.uwex.edu/erc/pdf/AppA_CommunityEdDefinitions.pdf

Theoretical definitions to the community concept would further represent milestones in the efforts of elaborating a definition of community development; the number of definition is impressive (see Box 1). The diversity of definitions given to community development is a consequence of the fact that community realities are extremely dynamic; no community can be considered a static social entity. Human communities continually adopt strategies and actions to ensure their welfare, development or survival. Reality shows us that there is a large variety of community profiles (in terms of resources, types of community behaviors, values, problems and action strategies etc.), a large number of particular situations, therefore an attempt to find a single definition for the concept of community development represents a costly and somewhat useless endeavor. We believe that a useful approach which would enable a framing of community development would be its association with a set of key words and concepts that can generate operational definitions depending on the moments and contexts the community development processes are initiated in. Community development what it means 1 identifies and then solves community problems/needs; 2 community members initiate and have control over the process; 3 integrated approach; 4 development is the communitys process and product;

The descriptors that are found in most attempts to define the concept make reference to groups of people who develop a set of common actions that are based on common interests
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and concerns. What is characteristic of these groups is that special relationships and interactions are established in the community development processes. They are based on specific elements of the place where the community development process unfolds. The communicative relationships and interactions between groups are central elements of the community development dynamics. We can also see that other two concepts, which usually appear together, appear with great frequency in these definitions and also in others: identifying the communitys or community groups needs and identifying solutions that exploit existing resources at local level. When I began community development in the early 1990s, some of the community development values that I was made aware of included the empowerment of individuals and communities, working with, not for people, seeing community development as a bottom-up process in which communities define the issues on which we worked for change. The process, I was told, was as important as the end result. (Pitchford, Henderson, 2008: 42)

Principles of community development Community members implication and participation; Collective action and local initiative; Community building; Local decision; Empowerment; Skills development; Problem solving approach. Therefore, by community development we can understand processes of social, economic and cultural change which are meant to lead to better situations, conditions and contexts of life for community members. This process is characterized by the active participation and involvement of those concerned. They generate solutions to the problems they face. Economic development is the prerequisite for the social development of urban and rural areas and the concept of integrated community development emphasizes the idea that there cannot be made a separation between economic and social results. This integrative perspective emerges from most models of community development, urban or rural areas where there is pronounced socio-cultural and economic diversity.
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The Purpose of Community Development Processes

The ultimate goal of community development processes is to increase the standard of living, and this increase in the quality of life is feasible only if changes emerge at community level with reference to the way community members address the needs or problems they face. The ability to identify needs, the existence of a common interest in solving problems, the undertaken mobilization of community resources in order to increase the standards of living are just a few constitutive elements for what we call community capacity building. To summarize, the set objectives with reference to community development processes can be achieved if the following steps are made:

- Community members become more accountable with respect to the situation or the problems in the community; this accountability means involvement, participation and assumption of responsibility; - Increase in the capacity of organization and planning at community level; Arguments in favour of community development - accurately reflects the needs of community members; - leads to awareness of the social, economic, environmental, cultural problems; - enables the development or transfer of skills: organization, communication, analysis and decision processes; - it is based on the stakeholders involvement and participation; - participatory, democratic, bottom-up approach; - empowers the parties involved; - creates or reinforces community social networks.
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Limitations of community development processes - provides a false sense of power control; - a way by which authorities transfer the responsibility for sensitive issues to community groups or members; - highly time consuming - uncertain and difficult to measure results / difficult evaluation of results; - focuses on local problems, neglecting macro-social aspects; - difficult financing of community development processes.

Model analysis1 and the practices encountered in the field of community development entail a series of specifications, either of theoretical/conceptual nature or of empirical/factual nature. A fist level of analysis refers to the community frameworks in which different development models are applied and the second level entails specifications which outline the degree of coverage of the concept of community development. For both levels, the analysis endeavour, from a theoretical or empirical/factural point of view, is a problematic one, as there is no unitary, generally adopted or generally valid acception in the theory and practie of community development. Only commun principles are traced, which form the basis of various community development initiatives, as Botes L. (2000) asserts: Development is not only the process through which the achievement of economic results is desired, but by development we will understand the process through which apathy and the lack of initiative, with which most of the urban and rural spaces are confronted is eliminated. The text from above stresses the major aspects of most attempts to define community development processes. We are dealing with average and long term contributions to the consolidation of the capacity to act at community level, through the improvement of the economic situation. Economic development appears as a premise for the social development of ruban and rural areas and the concept of integrated community development stresses the idea that economic and social results can not be separated. This form represents one of the more recent acceptions on the evolution scale of community development processes, the integrated model being recomended in urban and rural communities, in which there are ethnic, cultural, religious differences. Another analysis method for the community development processes can result from the same text: centering on the process or centering on certain products (infrastructure, facilities,

Perspectives on community development - Department for local development (DDL), material drafted during a program carried out with the support of FMAPL (Fondul de Mondernizare a Administraiei Publice Locale/ Modernisation Fund for Local Public Administration), January 2006, beneficiary Cluj-Napoca City Hall, ening document of the final material.

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etc.), resulting from these community endeavours. Focalising on process brings forward the endeavours through which decisions are adopted based on the participation of the community or of the legitimate leaders of the community (the key words in this case are: consultation, participation). Centering on immediate products implies the existance of a local elite, which adopts decisions for obtaining immediate results for the problems existing within the community (characteristics for this direction are the centrality in adopting decisions and the activities carried out and regulated against the clock). Another acception refering to the definition for the concept of community development would be a procesual one, which tells us that we have a continuum between case work and community work (Goldsworthy, 2002: 327) or at least this is what results from certain assessments of the community development programs. Similar to the way in which such initiatives have begun here, these were at first punctual interventions (case works) through which it was attempted to solve a problem individuals or groups of individuals were facing in a community. In time, once the intervention and acting capacity of the non-governmental sector has developed, we witness the materialisation of a vision which refers to solving the problems existing at local and community level. In Romanian society, we may mention the presence of new approaches in the field of community development; these have occured both due to the maturation of social society, as well as to some positive evolutions of the relationships between the institutions of the local public administration and private profit or non-profit organizations. The change of perspective in the public-private relationship (more precisely, the institution of various partnership practices) is the result of two types of actions: (i) a series of conditions concerning the eligibility of certain projects financed from European funds after 1996; in most of the projects, the establishment of public-private partnerships was imposed. (ii) Some partnerships were rather formal, but in most of the situations we are dealing with positive experiences acumulated by the local public administration and non-governmental organisations in approaching community problems. Thus, the premises for the extension of partnerships for community development were created, so that after the year 2000, the colocation public-private partnership (the three PPP) has never been absent from the politicians speech or from that of the active participant in the field of community development. These types of experience have contributed to the benefits for each party
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involved, both for the ones implementing the projects/programs and for the beneficiaries (the community or the members of a community). To better illustrate the conceptual evolution of what the community development processes mean, we considered that it is necessary to mention one of the first attempts to define these. Community development may be defines as a process intended to create the conditions for economic and social progress for the entire community, with its active participation and full faith in the communities initiatives. (United Nations - UN, 1955). If in 1995 things were quite clear, nowadays most theoreticians and practitioners face great problems when they have to define their endeavour: The origins of the ideas of community development, participation, community action are somewhat unclear, as different authors have connected these concept to different social events or problems (Precupeu, 1998: 143 -159). The present endeavour for conceptual clarification requires reference to the two concepts included in this collocation: development and community. By community development we may also understand planned evolution of all the aspects within a community, w hich may lead to well-being (either economic, social, cultural or environmental). This process of obtaining well-being is one in which the community members are actively involved and generate solutions to the problems they are facing. In order to insure the success of such a process, long-term compelling planning is needed, which includes all the groups and all the community members; one way or another, this involvement must be a balanced one for all community members and the planning process must be initiated and supported by community members. The final purpose of the community development processes is an increase in the standard of living and this improvement of the quality of life may only be achieved if, at community level, there is a common interest in solving the problems it is facing and if that community manages to make a conscious effort for the purpose of increasing the standards of living. The achievement of set objective in the community development processes may take place if the following steps are taken: Community members become more responsible of the situation or problems existing in the community; this responsibility means involvement, participation and assuming certain responsibilities;
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Increase of the organisation and planning capacity within the community.

These two qualities make the elaboration of short, average and long term visions (strategic or operational plans) possible. At least when it comes to the models we will refer to in this paper, the players involved in the diagnosis and planning stage of development processes are: the local public administration and the local community - through NGOs and local initiative groups.

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Key actors in the process of community development

Initiators of CD processes; Beneficiaries, partnerships, local initiative groups; Institutional resources, CD key actors map.

Cooperation and partnership community resources, institutional resources The cooperation and partnership between various institutional players, inside or outside the community, represents one of the determinant factors for the success of the processes for planned community evolution. For rural communities, a special role in these processes is played by the local public administration. The authorities involvement implies the ir participation, both in the elaboration and in the implementation of local development initiatives. The forms of analysis and planning are based on methods taken from the field of sociology or economy. These influences are found both at a conceptual, as well as at a practical level. The analysis of successful cases has proven that a correlation could be found, in case of certain communities, between economic success (workplaces and better income) and certain attributes of the community (for instance, social capital, attributes determined with sociological methods and instruments) (McDowell, 1999: 109). At the community level, there are certain preconditions that may help us identify the communities which will succeed or the communities which will fail in their development endeavours. Be it conceptual clarifications or practical initiative, a good knowledge of the community is necessary in respect of the following aspects: population, workforces, community factors or community processes, physical-geographical factors. Partnerships represent, for most of the initiatives for community development, the elements which contribute to the achievement of the objectives set for community development. In a wider perspective, the term partnership could be defined as: the formal or informal manner in which two or more parties decide to act together in order to reach a common target . Reaching the common target results from a set of activities carried out within a timeframe, according to the initial plan. There are differences between the concept of collaboration and that of partnership, although from a semantic point of view, the differences are hard to
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observe. The aspects which differentiate the two concepts are based on applicability and on manner in which these are put into practice. Partnership does not start from the premise that the parties must be equal, but it is imperative that they are treated as equal. This premise leads to efficient partnerships (partnership cannot be built on a relation of subordination). Otherwise put, in a partnership relation the power of decision making may be divided equally between the parties or proportionally to the input or contribution of each party. Any form of partnership increases the capacity to act and in the same time, increases the impact of an action on the target group or on the objective set by the parties concluding that partnership. The first step in establishing a successful partnership is the identification of partnerships according to the set objective and bearing in mind their characteristics (communication, tolerance, readiness to participate, openness towards cooperation, etc.) For these partnerships to offer average and long term results, the formalization of the partnership relationship (by formalization we must understand those commitments which are also legally confirmed) is entailed. Rightful access to the available resources represents a useful advantage for both parties. And as in any contract, the rights and responsibilities of the partners must find their required motivation. Good communication between the partners, based on relations of mutual trust and respect, is the premise for the success of any type of partnership. Consensus and equality, correct assumption of responsibilities by the parties of the partnership are aspects which insure a good development of the activities. Partnership, as a form of collective action at institutional level, must offer advantages in order to stimulate the participation of both parties, namely the increase in efficiency, effectiveness and impact of projects, increase in the parties credibility. Along with efficiency and effectiveness, image benefits may represent, and in fact do represent, important stimuli for the parties carrying out activities in a partnership. The mentioned benefits (efficiency, effectiveness) may become behavioural models for the entire community. The level of previous instruction and experience in such actions, those referring to a partnership, are only two of the factors or predictor of the success of common actions. Durability and efficiency are major challenges for any type of partnership, as we can mention a series of obstacles that must be overcome. The obstacle category is represented quite well: insufficient communication, lack of maturity in the assumption of affiliation to several
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partnership structures, conflicts of interest, excessive personal pride, non-observance of partnership obligations, etc. Each of the above mentioned situations is a possible sources of failure when it comes to a good achievement of the intended project. The results of an investigation, carried out in order to fundament the concept of Local Development Agent (LDA), indicate the need to develop a wide offer of training and to carry out a wider instruction campaign for potential players, both in the non-governmental sector and in the entire community, concerning the need for and techniques of communication, objectives and models used in a partnership. The development and support of a partnership, avoiding competition between partners, setting clear rules for the partnership, permanent communication, clear definition of the partnership are elements considered to be useful for obtaining successful partnerships. To complete the image about the possibility of common institutional action, we will mention the main partnership forms, similar to how these are empirically encountered in the practice of community development. According to various criteria, which can be considered simultaneously or independently, a relatively complex typology of partnership was generated. Hence, based on the existence of legal personality, partnerships may have one of the following characters: formal (in case of complex or long-term tasks or when the partners have different structures) informal (may be established when the target is specific enough and its achievement raises no problems, the parties having similar structures, knowing each other, maybe even having worked together before) Another criterion for the classification of partnerships is the type of objective set, thus identifying: 1. representation partnerships: federations, unions, councils, alliances, forums, coalitions, etc. 2. operational partnerships which imply the existence of concrete projects and these project represent the reason for the parties association. In this case, most of the time

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(there are also situations that invalidate this observation), after the finalization of the project, the locally formed task group ceases to exist. From the perspective of the term of application, partnership relationships may be set up for short and long terms. The existence of financing sources represents another classification criterion in partnerships with financing sources or in partnership relations with no financing source. Finally, another distinction that is worth mentioning here refers to intra-sectoral partnership (it refers to cooperation and action relationships established between organised structures having the same characteristics: public authorities with public authorities, companies with companies, NGOs with NGOs), inter-sectoral partnership (Scutaru, 2007). The ideal situation for a community engaged in a community development process would be that in which all the possible players presented below are involved:

Participants in the community development process:

Representatives of local, county or central authorities Community members NGOs Education, Health, Justice Media representatives Syndicate representatives Financial institutions (banks, investment funds) Politicians Members of the Chambers of Commerce Representatives of religious cults / Representatives of social services

In what the Romanian society is concerned, the negative experience of individuals accumulated in the communist period has lead to the depreciation of the idea of working together for common good. Unfortunately, there are many fissured or ruptures between community and the possible partners mentioned in the scheme from above. What is worse is that high politics (referring to parliament members, members of the government and
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governmental clerks) is torn from many of the problems of the community it represents. The indicators for this state of reality are represented by the punctual solution they suggest in local or central public policies and these have most of the times no real positive impact. Another problematic element, which the studies and analyses of various methods underline, is represented by the way in which the public agenda of local public administrations is set up. Most of the times, they find themselves facing double pressure: the populations agenda and the agenda of certain governmental institutions, which often have different priorities, the unilateral assumption of local development objectives by local administrations, deficiencies in the elaboration and implementation of public policies. Moreover, we may also add here other elements which negatively influence the fulfilment and application of the local development agenda; the lack of concrete programs for supporting the community; inefficient communication with that community, etc. The examples presented above represent only some of the undesired situations found at local level, which determine the lack of involvement or participation of community members. The lack of communication and consultation with the population would represent the main cause for the decrease in the communitys participation in the initiatives of town halls and local councils. Pre-development - the preliminary phase which should precede community development processes - is the stage in which the interested groups or parties within a certain community are informed and activated. As it can be noted in most endeavours, this phase if very poorly represented. The lack of consultation and information is a shortcoming which is present not only in the rural but also in the urban space. Without these public consultations or debates, we witness the emergence of negative behaviours exhibited by citizens; more precisely, we are dealing with the lack of interest that citizens express towards those who lead the community. Also, negative attitudes are manifested towards those who elaborate and implement public policies - they are permanently suspected of having secret agendas and hidden interests. The level of information of citizens, in respect of the city halls activities is extremely low and one of the major problems is that citizens do not know the manner in which public money is spent and this illustrates the lack of transparency or the lack of interest in communication with citizens, concerning a matter which should be brought to everyones attention - the manner in which public money is used.
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In this case, we are dealing with an older reflex, namely that those from above are responsible for the problems within the community. A major change, concerning the involvement of the community in development projects, will occur when people consider that their common effort may contribute to the communitys development (collective action), without expecting for the initiative to come from the state. Waiting for initiatives coming from somewhere from above means nothing but falling behind or standstill. The state has an important role, but a certain line of action and intervention is required. We must indicate the observation of Amitai Etzioni (1995), who appreciates that it is possible to build a community which is based on the state, given that the involvement of the state is as little intrusive as possible. The essence of community development pro cesses is the one that starts from below and is based on groups and categories of interested and participating individual or institutional players. The following quote, even though it does not belong to a Romanian author, is representative for the current context of community development: the lack of horizontal coordination mechanisms for local programs and partnerships, as well as the lack of vertical coordination mechanisms between various agents (local, regional or national) leads to a considerable decrease in the importance and gravity of local initiatives (Curtis, Haase and Tovey, 1996). The process of community participation in local development processes has multiple valences: educational: the existence of models and practices which can be assimilated by the active members of the community; political: this aspect implies the communitys ability to impose certain decisions, as well as the right to control the persons who represent its interests; economic: mainly refers to supporting the community by means of participation with money, goods or volunteer work; organisational: in this situation, the existence of institutional frameworks is required, which orient or mobilize resources in respect of the community development processes; in this chapter, the importance of the local development department must be highlighted.
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The launching of development initiatives must start from a careful investigation of the space. I consider that it is most appropriate to mention here the position expresses by Dumitru Sandu (2005: 56-64) who pleaded for the sociologizing of this endeavour, as sociologizing represents the use of certain standard instruments, common to all those involved in community development programs. The standard set of instruments (both in the predevelopment, diagnosis and in the assessment phase) allows comparisons, through which the efficiency of a certain endeavour or another may be verified. Later on, the initial model may be corrected in order to increase the efficiency of the entire process.

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Models and practices of community development

Major coordinates for the evaluation, support and promotion of community changes; Institutionalization the professionalization of CD steps; Community facilitator; Local promoter; Local development agent (LDA).

The macro and micro-social context The local development process in Romania at that time was marked by a series of constraints specific to the transition periods in social and economic plan or to the institutional transformations particular of the transition. Under such circumstances, in order to support the community development processes were imposed measures that allowed the success of these endeavors. Such measures were required by the needs and constraints existent in the local communities, conditioning at the same time the efficiency and durability degree of the development process. At that time and also at present we think that in order to provide a sustained rhythm of the development process is important the undertaking and also the application of some specific methods and techniques as well as the proper preparation of the human resources for the implementation of measures related to local development. For the attempt to solve a part of the identified issues, within the Civitas Foundation was developed and implemented the project entitled Community Facilitator pilot project in Cluj and Bistria-Nsud counties. In 2001 the project was meant to be a solution, maybe viable, to support the efficiency of the reform/modernization process of the local public administrations, especially of those from the rural environment. The support was offered by a new institution in the landscape of many rural communities (non-profit non-governmental organizations specialized in economic or social development), by the increase of institutional and operational capacities of the public administration institutions and through the replication of this phenomenon, the program intended to contribute to the stimulation of local development processes, to the increase of the number of development initiatives on the local communities level.

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The model we refer to intends to reach this goal: training of specialized human resources, mobilization of resources and activation of community for the generation of development opportunities on local level by appealing to established techniques in the community development. The initiative was intended for the communities on the whole, depending on the case to the local public administrations, and in the first phases the goal was to suggest the community facilitator in the local public administrations. Community facilitator pilot program in counties Cluj and Bistria-Nsud, initially launched in ten rural communities from the two counties in the period between November 2002 and October 2003, the project had the financial support of Open Society Institute Budapest and the European Union through PHARE 2000 Economic and Social Cohesion. The declared goal was to promote and facilitate the local development by consolidating the institutional and professional capacity of the local public administration in order to grow the standard of living from the rural areas. In agreement with the above-mentioned we considered the human resources underlie these processes by their capacity to determine and capitalize the other resources of communities. Therefore, the Community Facilitator project firstly focused on the quality improvement of human resources involved in the development processes. The community facilitator model requires selection and training of an individual who manages the development processes within the community where he/she carries out his/her activity. By the management of development processes we understand the strategic component of the community development, in the operational phase being involved other development agents from local level. The pilot project carried out within the Civitas Foundation, as well as the assessments performed by other organizations reveal a few of the most significant assignments and functions of the community facilitator. Who is the facilitator and what does it do: the facilitator supports and stimulates the action frameworks favorable to start the development initiatives from the community, the involvement of formal and informal leaders in the awareness and identification of potentials existent on community level; identification and mobilization of resources from the inside and outside the community; identification of the leaders in community, organization of initiative groups;

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 assignments related to the training, information, mediation parts between various interest groups of the community; coordination of activities specific for the community facilitating processes. Facilitators position within community is a strategic one taking into a ccount the fact that it is in charge with the support of communities, the groups or the individuals in order to identify and solve the problems they face, being a resource-individual for the community. Synthetizing the assignments of the individuals who have the position of community facilitators, we could say they have a promotion role of the community they work for (they appeal to the most various tools and techniques: creating the web page for the commune, promotion materials, participation in conferences, fairs, organization of community days) and a development role (promotion and creation of the strategic conception upon the community development, attraction of resources from the outside of community through projects in various fields and mobilization of resources from the community). In a first phase of their activity, these individuals were employed at the Civitas Foundation and based on the protocol between the organization and the town hall where they carried out their activity, the public institution provided the framework necessary to perform the facilitating activity. Afterwards, as projects were developed the facilitators were employed within town halls, being enrolled in most cases as specialty referees. The choice of communities that made the object of the pilot project related to community facilitation was made based on a few criteria like the geographical, social, economic and ethnic. On the crossroads of such criteria we intended to involve in this pilot project diverse rural communities in respect of ethnicity, economy or geography. Based on these criteria were selected ten rural communities from Cluj and Bistria-Nsud counties. The activities carried out in these communities subsequently allowed identification of some attitudes, practices or action models. Based on the evaluations made throughout the project and also by analyzing the results obtained by the communities assisted by the facilitators we could depict a series of elements that may be successfully applied. Beyond the community specificity (socio-demographic, economic or cultural) there are other elements that may lead the community facilitation processes to positive results. Firstly it is about the individual holding the position or role of
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community facilitator: the qualities, the experience or the training level are just a few variables which play a role in the success of the community facilitating process. In this meaning, the project activities concerned the training and organization of a body of ten community facilitators who, in the second phase of the project were appointed in the town halls from the counties mentioned above based on cooperation protocols concluded between Civitas Foundation and the local councils of the selected communities. Among the assignments of the community facilitators we will remind the following: Elaboration of a local development strategic study for each partner commune; Management for the strategy implementation; Elaboration of financing programs, together with the initiative group from the community or other development agents; Support for the Local Council in the decisions related to the initiation of some development programs and projects; Support for the local initiative groups: local entrepreneurs, farmers, NGOs etc; Promotion of communes image by designing their web pages. The results concerned did not delay and were obtained as result of carrying out the activities provided and recommend our initiative as viable and adaptable on a large scale, on the level of public administration institutions from Romania, especially in the rural environment. On first view, the evaluation of activities from the project point the initiative as a viable one or at least this is how the good results show after the first 10 months of activity. The results are extremely good for seven from the ten communities: Local associations already set-up or in course of set-up in all the ten communes involved; Development strategies elaborated for all the ten partner communes; Around 100 projects submitted for financing in various fields (public administration, environment, social services, multiethnic etc.). The projects were developed by the
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facilitators and the initiative groups from the community, the extra-budget funds attracted in communities by financing programs are worth over 6.000.000.000 lei, funds attracted in the first year of activity of the 10 facilitators. Existence of a WEB page for each partner commune;

All these results alongside other significant achievements: opening of the local authorities to initiative and partnership, growing public participation, transparency of the administrative act are, in our opinion arguments in favor of the relevance of the model for the way in which community and extra-community resources can be mobilized in development. The most important resource activated in this endeavor was the establishment and operation of the initiator NGO partnership with the Local Councils of Cluj and Bistria -Nsud, which supported the entire endeavor. It is not about financial support, but about the availability for the stimulation of development processes from rural environment, but through its specific activities it determined at the same time positive effects in important areas and at the same time relevant for the final goal (growing the confidence in the common endeavors carried out by non-governmental organizations and the local public administration). In respect of the community facilitators, the contribution to the project also meant the opportunity to acquire a significant practical experience in the community development. We have to mention the fact that the community facilitators were mainly selected from the graduates, students in the finals years or those attending the master degree programs in the following majors: public administration, economy, sociology, social work, with

preoccupations in the local and regional development field. This aspect is extremely important for the evaluation and research process initiated within the project, because their first duties within community were related to the evaluation of the potential available in such community. Such evaluations required the use of some well-built tools on the one hand and on the other hand they required minimum manipulation knowledge of the collected data. After that based on such data (inquiries, interviews, observation) the facilitator together with the local initiative group, assisted by tutors elaborated strategic development plans of the community, plans which in most cases underlay some campaigns of attracting resources from the inside or outside of community. As what public administration institutions are concerned, we think the existence of a function with assistance and support role in activities related to local development played a significant
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part in the improvement of institutional capacities and also in the improvement of human resources quality employed in the process. The same situation was also found in the group of small and medium enterprises owners from rural environment. They were assisted, depending on the case by the community facilitators in their endeavors to obtain credits or grants.

Development of practical model turning the community facilitator in local development agent The projects goal was the development and extension of this model in ma ny local communities by capitalizing the partnership or cooperation relations existent with institutions of the local public administration or with other NGOs. The Rural Development Consortium represented the materialization of such cooperation relations between two nonprofit organizations with experience in the community development field: the Rural Support Centre from Timioara - SON member (the organization developed a similar program in counties from Banat Timi) implemented the local promoting model while the Civitas Foundation from Cluj-Napoca implemented the community facilitator in Cluj and Bistria-Nsud counties. The establishment of the Rural Development Consortium aims to promote and implement the model on national level. In this way the community facilitator was promoted as a development model by the two organizations under a new, joint logo, namely that of Local Development Agent (ADL). Implementation of this endeavor had the financial support of the Open Society Institute Budapest and of the German Marshall Fund. 21

Relation: Local Initiative Group Community Facilitator Forming work groups in which are represented the interest groups of the community is the most important task for the facilitator. In the absence of some initiative groups or due to the insufficiency of representations of the interest groups within these initiative groups, the chances of some development initiatives are substantially reduced. The main gains resulted from the activity of some local initiative groups are: valorizing the experience and ideas of the participants, and furthermore, the influence of a group is bigger
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than that of the separate individuals. The size of these groups did not exceed the critical threshold of 12-15 individuals, reason for which such groups managed to work well together. The local initiative groups (we should mention that due to various reasons these groups did not last in all communities) generally had an extremely heterogeneous internal structure and this is why the facilitator had to resort to mediation and communication methods and techniques meant to increase the groups cohesion and to avoid disputes res ulted from divergent opinions/senses. A significant aspect in the operation of these initiative groups refers to the language or terminology used at the meetings. Excessive formalization of the language, of the relations between the groups members or activities on group level has negative effects in respect of involvement and participation of the group. The main reason for which initiative groups were set-up was the communitys effort to carry out development strategies. These development strategies had to be made in a participative manner so as the development plan should include the needs and requests of all interested parties. Assessment of logical framework of the project Monitoring and assessment provide significant information to the team implementing the project, enabling adjustments or corrections of the process. Second of all, this type of analysis allows improvement of the implementation capacity of further projects, the improvement of the management capacity on institutional and individual level. The first phase of the assessment consisted in the verification of the way in which objectives, activity content and results were established. Another set of indicators underlining the fairness of the logical framework is given by the fact that all partners involved in the project undertook and performed their duties which shows the good comprehension of the conditions, objectives and activities imposed by the project. The monitoring, assessment, reporting processes were based on standardized tools of data collection. The project coordinator, the lecturers and the tutors were responsible to apply this methodology. The content of monitoring and assessments operated like a prevention system of the problematic situations (early warning system) for the project team, moreover the conclusions of the assessment activities were sent to the sponsors who could constantly require corrections related to the project implementation method. The corrections required contributed to the adjustment and better implementation and they mainly concerned financialadministrative aspects, as well as those related to the activities content.
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The final assessment made among the facilitators pointed out the fact that the activities that follow the human resources development for the community development would require an average implementation period of about two years. The period given for the project does not allow completion of the endeavors initiated within the project. It is mainly about the activities related to the elaboration and management of projects and the organization of local initiative groups. Data analysis The project evaluation studied each of the activities performed. For each phase or types of activities were collected data and documents that allowed shaping of a true image upon the content, quality of activities, as well as upon the results obtained. The first logical phase carried out within the project was to prepare the team and the infrastructure necessary for the development in good conditions of the project. The training period was performed in optimal conditions and in a relatively short time. In this meaning, the rich experience of the organization had a significant importance for the course of this phase. The development of some similar projects and the existence of an institutional or expert network were just a few of the elements identified by the project coordinator, considered as the strong points both in the initial phases and throughout the project. The next phase was to promote the project. In this phase were made public the adverts related to: selection of communities/communes to be included in the project; the selection of the community facilitators. The project promotion was made by appealing to the print media. The impact was a positive one, the number of communes that required selection within the program exceeded the number of communities provided for the project. The same occurred in case of facilitators, namely there were more candidates than positions granted for the project. As it was a pilot project it was very important that the selection process of the facilitators would be a successful one so as the project itself should not have implementation difficulties only because the selection was unsuccessful. The minimum conditions necessary for the facilitators selection were: basic training in the social-humanistic field, well-developed empathy and communication abilities, knowledge of English language, computer skills, specialty knowledge (public administration, NGO field, development opportunities and resources etc.). In the facilitators selection process were used
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tools (multiple choice tests, tests and questionnaires) that allowed actual evaluation of knowledge, skills and motivational part concerning the participation in such project. At the selection time we considered that the community facilitator is one of the resources the community had to use in the debut of the development processes. This resource is a specialized one, it is an individual with expertise in the resources mobilization and also in the mobilization of the local communities. Necessarily, a minimum experience level regarding the involvement of the future facilitators in development projects would have been one of the mandatory criterion and not an optional criterion. The identification of the individual corresponding to these requirements was not always possible. Another significant aspect identified in the assessment process: the abilities or the capacity to communicate with the members of the rural communities, to establish initiative groups, to establish and develop local teams. The interviews made with individuals from the selected communities pointed the fact that on the rural communities level it is nearly impossible to identify the individual who cumulates all these abilities or knowledge. Accepting some individuals who did not hold any similar knowledge or experience was made because these deficiencies could be compensated by the lecturers and tutors of the project, through training or tutoring activities. This training and support process worked well, but there were also cases that required cancellation of the contract with one of the facilitators because of weak performances obtained. The communes selection was made depending on the cumulation of several conditions: the involvement and support intention of the town halls, the existence of an individual from the community willing to be part of the program, the commune development level. Following the selection process, generally there were two types of communes: communities facing multiple problems, with no resources (human, financial, logistic, etc.) to support the local development initiatives; in the second category were identified communes with a good potential, with positive experiences in the management of community development projects. These items became visible when we assessed the data and information included in the development strategies elaborated by the facilitators. The good potential of some communities, the possibility to access financing lines from public or European funds, the existence of some initiative groups on local level are three of the aspects that allowed some community facilitators to obtain the first actual results, more exactly accessing resources for the community they were part of. On the other hand other communities were not eligible in any ways for the financing lines and the facilitator had to focus on setting up local initiative groups capable of mobilizing local resources for the start of local development processes.
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The facilitators assessment was mainly carried out starting from performance indicators related to: the manner they succeeded to form local initiative groups capable of elaborating projects intended to attract extra-community resources see financings. Therefore, the activities concerning the organization of some work groups formed of community members, the ability to manage team work, in other words those activities that lead to the increase of social capital on community level, were the key items for the success of the community endeavors. Training and tutoring activities The lecturers and tutors teams used were selected from the individuals with experience in the field; previous collaborations and the good results obtained before were the main arguments to take them into the project. The confirmation of the right choice is given by the positive assessments made by facilitators following the training sessions, as well as the tutoring activities. At the end of each training session were used questionnaires to assess the content of the training session and the utility of the information acquired. Also, the assessment forms identified the type of information necessary for the facilitators activity. Starting from such assessments, the facilitators training was mainly focused on t he following aspects: fundraising and project management, training modules related to the improvement of the organization capacity of some local initiative groups to support the local development processes. Selection of the training fields and of the contents was made so as to lead to the formation of a common set of knowledge for all facilitators. The dissemination activities of the project were made by a publication edited during the project. The role of the magazine was to contribute to better information of the rural communities, of the local initiative groups employed in local development processes.

Local development agent (LDA ) The assessment 2 was carried out for the purpose of identifying the main aspects that can fundament the support document for the policy paper in the Local Development Agent

Part of this document was carried out as part of a stufy of public policies in the Consortium for Rural Development, that targeted the introduction of LDA (Local Development Agents) in the structures of the local public administration.

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project. For this purpose, a series of individual and group interviews have been carried out, which aim to underline the main aspects, as these derive from the experience of the persons involved in community development projects. It refers to the main groups managing these processes: local promoters and community facilitators. In the present document, they will be referred to as local development agents. Along with the development agents used in the projects of the Civitas Foundation or CAR -Centre for Rural Assistance, interviews were also carried out with other categories of community development agents. These were subjects who carry out their activity in the projects of the World Bank (RDP - Rural Development Program) or in community development programs carried out by non-governmental organisations (EDRC Ethno-cultural Diversity Resource Centre, ARDC - Romanian Association for Community Development). The points of view of other persons from the local public administration, partners in community development programs or projects were also requested. The interviews carried out with the representatives of local or county administrations have tried to discover the position of institutional players occupying the position of main partners in these endeavours. The option to interview other persons participating in similar community development projects was adopted from the desire to underline the common or specific elements that can be drawn from such an assessments. Local development agent - model assessment The person we refer to as local development agent needs to be present in each of the stipulated stages of community development projects. The LDA is the first person who comes into direct contact with a community and therefore he/she holds a key role in the diagnosis and assessment of the community. The members of the local development department: identify the needs of the community identify and coagulate the human resources in communities

Hosu, Ioan. (co-author) (2005). Assessment of community development models community facilitator and local promoter. In Strengthening the capacity of local public administration to adopt and implement development policies, Policy Paper, Argument for the introduction of the position of Local Development Agent. ClujNapoca: AMM Publishing House (available on www.civitas.ro/publicatii, accessed on: 20.12.2007)

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create an incentive environment in which the community members and community leaders explore their own community, becoming aware of the power they hold

coordinate certain activities in the development projects, especially those which refer to the organisation and development of community meetings - where discussions lead

identify leaders and support the creation of initiative groups grant assistance to initiative groups on specific problems mediate communication and collaboration between the different players involved in the projects (citizens, local administration, NGOs, initiative groups)

inform community members about different opportunities

The support in local development endeavours comes from institutional actors, from inside and/or outside the community. The category of institutional players contributing to local development processes is represented by the private, profit and non-profit sector and by public institutions. The group interviews were carried out with local development agents (promoters and facilitators) who represented both the rural (townships) and the small urban environment. Ten individual interviews and two focus groups were carried out. The interview guide used was the same for individual interviews and for focus groups. The suggested discussion topics were: short characterization of the community in which community development activities were carried out; the aspects to which the subjects consider that they have contributed directly; positive and negative aspects which have influenced the development of the activity in the community; frameworks or conditions necessary to launch the community development process; the public or private institutional structures that can support local development (practices, patterns found in the field);
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the role and place of the community development agent in these endeavours (abilities, knowledge, relations with other institutions, etc.)

the contribution and role of NGOs in community development processes; the contribution and role of the structures of public administration in community development processes;

satisfactions and dissatisfactions of the community development agent, recorded in the community development process;

final recommendations or considerations.

Communities Rural communities and the multi-ethnic character, these two attributes best characterise most of the rural community spaces in Banat and Transylvania. The localities in which local development agents have carried out their activity may be characterised as average-level, in the sense of social-economic and cultural development. The problems these communities are facing are also classified as average-level, none of the communities being in a major crisis situation (extreme poverty, massive migration - of population, delinquency, etc.). There have been a series of specific elements at local level, which were extremely strongly represented and which have made the intervention in the community more difficult, but on the whole, we may state that we are dealing with communities exhibiting average-level problems. None of the analysed cases was dealing with prosperous communities with positive dynamics (on social-economic, demographical or cultural level).

Contributions of local development agents For some of the respondents, the simple presence or employment of development agents in the apparatus of the local public administration is considered a great benefit, because thus they managed to mobilize the persons from these institutions (it mainly refers to the mayor, secretary or members of the local council) for the stimulation and activation of the
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development process at local level. The development agents presence and involvement in the community also determines other achievements and punctual contributions: attracting financing sources, participation in strategic planning processes (local development strategies). The successful finalization of these activities leads to a higher level of trust within the initiative groups of the community but also for the development agent. To the same extent, we witness a positive motivation of those who take part in the development process. The interviews suggest that, in many situations, short-time objectives need to be set to increase the degree of trust and motivation of local initiative groups and also to gain the support of the overall community. From the participants answers we may conclude that most of the activities and contributions to community development were and are carried out in and together with the institutions of the local administration - town halls or local councils from the communities in which local development agents were present. To a smaller extent, activities or contributions coming from the public institutions present at local or county level are mentioned. These answers featured the problem of public-private partnership, to a larger extent, with reference to the collaboration relations established between NGOs and public institutions at local or county level. A poorly represented action level is that referring to the collaboration with public institutions represented at county level. The first aspect noted by the community development agent: degradation or even absence of cultural coordinates (identity, tradition, values) in the community space. A first observation which can be drawn is: the strengthening of the cultural dimension of community life (in a broader sense, it may refer to the construction of a well shaped local identity) may represent a first stage in the local development agents activity. In activities with a cultural character, we can set up certain variables connected to sociability. These endeavours may have a positive impact on certain social components, which favour the local development processes, mainly referring to participation, associativity or social responsibility - these qualities are the most important attributes of those who get involved in cultural activities. On the other hand, many of the respondents have marked the beginning of the activities in the community with these types of activities. The contribution to the development of the community in which he/she carries out his/her activity is the result of a complex of factors, which is difficult to rank and therefore we will only mention these:
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the development agents presence in the structures of the local public administration brings a qualitative and quantitative plus in the life of that community;

the finality of the development agents activities materializes in the generation of well-being for the community in which he/she carries out his/her activity. We do not only refer to material or financial benefits, we should probably first of all refer to that increase in social capital, which later on will lead to the achievement of material and financial well-being;

the availability of local public administrations to start and support local development processes (attracting external funds, mobilization of the community resources in this process).

The positive aspects mentioned by the persons interviewed equally include the problems the local communities have faced, as well as the facts that have lead to the solving of these undesired situations: reactivation of the community: this was mentioned as one of the major positive contributions of community development (this was achieved considering that the community landscape was an extremely heterogeneous one, from an ethno-linguistic, social and cultural point of view). Indicators of the community development process perceived as being positive: establishing an NGO (in most of the cases, they were dealing with a local interest NGO), starting fundraising campaigns, the fulfilment of infrastructure-related objectives, would be the most important actions initiated in the early stages of community development processes. The achievement of these indicators was possible after a longer period of activity of the local development agent, who each time benefited from the support of powerful non-governmental resource centres functioning at a regional or national level. Increase in the level of participation among the young population. Increase in the level of participation of young people was possible through sports-related or cultural activities. The positive contributions to the communitys life are mentioned in two major categories:

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(i) increase in the participation level of community members (it refers to activities exhibiting an associative character - culture, sports, etc.); (ii) attracting external financial resources with the support of the local public administration. Tis section underline the problems or negative aspects encountered in community facilitation activities is, as expected, much more extensive and better represented in the respondents speech. The less glamorous aspects, the problems encountered are the ones that can provide a real feedback for those who wish to implement community facilitation or development programs in the future. Experience tells us that when we talk about successful cases, we tend to take these models over. However, we also need to take into account the negative aspects when we wish to adopt these models. The following aspects could be included in this category: financial-economic obstacles (the aspects mentioned are the ones blocking local initiatives from the very start; this element is the most important factor that demotivates individuals, organisations or local institutions); the lack of information, the lack of training of the interlocutors in the community in the key fields in which local development projects should be initiated; the lack of initiative of formal and informal leaders in the community (their inaction is based on a previous negative experience that has lead to the instauration of an erroneous conception we also tried that, but its not possible); the lack of strategic vision within the local public administration; persistence of an old conception concerning local development (the only thing that is important for the mayors is to introduce water, gas and the construction of roads) among locally responsible persons. Local authorities focus on investment objectives for which there are no local resources and this often means that these cannot be carried out and this leads to the discontent of the population, which does not see the materialization of promises made during election campaigns;

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inefficiently matured development agents: (i) from a professional point of view (meaning that they do not have a field of competence in which to manifest their authority); (ii) from the point of view of their personality (lack of seriousness, assumption of activities which result in immediate profit for them - image capital which they exploit later on in election contest, editing only those funding projects which result in an immediate financial profit for them, etc. )

migration of some of the local development agents towards politics - this aspect dissatisfies both the representatives of non-governmental organisations and those of the public administration. When a local development agent expresses his/her intention to enter politics, there is an immediate braking and blocking effect triggered by those threatened or by future competitors in the political space (members of the local council and mayors);

the poor (financial and institutional) sustainability of the position of local development agent is the cause for the instability or departures from the community.

The conditions or settings in which local development processes are initiated are localised in the area of activity of the local development agents, community members or within the local public administration. The settings or conditions that might generate development have been pointed out, based on the positive experiences encountered by respondents in the communities where they acted. Conditions or preconditions required for the initiation of community development processes: diagnosis of the community; analysis of the community in order to determine the primary public for different actions/activities at community level; information campaign and public debates; attracting decision-makers from local and county level in the community development process; strategic planning - after this process, local development agents have determined development priorities: those that can be achieved using local resources, objectives
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that can be achieved using external resources (either referring to infrastructure-related objectives or other social-cultural objectives, etc.) These preconditions represent the technical endeavours that have mostly been covered by all the local development agents. These activities should be carried out in a logical order, but there have also been stages carried out based on a different algorithm imposed by local realities and constraints, these being in fact adaptations which were most probably imposed by the situation in the field. Some of the respondents (development agents) have stated that they needed a period of time to become familiar with the community in which they were going to work (this refers to a normal process of acquaintance and socialization with the values, norms and unwritten laws of the community).

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Community evaluation, public agenda The community profile; Identification of elements that facilitate/ block CD processes; Identification of the problems in the agenda setting and the connection with CD Modalities of obtaining public support; research-action.

The position of local administration in the development processes People are made aware of this role in the ever increasing number of planning strategies of authorities. These development strategies elaborated by the local public administration need to consider the populations priorities. On the other hand, the self-assessment of the institutional capacity of local public institution (assessment of the activities carried out by the local public administration) is required. This type of investigation should be carried out periodically, because the information obtained grants the possibility to evaluate the efficiency of the institutions of local public administrations. Some of the responsibilities of the local public administration that would support the processes of local development are: identification of resources and partners for local development, responsibility to define local development strategies, responsibility to initiate local development programs and to correlate these with the development programs and strategies at national and regional level. The new paradigms concerning local and community development underline the role of reliable relationships and associativity at community level. Unfortunately, collectivist practices and forced associations from the communist period have lead to the depreciation of the idea of working together for common good. The communitys involvement in local development programs implies the assumption of the lines of action in respect of strategic planning by the development units: village or township.

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However, the initiatives of non-governmental organisations are often oriented towards the increase or development of civic initiatives, while public administration if first of all oriented towards infrastructure projects. The latter initiatives, those referring to infrastructure, may very easily be converted into election capital. The initiatives supporting the development of the civic spirit are perceived by the elected ones as actions leading to the creation of a critical crowd within the community. For instance, the activity carried out by the LDA (local development agent) is not oriented strictly towards the generation of economic capital, but the activity oriented towards the increase of social capital (development of social networks, emphasis on trust and participation, associativity and volunteering) might be more important. The preoccupation with the increase of social capital is an important one in respect of development, both in the European space but especially in the North American space (the problem of social capital is in the attention of politicians, scientists and last but not least in the attention of the practitioners dealing with local development and planning) (Hutchinson, 2004: vol. 70, iss. 2). The multipurpose development of local communities must be of essence for a LDA or for the structures managing local development, but the performance indicators which matter and which are considered when the process is being assessed measure mainly physical achievements (number of elaborated projects, quantum of financings, etc.). The success of certain community development initiatives is considered from the perspective of these indicators, while the aspects related to the training of leaders, creation of functional social networks or the increase of social capital are left out. The assessment of the process, according to the type of indicators, has left some people with the impression that community development and economic development are equal. The tasks and responsibilities of a community development structure are closely tied to the attributions and responsibilities of the local public administration, as these are defined in the legislation referring to the organisation and functioning of public local

administrations/authorities, but these cannot be reduced only to that. The differences which always emerge, regardless of the culture and system we relate to, underline in fact, the necessity of planning and developing a set of instruments which is appropriate for the always changing intervention needs of the social-economic environment. Therefore, one cannot identify standard attributes and responsibilities, which universally apply to any social45

economic, administrative or political environment, even if common traits or even models may be found, being most of the times adapted to a national or at most euro-regional climate. We can say that we have a set of elements - common denominator for all the institutional structures concerned with local/community development: (i) identification of the specific problems restraining the social-economic development of a community; (ii) responsible assumption or initiation of solutions for answering to the communitys problems; (iii) detailed programming-planning of actions and activities intended to lead to the implementation of the projects and achievement of desired results. One of the fundamental features of institutional structures managing community development, regardless of their operational structure, is the task of researching the status of local communities in order to identify appropriate solutions for the problems which are restraining the local social-economic development. The research, planning, marketing element highlights the difference between the common administrative action, which can be defined as conventional, as opposed to that of Local Development Agents (LDAs), who are or should be dynamic and capable of quickly adapting to the permanently changing needs of the community. Additionally, the LDAs must possess the essential capacity to forecast changes and to prepare the local communities it is in charge of for the new demands which will emerge in a few years. Of course, these performances are based on personal experience, on in depth macro and micro economic studies that must be carried out with the participation of local and international interested experts and last but not least, on the human and professional quality which the personnel of the local development department must possess.

Research action and participative research The research-action endeavor frames in the large trend of theoretical analyses that concern the role of democratic institutions in providing safety for the community or for the nations members. Our interest is focused on the manner in which new organized structures are formed (groups or organizations that are providers of collective products, in the meaning that such collective products can also be public products: infrastructure, services, welfare etc.). We
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fully approve Olsons idea according to which the members of a group, in this case communities, do not act collectively based on some instinctual feelings, but it is rather about a rational type of endeavor in which the organized and individual interests meet (Olson, 1965). The organized structures analyzed by us are represented by organizational entities which are not completely subject to the economic type of logic or to the market laws. The Oslon theoretical system appeals to a great extent to the economic thinking. By community development, the organizations and institutions intend to stimulate or to create favorable frameworks for the economic environment, but the initiators of these endeavors are essentially the institutional actors which are not governed by a purely economic logic (public

administration, non-profit organizations, forms of association based on volunteering) (Salamon and Anheier, 1996). Due to such reasons the present endeavor does not create and does not suggest an analysis model in a canonical form as it is seen in the logic of collective action, but the analysis is focused only on one dimension of the collective action theory elaborated by Olson related to the appearance and development of group forms capable of developing social actions. The presentation of some mathematical analysis models that will include these social innovations (community facilitating processes) will represent the object of other research endeavors. The analyses performed during the work are focused on the way in which relations are generated between two activity areas, namely the public and nonprofit areas. The relations between the public and nonprofit areas had and still have a winding and problematic route in our country and also in any part of the world. The role of the nonprofit area, also named the third area is to supervise the way in which the state institutions perform their duties for the citizens. The watch dog role of democracy is not the most comfortable because beyond aspects that relate to a social critic of the public or private sector, the nonprofit organizations must, in their turn provide solutions or alternative action models for those situations in which the public or private institutions do not succeed to cover satisfactorily. The interventions of nonprofit organizations must create a continuum between the public and the profit private area, a continuum in the ideas platform plan or even of the services for the citizen or community (Snavely, Desai, 2001). The present endeavor is the response to the challenges related to the implementation of some social innovations with the role to grow local participation meant to lead to development in and through communities. The sociologizing endeavors of some projects of this type frame
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in specific clinical sociological approaches and they are sometimes forced to give up the methodological rigors in favor of elements that lead to better standard optimal formulas for the innovation beneficiaries (Sandu, 2005). The applied sociology or the clinical sociology is the most important name or denomination applied to a set of practices or research and intervention models in the social area. M. Weber, G. Simmel, K. Lewin are just a part of the creators of sociological systems who pleaded for what we call at present - intervention. The attempt to define and establish the principles for the clinical approach in the sociology field is placed somewhere at the beginning of the fourth decade of the 20 th century in the USA. Promotion of clinical approaches or of the research action principles basically represent the return to roots, the reason of being of the sociology, more exactly the role and the place taken by the sociologist and the sociological science in the social area in the attempt to offer solutions to the problems faced by the human communities. We will admit the fact that sociology consolidates its scientific status in a period in which societies from the western European area suffer major transformations due to the social-economic development imposed by industrialism, the need to comprehend the changes faced by the individual and the society, the need for prognosis and the need to avoid uncertainty generated by the social change. In this period, namely the half of the 19th century, there is a need to explain and to interpret scientifically the issues of the societies and the communities in changing process. In the 20 th century we witness the multiplication of problematic situations on the society and community level, situation that attracts the appearance of a high number of subjects arising from the explanation and intervention field of sociology. The crisis of the American society from the 30s triggers a re-evaluation of the position adopted by sociologists and sociology on society level or within the social-humanistic sciences community. In Romanian sociology, Dimitrie Gusti suggests and applies militant models of social research and intervention, the militant character of sociology is doubled by the initiation into interdisciplinarity with the declared purpose of social reform. In essence, re-evaluation of sociological type of approaches underlies the following principles (Ionescu, 2004: 184): Social phenomena can only be understood in their totality an d

complexity; We shall abandon the disciplinary restrictions that generate intellectual

rigidities to think properly, the social-humanistic subjects are not built against the
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living; they relate to the existential, affective, individual, social, rebuilding the endeavor to better comprehend the complexity of the bio-socio-psychic relations; The sociologist is like the social life doctor; the word clinical is used to

make us think about the medical practice: we should focus on problematic areas, near the people, at the ills bedside in the real community where there are needs and social issues etc. I would like to underline the fact that the approach of some social innovations as those we will refer to below requires interdisciplinarity related treatment and this aspect will be quite obvious in the following chapters. The strategic planning processes, the community public relations, the evaluation of community programs and projects are two aspects rising from the administrative sciences area and the treatment of such aspects is made by appealing to borrowings and exchanges from other areas or subjects. The theoretical and methodological perspective is basically a sociological one but sometimes the analysis frameworks are rather borrowed from much more often applied fields. Although we referred to theoretical perspectives like: collective action, social capital, mobilization of resources, the data analyzes were made by appealing to the inductive generalization and we did not build mathematical models, as a games theory supporter would probably expect. This type of approach underlies the analysis of one or more cases for the development of some explanations or theories valid in a certain context or a certain set of conditions. This aspect represents a possible limit of this endeavor if we refer to the supporters of formalism in the explanation and exchange of some institutional frameworks (Scott, 2004: 120). The practical model3 we suggest intends to be a solution to some major challenges of the rural communities: the aspect of managing conceptions related to development. The information from Rural Euro Barometer 2003, made by GALLUP Organization on the request of the Foundation for an Open Society point out the fact that on rural community level the public

The present material was elaborated during the course of the pilot project COMMUNITY FACILITATOR

(2002-2003), and then it was published in a guide for practices dissemination related to community development (see: Balogh, M., Hosu, I., Radu, S., Facilitator Comunitar Ghid practic de dezvoltare local, [Community Facilitator Local Development Practical Guide] Cluj-Napoca, Fundatia Civitas, 2004)

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administration is most of the times the only institutional resort which involves in solving the problems of the rural communities (73% of those questioned mentioned this fact). Many other papers or studies from the community development area point out the fact that in the rural environment from Romania the main development/initiative agent is the local administration. This fact supports the viewpoint concerning the importance of human resources existent in the local public administration as a main vector of development. The same study (Rural Euro Barometer 2003, page 51) reveals the fact that 55% of those questioned identifies public servants as the main individuals with initiative on community level. In this context the community facilitator model, as project of some NGOs may be regarded as a public policy proposal intended to support the operational capacity provided by the structures of the local public administration. On the level of 1995-2000, we are talking about a low development capacity on local level, especially in the rural and small urban environment from Romania. This status is firstly due to the low operational capacity on the public administration level, and to the lack of strategic orientation on community level, in the recognition of local potential and of other development agents from community level. In the foundation part of the model were performed a series of studies and analyzes related to the potential or capacity to mobilize and support with resources (internal or external) the development processes on local level. The result of these endeavors was a set of work hypotheses that guided the implementation, monitoring and assessment of the pilot project community facilitator. In our conception this pilot project is an endeavor that we could name standard for the mobilization of community resources within a collective action that regards social-economic change (development).

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Promotion of local initiatives

Interest, collective action, participation, social capital, community relations;

Communication for development communicational resources for increasing participation

Community public relations: interface between community and development agents

Public, economic debates or those in the field of media are nowadays abundant in terms referring to concepts which are highly utilised in the field of public relations and communication: public opinion, organisational and institutional spaces, strategies, publicprivate partnership, development, community, corporate social responsibility, etc. In what follows, we will try to highlight the existence of a strong connection between two concepts or even phenomena, which are in the centre of the current social space; these are the systems of community relations and the problem of development. However, we will present part of the major acceptations of the concept of development and highlight those aspects or elements which are found in the theoretical-methodological inventory of an expert in public relations. We will introduce in this works economy a new collocation, that of community relations, intended to elaborate community marketing strategies, which contribute to the creation of a better shaped local identity or to the desire to exploit or produce community resources (better shaped local identity, high level of participation, social capital, symbolic capital, etc.). Hence, we will try to present the existence of certain common traits between the practices of local or community practice and the community publics relation systems (systems which may lead to the: creation of community networks, increase in the degree of cohesion or in the level of integration, namely participation). The problem referring to development cannot be treated as being over-simple, meaning that solving the problems of stagnation and economic underdevelopment at local level is not caused by a single factor and the solutions to the problem of weak economic performance does not only lie in political or administrative decisions, referring only to economic
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indicators. The current concepts referring to development (here we refer to the development of local communities) imply extremely diverse definitions, due to the wide range of intervention area that a local development strategy has to answer to. From the numerous challenges or finalities of local development endeavours we mention: insuring an investment climate which is favourable for the local business environment creating an incentive environment for small and medium enterprises support for the foundation of new firms and companies at local level selective support for certain types of business supporting the economic activities with high innovative potential attracting investors from the national and international space investments in physical infrastructure investments in educational and professional training systems, which can support the normal development of the labour market creating areas with a special character, intended for the regeneration of the local economic development process orientation towards socially and economically disadvantaged groups (Mirean, Hosu, Svulescu, 2002). For each of the previously mentioned finalities we can insert roles, tasks and functions which are specific for an expert in community relations, mainly targeting: managerial conception of those who coordinate and implement strategic planning processes, the degree of openness or transparency of local authorities, the need to promote the communitys values at an internal or external level, setting institutional frameworks which facilitate the establishment of intra and extra community partnerships, etc. The local economic development process has a direct correspondent in a series of indicators, based on which we are capable to appreciate the increase of the standard of living for the members of a community: level of income, access to high-quality medical and educational
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services, infrastructural facilities for transport and communication, etc. However, other two secondary objectives confer value to this mainly material well-being: these refer to two social advantages, namely self-confidence and the freedom to choose the goods and services resulting from local economic development processes. The problem of choosing and selfconfidence are elements which confer durability to the economic development process. In this case, durability refers to the quality of human resource - responsibility, commitment, capacity to adapt, mobility. All these attributes may be acquired only if there is preoccupation with or if community public relation strategies are being elaborated for the administration and growth of these non-financial resources of local communities. Local development refers especially to those preoccupations of the structures within the local public administrations, which refer to the permanent improvement of the investment and business climate for the increase of the local economys competitiveness, as well as for the increase of the standard of living for community members. Community development places the financial capital or the economic aspect on second place, as the indirect contributions provided by the growth of social capital are primordial for the increase of the quality of life. Still, there are a series of elements which differentiate between the two adjacent concepts: community development and local development. In both concept forms there are common elements but also aspects which confer their distinctiveness. In both cases, we have processes which lead to an increase of the standard of living of a population within a certain habitat. Considering that the two approaches mainly target the same results, it sometimes happens that during the development of certain phases some common elements emerge. But, beyond the conceptual differences, there are a series of different empirical approaches, mainly determined by local traits or local particularities. Current conceptions referring to development highlight the importance of social change processes, with positive consequences in the social-political and economic space, in the sense of creating economic advantages. Mentality-related changes materialise in embracing another type of attitude, which rejects self-sufficiency or the acceptance of the condition of assisted individual. A change in the value system, different reference depending on the individuals or communitys performance, may only be achieved through investments in the field of human resources; more precisely, investments in high standard education and in professional training adjusted to the requirements and dynamics of the work force. Each of these elements requires financial and logistic resources, which can be provided by efficiently operating local
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economies. Local development projects imply change and change can be translated as unknown, uncertainty, new, surrendering what we know and finally as learning new action models. The individual, group or local community opposes all these elements brought by change, especially when nobody considers to explain the manner in which things will evolve or the manner in which the indiv iduals or communitys life would change. Public consultations, public information campaigns, public debates, establishment of permanent communication channels which insure the public agendas transparency are only some steps at hand for the specialist in community public relations, engaged in major social change projects. A first remark that can be asserted up to this moment: local development generates a chain of processes with multi-sectorial / multi-dimensional implications (economic, political, social and value-attitude-related, both at individual as well as at institutional level). It is difficult to specify which of the following dimensions represents the motor of development: economic capital, social capital, the elaboration system of public policies concerning local development, etc. For each of the mentioned dimensions we find theoretical arguments which prove the preeminence of one or the other considered dimensions. Local economic development, seen as a social process, takes place in a certain spatial-temporal context, for which it is difficult to find a single cause responsible for the emergence and successful development of the respective process. One way (the 1960s in the United States of America) through which the stimulation of local economic development was intended was to stimulate the establishment of public-private partnerships. These partnerships were supported from federal financial sources and they encouraged the establishment of local committees, to which municipalities would offer a rather broad autonomy for the recharge of local economy. In the following two decades, the same policies were continued for attracting private financial resources in local economic development projects. Economic restructuring was managed by specialised institutions, separately from local authorities; these would usually function as non-profit corporations. Private organisational frameworks managing the local economic development initiatives were and are accepted (applicable especially for the American space - high level of acceptance coming from the public opinion) to a larger extent as compared to the initiatives which came from the private sector (Green, 2002: 397). These examples are illustrations from a socialcultural and economic space which is different from the European one. Certainly, structural
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elements may differ in the two geo-cultural areas, the European and the American space; still the same forces, which may influence local economic development, are kept: public-private partnership and public policies intended to support and generate local development. Research concerning local economic development indicates that the central point for these analyses is occupied by the relationship between political institutions and the manner in which public policies are elaborated for local economic development. There are several forms in which local authorities may organise the activities which lead to the recharge of local economy, but each of these endeavours exhibit risks and possible blockages. The possibility of centralising the endeavours for local economic development within the mayors office (it could refer to a position created under the direct command of the mayor or to the position of city manager), the mayors subordination or control means or may mean an excessive political involvement of the activities referring to local economic development. Another formula might be that in which an independent institutional structure, responsible for local economic development, is created. The advantages of this formula would be: high level of specialization in the field of development, better coordination with the programs or activities supporting local economic development (urbanism, construction of homes, infrastructure, etc.), better public visibility and better control of the citizens in respect of this institutions activity. The main disadvantage would be related to the assignment of resources for operation. In both cases, the institutional formulas through which responsibilities are granted to certain departments within the local public administration exhibit the risk of becoming bureaucratic, of slow reaction to the challenges launched on the market and last but not least the risk of subordinating the objectives of local economic development to commandments of political nature. We have mentioned this new position of city manager because we wanted to highlight the fact that this new structure may and must include in the job description, the responsibilities afferent to community public relation systems. A good relationship to the internal public and to the external public may have the following immediate consequences (Barr, 2005): the detection and appropriate handling of relationships with various categories of public within the community leads to an increase in the level of cohesion, participation, confidence (we refer to the social capital: system of norms and values promoting cooperation as the fundament for well-being at individual and social level)
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the study and rational planning of the system for external public relationhips leads to the creation of favourable premises for investments in the community.

Another formula which may be adopted by local authorities might be that referring to the assignment of these responsibilities to local organisations/institutions, which are specialised in local development (technology parks, business incubators, special status areas, etc.) The advantages resulting from adopting these formulas are: professionalization of the endeavours referring to local development, including the public relations and public communication component; the possibility to attract sources of private financing during projects developed together with local communities (for instance, by creating or promoting certain local brands). The main criticism brought to this model is that individuals or groups responsible for this process act more in the interest of businessmen and less in the interest of the public, of the citizens. In this case, there is a major risk fo r these structures not to capitalize the citizens trust in a society, which was and still is used to seeing public, local or central institutions as the administrators of public well-being or of the path towards well-being. This fear of the citizen may be justified, as long as there are high levels of activities associated with corruption, low levels or even absence of decisional transparency. What is certain is that in the field of local economic development, the establishment of strong connections between public authorities and the private sector is required. The resulted institutional formulas have allowed the professionalization of future endeavours for local economic development, have benefited from autonomy in respect of the modes of action, have permanently provided support for the process of elaboration of local policies in the field of development (local development strategies) and have permanently been under a form control which insured the transparency and fairness of the actions carried out. A better circumscription of the concept of local economic development might result also if we tried to answer some questions (which are otherwise standard in the specialised literature of the social-human field): which are the most appropriate instruments for reaching superior phases on an economic and social level, which are the obstacles for reaching these desiderates and finally, which are the expectations of the main interested parties (Green, 2002: 394). A
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possible answer for these questions represents the elaboration of local economic development strategies. A short consideration of some local development strategies has revealed that in all these strategies there are important communication and public relations components, which are indispensable to the local programming and planning process (components of image, credibility, visibility, attractiveness, etc.) In the context of a global economic competition, local communities have become aware of the fact that their well-being is based on development strategies that imply multiple sides, including the idea of relationship, trust, commitment and cooperation (Warner, 2000): i) ii) requires long-term commitment and investments requires the establishment of numerous partnerships (with the business sector, community leaders, with interested groups or types of public ) iii) implies the performance of numerous activities developed within a managerial conception adapted to global competition iv) long-term strategic thinking and vision.

This list actually accentuates the importance of certain elements, which occupy central positions in the field of public relation systems: commitment, starting relationships based on trust, partnership relationships. Local economic development represents, defined in the simplest manner, the communitys effort to attract and keep within the community investments and new businesses. This effort implies the existence of certain mechanisms, which support the growth and consolidation of the economic sector at local level. Beyond the financial-economic mechanisms, attracting investors also implies systems for establishing relationships, which stimulate cooperation, cultivate the parties trust (in this case, we are not referring only to relationships that are mutually favourable from a financial point of view, but we must bear in mind a different aspect which is frequently called forth by those responsible for public relations and big companies: the dimension of corporate social responsibility). Strategic planning is the key activity of the local development process; this results both from the theory, as well as from the practice of local economic development: Strategic
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development is defined as the systematic process of organisation management, of establishing future relations with the external environment, as well as identifying the requirements of the interested parties from outside the organisation [...] the strategic planning process includes strategy formulation, analysing the strong and weak points, identifying all the interested parties, implementing strategic actions, as well as classifying the aspects referring to management. (Berry and Wechsler, 1995). In the definition from above, we may note the importance of the term relation when we talk about the strategic processes intended to lead to the communitys well-being. The challenges faced by local authorities during the strategic planning process or of decisionmaking processes in general are, according to some, refer only to the observance of legal regulations. This conception is more than superseded, if we do not take into consideration the fact that in todays community spaces there are many types of public, with very different interests or that these types of public have the possibility to influence the decision-making processes (Snow, Zucher, Olson, 1980). To these new situation in the social space, we may also add the fact that efficient local governments currently turn to public consultations and debates with topics of general interest or of interest only to a certain category of the public. In this moment, we may add another element which supports the need to include public relations in the strategic planning processes or in the decision-making processes: permanent monitoring of the performances of community leaders or of the public institutions by the local media or by the civil society. Along with strategic planning, the managerial dimension, as part of the local development process, represents a key factor which leads to the fulfilment or non-fulfilment of the objectives of local economic development. The management component within this process will insure the institutionalization of this entire endeavour by trying to avoid, as much as possible, any discontinuity, fragmentation or conflict between the parties involved. Discontinuities may be the result of inconsistent or inconsequent policies, unequal relationships between partners (poor communication and information of some of the interested parties). Leadership and communication potentiate, mobilise the entire human ensemble present in the planning process, thus contributing to a better coordination of the effort to implement the strategic vision.

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The strategic document (development strategy) resulting from the consultation and participation of interested parties, must provide the vision over local development, targets, objectives, programs, projects and the successful implementation of the strategic model drafted for the community together with it. The finality of any procedure for local economic development is the growth of local economic competitiveness, based on a local economic development strategy. The strategy elaboration process implies the participation of specialists in wide domains: economy, marketing, administration, urban planning, etc. This great diversity of professional fields involved in the strategy elaboration process may generate problems in establishing the priorities of local development (McGowan, 1998). This shortcoming is a minor one; however, there are major problems and blocks that may intervene, both in the elaboration and in the implementation phase: mistrust of individuals in public institutions (generated for instance by corruption); subordination by the political element (locally elected figures) of the strategic planning processes; lack of co-financing resources from local budgets; persistence of the assisted mentality in case of many communities, lack of a professional body which can manage the local economic development processes. The solutions brought by the CPR (community public relations) expert are intended to reduce the problems emerging during the elaboration of the strategy and later to reduce the risks which may emerge during the implementation of these strategies. Community public relation systems are and must be seen as functions of the public management; moreover, we believe that public relations lay the foundations of stable and durable community and local development models. Social durability is achieved by using action models from the system for community public relations intended to create a favourable climate for the development of local communities by cultivating: trust and participation (of the individual) and transparency and responsibility of institutions.

Our intention is to analyze a social practice that may be framed in the category of collective actions on local level that require mobilization of resources in community areas from the rural environment, in a society that still has centralism reflexes both on individual and institutional level. The social practices or innovations analyzed, the community facilitator and local development agent represent the steps of a common action of some community actors who
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intend to satisfy some local requirements. More precisely, we refer to situations in which we analyze behaviors of some organized groups pertaining to the public and private areas. We consider the fact that the actors we refer to are initiators and also beneficiaries of participation, and the action plan is rather public and less private. These are just a few of the coordinates we follow, in fact they are also defining items for more or less institutionalized participation (Kaufman, Wilkinson, 1967, apud Sandu, 2005: 43). The methodological framework of analysis or the research strategy was chosen so as to allow a good comprehension of the way in which are mobilized the resources within the collective actions with local, public and group character. Our theoretical and methodological endeavor starts from the assumption that the community development processes include the two concepts around which the paper is elaborated, namely the collective action and the resources mobilization (part of the tools with the help of which the community developers operate: local development strategies, public-private partnerships and the community public relationships, all found within specialized organizational structures). The success of each investigation endeavor of the phenomena from the social area lies in the manner or the strategy of performing the research. Any research strategic endeavor has its pros and cons, being imposed by three factors: (i) the research objective, (ii) the particularity of the phenomenon analyzed, (iii) the researchers control upon the events and processes studied. The research method employed is the multiple case study. The choice for this research strategy was mainly influenced by the characteristics of the researched phenomenon, the community development seen as a form of the collective action correlated with mobilization strategies of the resources. The community facilitation processes relate to the development of a community; the facilitation process is complex and somehow unique, even if it is not absolutely unique for the researcher. In the attempt to answer as precisely as possible to the questions launched in the introductory chapter how is development possible, which are the community sources for development we considered the case study as the most appropriate strategic step to answer the introductory interrogations.

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The research goal is to explain the way in which community resources are mobilized within some collective actions that lead to development. The comprehension of processes and phenomena mentioned above depends on exploratory, descriptive and explanatory studies that used quality or quantity research methods (Yin, 2005). The analysis of some community frameworks implies the use of research methods that cover the complexity and diversity of realities from the field, the complementary approach is required from methodological point of view, mixing the quality and quantity methods. The information obtained from the inquiry or the information resulted from interviews does not represent component elements in the general assessment of the phenomenon studied. We will not consider the standard related to the performance of an institution, the situation in which a community is established following the analysis of some survey information. The general assessment of an institution or community is obtained following the combination of sources and methods (interviews, direct or participative observation, analysis of documents, inquiries data), action that would lead to a double advantage for the research endeavor: (i) on the one hand the data collected will be rich, detailed, profound; (ii) we provide what is called triangulation of methods and data, the direct implications being the growth of validity and constancy. We refer to the collective action which translates in community participation and mobilized resources. The main assumption of the work is that community development is the result of some collective actions that occur on community level, aimed to mobilize community resources. As depicted from the paper, the community development concept has a significant ideological charge supported by concepts like community participation, social capital, resources mobilization, communitarianism each of these concepts includes guide-images, beliefs through which it attempts to found public actions (Sandu, 2005:42) The analysis framework was designed so as to respond to the main goal of the research: description and explanation of the manner in which the two key concepts of the paper (collective action and resources mobilization) find applicability in the community development field. The data collection and analysis methods were chosen by observing two principles that underlie the knowledge in social sciences: adequacy and simplicity principles. Referring to the adequacy principle, Culic (2004) underlined the importance of choosing the proper conceptual framework for the researched issue and then following the simplicity
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principle the researcher will make an analysis framework that will describe reality as good as possible. The two principles aim to elaborate a simple and efficient model for the description of the studied phenomena. The actual design of the research intended to include analysis units as homogenous as possible and a simple and efficient model that will describe the dynamic and problematic community realities, as those from the community areas. Despite the fact that the analysis of the community facilitator model underlies a methodology of the case study type, we tried to develop a series of sentences that will also capitalize value on theoretical level. Although we had a series of ten communities, there is only one model of community development and facilitation in ten communities. The endeavor is comparative only on community level, as under the aspect of investigation methods we followed a high standardization of the facilitators data collection tools. This quality type of approach was consolidated with a research action type of approach trying to test, correct and develop the model suggested. The case studies and especially the research-action methodologies gained ground in the research applied field, and had the support of numerous partnerships between the local public and central administration and the non-governmental organizations. The research - action type of endeavor plays a part in the enrichment of the scientific process, both on theoretical development level and on the level of solutions provided by the science for the social development.

The goals of the study mix exploratory, descriptive and explanatory objectives for the suggested community model so as to describe the significant moments during the evolution and development of community initiatives: the institutional type of aspects, the cooperation and partnership practices, associations on community level, presentation of the historical context that led to success or failure. This type of data was collected by appealing to: informal semi-structured interviews or strongly formalized with community members; the analysis of some documents or reports provided by the community leaders or by the community facilitators present in the community. The group debates, the participation in community assemblies or in the meetings of the local initiative groups completed the image about the social structure, the type of relations and interactions or inter-community relations. This map of the community, of quality nature, allowed calibration of the type and volume of interactions in the community area. Despite the fact that we opted for the use of all data that
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could be generated from the interaction with the communities members or with the community facilitators, there is the risk that datas validity could be affected. In order to avoid this deficiency we appealed to triangulation, both of the methods and data, the purpose being to increase the predictive validity, which is reduced, anyway, when we use quality methodologies (Rotariu and Ilu, 2006). In the first phases of the research we used less standardized tools and then the reporting manner of community realities was presented much more systematically and it was standardized to a high extent. Adopting a quality type research strategy intends to describe aspects related to the social diversity, the presentation of common elements or of those that make the difference between the studied cases with the purpose of identifying models or mechanisms that generate the appearance or manifestation of some social phenomena or processes.

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Strategies for community development

Meanings and models; Development of CD plans and strategies steps and stages of the process of elaboration of CD strategies; Implementation of community development strategies.

Participatory planning processes and community development Experience shows that there are various ways in which local communities are organised in respect of economic development. The study of local political, social and economic conditions may lead to a first level of understanding of the mechanisms or principles according to which local economic development projects may be coordinated. The starting point for local development is the existence of local initiatives and the communitys responsibility for its own well-being. Constantly waiting for an initiative coming from above means nothing else than falling behind or standstill. The fact is known that, in highly centralized systems, local communities rely entirely on the governments initiatives when certain problematic situations need to be solved. The direct involvement of governments, through payment transfers or investments in local production capacities has lead to solving the communitys problems, but it also created a reflux according to which all the initiatives come from the centre. The reform processes in public administration, the principle of administrative decentralization and that of subsidiarity have offered a new approach for the activities in the public sector, resulting in a transfer of responsibilities (at least partially) from the central to the local level. Thereby, decentralization has triggered the idea of community development, an idea according to which local development agents take the initiative in drafting and implementing local development programs. Beyond the possible definitions for strategic development, there is a set of steps which need to be taken (Mc Gowan, 1998:305):
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Assessment of the external environment: this endeavour is necessary because in the absence of these assessments, the initiators of local economic development processes risk missing the set goals; the external environment must include more than the communities found in the immediate proximity; because we are currently witnessing a global compet ition in which local communities are engaged, the offers or support packages provided by communities or municipalities from the furthest geographic regions should be taken into consideration. Distance is less and less important for an investor and the important variables are the support packages that part of the local or central communities benefit from, fiscal facilities, cost and the quality of work force, namely the innovation capacity, etc.

Assessment of the internal environment of the organization/institution which administers the strategic planning process: an internal audit of the organisation may identify the strong and weak points of the organisation, as well as the degree of managerial and organisational efficiency in strategy implementation, etc.

Selection and implementation of strategic objectives: the selection of strategic development objectives is carried out after the assessment of the internal and external environment of the organization; determining and implementing the local economic development objectives; existence of a monitoring plan concerning the

implementation; increased attention will be given to problematic objectives, meaning those objectives which are questionable in respect of their achievement. The role of strategic planning is to set priorities in respect of: investments referring to infrastructure creating the support frame for local or regional institutions active in the field of economic development developing the existing social capital on a local and areal level identifying incentive measures/regulations for the business environment.

Along with strategic planning, the managerial dimension, as part of the process, is also a key factor which leads to the fulfilment or non-fulfilment of the objectives of the local economic
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development.

The

management

component

within this

process will

insure the

institutionalisation of the entire endeavour by trying to avoid, as much as possible, any discontinuity, fragmentation or conflict between the involved parties. Discontinuities may be the result of inconsistent and inconsequent public policies or of uneven relationships between partners (poor communication and information of some of the interested parties). Leadership and communication potentiate and mobilise the entire human ensemble present in the planning process, thus contributing to a better coordination of the implementation efforts of the strategic vision. In agreement with the perspective provided by the World Bank 4, the idea of a partnership between public players, private players and those in the nongovernmental sector is the one that must lead to economic growth and improvement of the quality of life. From the perspective of this institution, local economic development processes may be built up by following a plan consisting of five stages: First stage - the effort to organise the strategic planning process The effort to organise consists essentially in the identification of the institutions, private companies, organisation and individuals, who are interested in the development of the local economy. Along with human or institutional resources, the financial, logistical resources required for the elaboration and implementation of the local economic development strategy must also be identified. Identifying the above mentioned elements is the responsibility of a local public institution (which usually undertakes to insure the formal and informal setting for the elaboration and implementation of the strategy; this is usually the mayor or a person found in his/her direct coordination).
Second stage: represented by the set of activities based on which the local economys profile is determined

Each municipality or community benefits from a series of factors, according to which that community may gain advantage in the development of the local economy or according to
4

http://web.worldbank.org : ,, The purpose of local economic development is to build up the economic capacity of a local area to improve its economic future and the quality of life for all. It is a process by which prublic, business and nongovernmental sector partners work collectively to create better condition for economic growwth and employment generation..

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which it can initiate and support the strategic process of local economic development. These characteristics, which favour or inhibit local economic development, result after the identification of the existing strong and weak points at local level. This may include attributes referring to human resource, favourable geographic positioning, good institutional or managerial ability, etc. The purpose is to establish a local profile which indicates, in comparison with other communities in the area, region or at a national level, the competitive advantages which may form into motors of the local development. Third stage: the actual achievement of the local economic development strategy This document results after the consultation and participation of the interested parties and it must provide the view over local development, targets, objectives, programs, projects and the action plans that are going to be implemented. It is also important to identify the human and financial resources necessary for putting the elements included in the strategy into action. In order to achieve the set development objectives, the local authority will grant the necessary budgetary resources. Fourth stage: implementation of the local development strategy Putting the action plans into practice represents in fact the implementation. The permanent monitoring of the manner in which the action plans set in the local development strategy are put into action is just as important. The monitoring activity will be the responsibility of an institution, which can carry out this activity in a constant and professional manner. Subsequently, based on the monitoring reports, the required corrections will be made to the local economic development strategy. The fifth stage is the one in which the adjustment or reassessment of the strategy for local development takes place As mentioned in the previous stage, certain objectives or local economic development measures may be reconsidered based on the monitoring reports. The strategy must be revised at least once a year, as it is not uncommon for numerous changes to arise in the local, regional, national or international economic environment, which require the replacement of certain objectives or adjustment measures which can lead to the fulfilment of the set objectives.
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From the elements which insure the successful implementation of the community development plan/strategy, we mention: the existence of a common vision supported by the members of the community the support and commitment of the members of the community - political and community dimension local leadership the assignment of the resources existing at a local level with maximum efficiency realistic assessment of the situation the elaboration and implementation process of the community development strategy, which includes all the interested groups or parties from the community a good coordination of the planned activities overcoming the traditional limits and identifying innovative solutions keeping to the planned activities and introducing changes if the realities within the community require this. The main principles of the strategy are as follows: - knowing local features - assessment and diagnosis of the local, regional, national and even global environment - public-private partnership - existence of certain collaborations both in the elaboration, as well as in the strategy implementation phase - the reality principle - the strategic plan will present the localitys potential, its development stage, the foundations from which durable economic development may be launched - the continuity and sustainability principle - the strategic program will be permanently improved also after its implementation

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- the principle of harmonization with the development objectives existing at a county, regional or national level. However, the flexibility and freedom in taking certain decisions have generated various phenomena. Here we will refer only to the aspects concerning the initiative of local authorities: in a first category we may include those local communities, which due to the lack of assistance and resources granted by the government, did not manage to cope with the problems existing at a local level. In some cases, the local authorities state of passivity has contributed to the permanent deterioration of the economic and social environment and these negative states have lead to a drastic decrease in the standard of living of the members of the respective community. in the second category, we may include those communities, which knew how to exploit the advantages resulting from the political and administrative decentralization processes which have occurred in the past years.

Unfortunately, this category includes a smaller number of cases. In most situations, the involvement of the local authority in the active support of the community development initiatives was the result of strong pressure coming from the community, which considers that local authorities are responsible for the state of the local economy. The successful situations recorded in the field of local development exhibit certain common features: (a) the main players the local public authority - did not hesitate to search and later exploit the favourable occasions for local development; (b) the local development agents took on risks and mobilised their energy towards transforming their own ideas into concrete projects or programs; (c) these communities tend to be independent and wish to cooperate within legal or formal partnerships.

Aspects concerning the subjective components of mobilising community resources

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The structural changes within society (see the forced industrialization in communist states after 1945, restructuring of central and east European economies after 1990) generate strong psycho-political and emotional effects, which support the migrationist decisions of the population, especially of the young. In certain situations, we feel this influence directly, especially when it comes to poverty. The differences between communities, in respect of the standard of living, generate contradictory feelings concerning satisfaction/dissatisfaction at an individual level; these states generate decisions such as involvement/non-involvement in the communitys life. However, there are a series of elements which determine the mobilization/demobilization of individuals, elements which are harder to intercept or which are not taken into consideration when talking about collective actions. In this category we include (Rose, Mishler, Haerpfer, 1997): The solidarity of the individuals community. At the community level or within the individuals reference groups, solidarity determines feelings of satisfaction/dissatisfaction at individual level, it structures perception and the system of norms and values at individual level. With other words, the intensity of individual-community connections generate psycho-social effects that favour or prevent the participation in collective actions, namely they strengthen or weaken the trust in others. As we known, these two attitudes represent the premises for building social capital. The individuals feeling of pride due to his/her appurtenance to the community in which he/she lives (in this case we refer to the ethnic group he/she is part of); The way in which extra community realities are perceived (other geographic regions or areal) completes the subjective frames which generate positive or negative attitudes in respect of participation, associativity or social solidarity. We believe that the variations in the intensity or direction of manifestation of the situations mentioned above directly influence the way in which that individual mobilizes his/her resources in the social action.

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Certainly, there are also successful models or strategies for community development. These strategies have achieved their objectives, in certain situations, meaning that they have determined an increase in the standard of living for the communities in which these were applied. By referring to the transfer and implementation of successful models for local development, we believe that their import or imitation in a simple form does not insure the success they had somewhere else. The implementation of successful models requires careful analysis of the space and community which adopts a successful model. We have to mention the fact that each successful model is the result of applying general frames for certain specific social, economic and environment-related contexts. Thus, the role of socio-human analysis and diagnosis is to identify the elements which favour or may impede the successful implementation of these best practices. The common element found in almost all the successful situations is the presence of local partnerships, the main objective of which is local social-economic development; consensus, unitary and coherent action of local development agents most certainly represents the guarantee of local community development.

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Management and leadership

Management and leadership; Human resources and community development organizational structures that support CD processes; Perspectives the public sector and the non-profit private sector.

The final goal of the community facilitation processes is to obtain a quality progress related to the organization of the local communities having difficulties. When we refer to this type of communities we do not think only about the economic aspect, but also to the nature of the relations within the community, of the capacity to support through own efforts the local development initiatives. The community development processes are the result of some common endeavors initiated and managed by several actors, both in the inside and outside community. Regardless their status or quality (the institutions of the local or central public administration, interest organizations or groups, public or private sponsors, non-governmental organizations) this type of institutional network aims to support the community facilitation process, the final goal being to grow the standard of living of a local community. The consensus related to the vision upon the development is one of the central elements that underlie the success for this type of processes. Along this common vision there are a series of other factors that favor, restrain or even block the success of the community development initiatives. It is suffice to remind the community characteristics, those of the organizations or of the institutional network involved in the community facilitation process, the type of issues approached in the first phase etc. The analyses and assessments performed within the pilot project made at Civitas Foundation, as well as other assessments made by other organizations point a series of aspects that we should insist upon: the role and involvement of sponsors;
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 the experience of non-governmental organizations we mainly refer to the expertise and the role of such organizations in the community facilitation processes; the availability and the involvement degree existent within the community; the quality and performances of the institutional network on local level (private or public, profit or non-profit): human resources from the organization, leadership, stability of the organization from financial or technical resources point of view, the relation with the community, the institutional network or partnerships, the services provided etc. The evaluation of the community development models shows that no specific model can be indicated to describe the phases or the measures to be adopted in order to reach the goals of the facilitating process, more exactly community development. The reviving of local initiatives, the initiation of programs from the local communities are the last results of the facilitating process, these endeavors follow the increase of the number of services or their quality for a certain community. The establishment of some institutional partnerships, the building of these institutional networks intend (see: studies and assessments made by the Partnership for Community Development and the Resources Centre for Ethno-cultural Diversity in cooperation with the Romanian Government) to elaborate and to implement strategies, local policies, initiatives or programs to support development of the capacities and performances among the members of the assisted communities. It is about individuals from local initiative groups or those active within institutional frameworks from the community. The key phases of the community facilitation process as resulted from the practice of some organizations and institutions that appealed to this model: planning the facilitation process community meetings establishing the goals and the performance indicators to be reached actual implementation. The entire process is supported or assisted by the institutions or organizations from the community or outside the community and this requires configuration of institutional competences and duties undertaken by each of the institutional actors it is about non73

governmental organizations, institutions of the local public administration, sponsors, business sector etc. Planning phase The evaluations made within some similar projects implemented underline the importance of this phase. The objectives established in this phase are numerous, and we will mention a few of those that must be achieved: (i) the facilitation process will start only when there are confirmations or assurances from sponsors that they will support at least a part of the activities related to the community facilitation process; (ii) the community analysis and diagnosis (social capital, involvement, participation etc.); the community analysis generates the list of issues and a part of the solutions agreed by the community members, furthermore the priority list as perceived on community level is also obtained; (iii) elaboration of a common agenda for all actors involved in the facilitation process. In this phase as well, are initiated training and informing sessions through which takes place the transfer of knowledge from facilitators to some of the community members directly involved in the community facilitation process. Community meetings The high level of acceptance and participation from community can also be determined by the efficiency and professionalism with which the community facilitators approach such meetings. The way in which the meeting is prepared, the meeting agenda, inviting all interested parties, the way in which debates are conducted, permanent information of the main actors related to the course of the process are just a few of the elements which the facilitators must manage as effectively as possible. The obtainment of the consensus regarding the future activities is followed by the clear establishment of responsibilities for each actor involved in this process. In cases when at the beginning of the facilitation process the role of the communitys representatives is a minimum one, throughout the facilitation process this role must become more significant. The

facilitator must not substitute in any way the community actors. At the end of the process the facilitator will have only advice, not decisional roles. For the good performance of the process each facilitator would have to elaborate a manual to expressly present the tasks, the phases, the activities within the process, as well as each partys responsibilities. This set of rules must
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not make bureaucratic the facilitation process even if some sponsors insist on excessive formalization of each phase. The practice shows that the excessive formalization and easiness decrease the interest and participation of communitys members. A pre-condition necessary for the implementation phase of the development strategy is to connect activities, programs and projects with other development programs, either county, regional or national. The coordinator role or centre of the institutional network must be taken by the local public authorities. The local administration has the authority to establish the local public policies while other partners from the private or associative sector may have the expertise level or the experience to ensure the success of the community development programs. The experience of the development endeavors points that a great extent of these initiatives stops once with the financing. Funding withdrawal must bring a reconsideration, reorientation of the development strategy on community level. Under no circumstances

development will not be considered only in economic terms. Reaching some superior performance standards for a given community is certainly a significant indicator and is not the only criterion to be taken into account when the community development process is evaluated. Implementation The facilitator provides technical support to the community partners (NGOs, interest groups, APL). Support does not mean assuming responsibilities or substitution of actors from the community who must participate and assume responsibilities in each phase of the facilitation process. The application of the strategic development plans will start with a pilot period in which performances, abilities, involvement degree are tested for each of the parties involved. Periodical evaluation of the process allows adjustment, if the case may be, of some parts or even of the entire process. The Community facilitator project seen as a pilot project of Civitas Foundation suggests a community development model for those communities in which the local institutional network (APL, NGO, private sector) did not manage to elaborate or implement efficiently local development processes or programs. The community facilitation processes are focused on the rehabilitation of the institutional or social network that will enable communitys development.
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The specialized literature and the practice in this field point a series of obstacles in the way of implementation or normal operation of the facilitation processes for the community development purpose. A series of factors are structural, other factors are imposed by a certain context, and others are generated by the professionals function community facilitator. Source documents for the data included in the analysis 1. Town hall selection documents (registration files, evaluation forms, press releases) 2. Community facilitators selection documents (press releases, contest tests, evaluation forms) 3. Activity reports of the project staff 4. Activity reports of the facilitators 5. Job description - community facilitator 6. Official reports of the community meetings 7. Documents related to activity planning and distribution of duties (action plans, activity calendars) 8. Evaluation of the projects elaborated, submitted and awarded 9. Materials elaborated by facilitators (projects elaborated, development strategies, analyses of the community potential etc.) 10. Information upon specific activities (editting and distribution of Infociv, planning of training sessions, presentation conference of the final conclusions)

Community facilitators: who they are and what they do5

Fragment from Bosovcki, A., Drago, D., Balogh, M., Hintea, C., Hosu, I., Facilitator comunitar ghid de pregtire [Community Facilitator Training Guide] page 22-24)

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We will present below a few of the results of a study carried out by a non-governmental organization from Cluj-Napoca, Partenership for Community Development (PDC), entitled Community development sectors status which evaluated some organizations active in the community development field (Careja, 2003). From the data and information included in this study we selected the aspects related to the community facilitation process. In this process the community facilitator has a significant role and the success or failure of the mobilization of local resources in the local development processes depends on this role to a large extent. As pointed in the study: ,,facilitators are individuals with special training who go to communities and fulfill on the spot a series of functions with the general purpose to prepare the community for future actions. Although facilitator is the common term accepted, some associations prefer synonym terms like community development agentsor local promoter. Facilitators are one of the main elements of the strategy used by most of organizations which apply community development projects. Obviously, not all organizations use facilitators, but they adopt alternative working strategies with the communities From the data collected through questionnaires or some individual or group interviews the research makers depicted some of the facilitators functions and tasks. We will list a few of these basic rules below: 1. the facilitator supports the local communities to identify and solve the problems encountered by the individuals and/or the groups from the community 2. the facilitator is a resource individual for the community it lives in. The experience on the field acquired by various organizations, in different projects points out the fact that the relation facilitator community is a problematic one, whether in the meaning of total involvement of the facilitator, or in the meaning of rejecting its presence in the community. The first of the two rules is more dificult to observe because of the fact that as the respondents emphasized between the facilitator and the community a very close relationship is born and the fine line between guiding and actually working instead of the community members can be ignored (out of the wish to help as much as possible). This involvement over the line will trigger in time a false perception among the community members, namely that there is one individual who can solve any type of problems, case when
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we can identify the communitys dependence on this individual. Or, this very dependence of the community to the individual facilitator function should be avoided. The facilitator is present in each of the phases of the community development projects, being the first person to come into immediate contact with the community and therefore it has a key role in the collection of information abo ut such community and in the communitys evaluation. As seen from the data collected in the research, the community facilitator has the following duties: identification and mobilization of the resources from community (mainly the human resources); supports and stimulates the creation of an action framework favorable to launch development initiatives that come from the inside of community. The main duty here is to involve the formal and informal leaders in these processes, to help in the awareness and identification of communitys potential. holds the coordinator role for the most important activities within the project this will occur only in the first phases of its presence within the community. Complete and long-term commitment to solve the most impor tant duties leads to the communitys dependence on this individual. identifies the leaders and helps in the organization of the local initiative groups and is on the same support line of the main activities carried out on community level. together with these initiative groups will identify the communitys difficulties The mediation aspect between the most important local actors (initiative groups, citizens, leaders of local organizations, representatives of the local public administration) is the basis for the creation of some lasting partnerships on local level and outside the community The communication/information aspect with the community members and leaders in respect of various opportunities. This project enables the facilitation of the access to informational resources, extremely important for the community development

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processes. Given the outage nature of most of this information a communication in real time is necessary with the leaders and local agents to exploit these opportunities. When the main target of the non-governmental organization is not represented by communities but by other relevant factors on local level, like, for example the public administration, the facilitators of these organizations have the role to assist the local authorities in activities aimed for the local and regional development.

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Sustainability and institutionalization

Viabilization of community; Challenges and evolution.

After the analysis of the community problems, an analysis of the financing market must also be carried out in order to determine the schedule of actions referring to fundraising activities. The project elaboration and management component appears to be in fact the most important component of the local development agents activity. In many cases, t he project elaboration process for attracting funds in the community precedes the diagnosis and strategic planning process. This hurry to elaborate projects to be filed for financing comes both from community development agents and the representatives of local authorities. Both parties wish to achieve results in a very short period of time and for these results to be as concrete, palpable as possible. Unfortunately, in several cases there was a general opinion that the role of the community development agent resumes simply to aspects related to project management. Contrary to general opinion, the tasks and obligations of the community development agent are greater in number and these do not simply aim at activities referring to project management. Aspects perceives as relevant by the participants in the community development processes Positive aspects encountered in community development processes - promoting positive practices referring to community development. These positive practices are, as the case may be, aimed at: supporting punctual projects, improvement of the relationships between the community members or of the inter-ethnic climate, promoting local development; - there is great freedom in the manner in which the community development process can be initiated (no formal or bureaucratic constraints);

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- association and high level of participation - it refers to situations in which the agent manages to establish the quick and efficient involvement of community members; - continuing previous initiatives - continuity. Negative aspects encountered in community development processes short-time presence/intervention in the community (certain communities and certain members of rural communities have a slower reaction to the stimuli/challenges of community facilitators/promoters); problems concerning the accommodation of local development agents with the particularities of these activities (either due to local problems or to the lack of certain qualities that the facilitator/promoter should possess); problems due to the difficulties in forming initiative groups at local level;

Initiation of the community development process After analysing the received answers, we concluded that local development processes are sustainable only if: there are local players who support and participate in this process (local initiative groups); there is support both from the inside and from the outside of the community; support may take on very different shapes (human, financial, logistic resources, etc.) Support for the development process The institutional structures that have the potential to support these processes are: public administrations (local and central), non-governmental organisations (outside the locality, as well as the ones inside the community), private companies (here we can mention philanthropic activities or sponsorships, but a more comprising concept needs to be especially mentioned, that of: social responsibility).

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The role of the local development agent (facilitator/promoter): who he/she is and what he/she should know The role and attributions of this person can be found in each stage/phase of the community development process: the community development agent contacts and is in direct contact with the community. The relationship to the community is maintained through formal/informal leaders, initiative groups established at community level or through community organisations; collects, stimulates and analyses the data about the community as a whole; motivates and mobilises community members in respect of their participation in actions that are in the communitys interest; supports community members in identifying and solving problems encountered at individual, group or community level; trains or develops abilities, skills of (formal or informal) community members through instruction and training actions addressed to the members of the community; insures the direct access of (formal or informal) leaders of the community to resources outside the community (information, opportunities, relationships, contacts) which may be of local interest; the development agent: good communicator, organiser, planner and holder of basic knowledge in the field of collective action psychology, adult education; social communication abilities that allow him/her to carry out social dialogue at community level. Non-governmental organisations and community development processes The main aspects extracted after the assessments referring to non-governmental organisations are:

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The non-governmental organisations that can viably and for a long time support de communitys development are those created at local level;

The non-governmental organisations of resource centres outside the community have the role and task to start and lay the foundations for the main settings of community development;

Non-governmental community organisations become durable/viable structures only if there is support coming from the community (community members and local public administration).

Local public administration and community development The major aspects concerning the role of local public organisations in the process of community development: The local public administration (LPA) possesses the means and instruments that augment the resources of NGOs for community development - complementarity ; LPA has or should have major responsibilities concerning: information, dissemination and support in the enactment of decisions that are favourable for community development; Readiness to establish viable partnerships with organisations or institutions within or outside the community; Development of the legal framework (decisions and provisions) which supports the activities of the community development agent or of the organisation supporting the process of community development. Positive impact resulting from these activities In this chapter, we can mention a series of elements referring to public settings or private settings (here we refer to the development agent). The most numerous satisfactions are granted by the positive results obtained from the achievement or successful implementation of punctual projects or programs. These achievements may be/are assumed both by institutions/organisations and by the individuals who were part or beneficiaries of those
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programs. The main benefits mentioned are: accumulated experience, new knowledge or working practices, material or financial benefits for institutions or individuals from the community. Apart from the aspects mentioned by the interviewed subjects, the most important benefit must also be mentioned here: regaining trust in ones powers, in increasing the motivation level of the individuals in the community for the purpose of engagement in other actions that lead to the increase of the level of well-being at community level. Another set of statements underlining satisfactions refers to the aspects resulting from team work. One of the main tasks of the community development agent is to form initiative groups consisting of community members. These initiative groups must be established in such a manner that they can function for a long period of time and, in time, are able to take on part of the functions and attributes of the local development agent. Some of the respondents have underlined the fact that the main satisfaction in their work was the creation of teams or functional groups, which have managed to function as homogenous groups. In fact, this aspect, referring to the creation of efficient working groups at local level, may be considered the main indicator of success of the work carried out by a local development agent. Dissatisfactions Roughly speaking, the dissatisfactions of the interviewed subjects were: Lack of trust in the representatives of the community or the lack of support of certain community members. In this type of situations, it might only be a problem of adaptation of the development agent or it may refer to an incorrect approach concerning the development process; Long time required for the homogenisation and structuring of the initiative group at local level (this demotivates both the development agent and the active members of the community, who usually expect palpable and quick results); Assignment of predominantly administrative tasks to the local development agents; Selective support of certain development agencies (some are more equal t han others). In this case, we refer to the support that some development agents have received from certain county institutions, while others did not enjoy the same support.
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Lack of a legal framework governing the attributions, responsibilities of the development agents;

Lack of legal framework concerning the functional settings of community development processes (for instance: lack of a parliament of communities, defective legal framework in respect of local or community development: the law does not protect them and community cannot support them - we are referring to local development agents);

Some NGOs are chameleon-like: do not know the communitys needs, have no consistence, solve only current problems and frequently change their field of activity. All these elements create a negative image of NGOs before the structures of public administrations.

Recommendations From the recommendations extracted from the assessment we mention as follows: The local development agent should cooperate with a person from the community with similar training or knowledge as he/she does. This person might be one familiarized with the working methods and techniques of the development agent. Moreover, his/her correspondent from the community should be interested in the development processes of the community he/she lives in or in which he/she carries out his/her activity; Community development processes should be adapted to local particularities (the recommendation of a data chart or a model is not feasible, as there are great differences between rural communities of: cultural, economic and social, nature, referring to mentality, ethnic structure, etc.) The development of complementary activities (social-economic development and the development or maintenance of cultural patrimony, local identity); Community development may be seen as a multi-dimensional and bipolar phenomenon for each dimension. In this respect, we can include three major dimensions:

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D1: - development of community capacities versus development of organisational capacities (it refers to the community organisation supporting this process); D2: - combining the implementation of actual projects versus work with community members; D3: - building long-term relationships with the community versus assessment of the external environment of the community; Community development must address not only community members or groups, to the same extent, the agents efforts must also be oriented towards local institutions or authorities (NGOs are the only ones that cannot support development, therefore an important aspect of community development would be the development of public or private institutions from within the community); Implementation of the position of development agent in those communities, which are ready (mentalities, resources, institutions) for this endeavour; the mandatory character concerning the adoption of the position of development agent would quickly transform him/her into a public clerk who translates into and from English or participates in meetings with topics referring to European integration. The local development agent should maintain an unbiased attitude towards the different interest groups existing at local level (either political, economic or other type of groups); The community development process must be centred on: man, tradition, community and second of all, to be presented as an economic endeavour or as good business; Correlation of the endeavours of the local development agent with other interventions at community level.

Empirical verifications: community-regional

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Regional institutional resources used in community development processes 6 - sociological approach A total investigation concerning the current frameworks, in which regional development processes take place, should be mainly carried out starting from comparative type approaches, on several dimensions. These dimensions of comparativity are as follows: I - a possible plan of comparisons may be drafted starting from a general interior-exterior dimension. This first level of analysis may provide the determination of compatibility or incompatibility in respect of the legislation governing local development in Romania and in the EU (internal-external legislative framework). II - another analytical plan is represented by working practices and models, compared perspective, Romania - EU (best practises internal-external) These compared perspectives are joined by analyses that may also intercept systems of value and attitude, which come to support the social cohesion measures, strategies for the mobilisation of those resources which support regional development processes. Along with these aspects having a comparative nature (Romania - EU), a second analysis level is centred on internal aspects of the regional development process. Here, a multitude of aspects can be considered and from these we can mention: a. Assessments concerning the achievement or application level of governance strategies in relation to regional development processes; b. The degree of application or implementation of the legislative framework existing in the field of regional development; c. Degree of adequacy of the Romanian legislation in the field, according to the existing realities;

The study was carried out in a project financed by OSF Romania: Map of players involved in the accession to the EU March-October 2003; the objective of the research was to assess the activity of the institutional structures responsible for regional development after five years from their establishment.

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d. The efficiency levels of the implementation of the EU legal framework; Certainly, the aspects deserving special attention might continue, but the present study intends to investigate the most important legal, economic, institutional-managerial aspects. In this case, we wish to approach the problem from a comparative, multi-dimensional perspective of the regional development processes, even if we do not expect to present this phenomenon in an exhaustive manner. The present study is focalised on central aspects, which may indicate the directions or principles governing the regional development in Romania at this point in time. The sociological dimension of the analysis has attempted to grasp the manner in which the institutional relationships of public and private agents involved in this field evolve, trying to grasp the perception of these players concerning current working practices and models. From an institutional point of view, there are some major observations included in numerous sociological studies:
-

Development agencies do not have enough space and have a small number of employees. This opinion is shared both by the beneficiaries and the employees of development agencies;

The specific endeavours and activities for programs and projects have a strong bureaucratic nature. The procedures are laborious and complicated for most of the applicants. Everyone agrees that a simplification of the procedures is required. Excessive bureaucratization only discourages most of the potential applicants;

Another negative aspect referring to RDA (Regional Development Agency) is that these institutions should offer more support in the drafting and management of projects. The employees of RDA acknowledge this shortcoming, but the insufficient number of employees represents the main problem in this case. Therefore, perhaps a closer collaboration with other institutions and organisations that might offer assistance in the rectification of these shortcomings is required. At local level, here we refer especially to the rural space, the activity of the RDA would require close collaboration with local leaders.

The functional autonomy of the institutions administrating regional development is strongly limited by the low level of autonomy, when it comes to decision making and access

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to financial resources. Due to the lack of these instruments, for some, RDA represents only form without substance. A particular aspect is the one referring to the role and place of politics in regional development processes. Some say that the presence of politics in the activity of Development Agencies is normal, because these apply one partys conception referring to the manner in which a region should develop. Of course, the involvement of politics should be limited to tracing the main directions or principles. In reality, the Agencies feel political pressure both from central level, as well as from county-level structures. However, the most critical aspect is that beneficiaries are convinced of the political factors involvement in the assessment or judging of the bidding process. The political game is the one providin g the algorithm for financing (number of financings per county, financing limits, etc.). For that matter, in the period in which these interviews were carried out, mass-media presented situations in which political influences have lead to the defalcation of European funds. These are only signalled by mass-media and investigations are going to be carried out to determine whether the accusations in the press are true or not. Even if these do not turn out to be real, many believe that the level of involvement of politics is much too high and that most of the time it plays a negative role. In what the assessment and monitoring of the projects carried out by Development Agencies is concerned, the high number of bureaucratic activities is a serious handicap for many possible beneficiaries. Some of the subjects, who have benefited from these types of financing, have declared that they do not wish to ask for any more funds from these institutions due to very consistent reasons: excessive bureaucratization, delays in payment, the obligation to possess great amounts of money at the beginning of the project, execution of activities even if the project financing is a couple months late, etc. The private players involved in regional development have an indirect role in this process. Among these players, we may find non-profit organisations, but also profit-oriented organisations. In this category we include: trade companies, investment funds or commercial banks, non-governmental organisations acting in the field of regional development or research institutions or institutions of higher education. In compliance with this phenomenon, it is expected for the system of regional policies in the EU to go through a phase of fundamental transformations. Change can take place either in
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respect of the constitution of Structural Funds or in the value of the financings Romania will benefit from. Due to these reasons, Romanias strategy must be oriented towards the increase of the competitiveness of Romanian companies on the European market and the qualification of workforce in fields with high levels of benefit. In the field of regional development and not only, it is expected of Romania to observe certain principles, such as: partnership, subsidiarity, decentralization, programming, concentration, additionality. We must clarify the national policy referring to regional development, which in this point in time seams fragmented: - regional approach, based on strategies and regional plans, with the purpose of developing the potential of each region - national approach for the prevention of unbalance and support for the potential existing in the territory - local approach, which concentrates public resources, state aids and pre-adherence funds in various types of areas: disadvantaged areas, areas of industrial restructuring, assisted areas, these overlapping without any clear argumentation. If Romanias regional policy adopts the principle of zoning, the coherence and synergy of various instruments must be carried out; the role of the Regional level must be clarified from the perspective of implementation of Structural Funds and also, the European Agreement concerning state aids must be observed.7 Practice and the analyses carried out indicate that, up to this moment, no social practice or model could be introduced for describing the stages or measures which need to be adopted for the purpose of community development. The recharge of local initiatives, the initiation of programs by local communities are endeavours intended to increase the number of services or their quality for a certain community. The establishment of institutional partnerships, the construction of these institutional networks is intended to elaborate or implement strategies, local policies, initiatives or programs to support the development of the capacities and
7

The Commissions observations concerning the National Development Plan 2002 -2005

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performances of the assisted community members. This refers to individuals within the local initiative groups or those who are active in the communitys institutional units. The success of development initiatives depends on the initiators level of determination. After 2000, a strategic reorganisation is recorded at community level, in the sense that sustained attitudes and actions emerge for the purpose of acquiring planning and implementation competences in community development projects and programs. These endeavours emerge under the pressure of major changes involving the Romanian society, the affiliation to Euro-Atlantic structures. The emergence of a market of community developers, both on the political , as well as on the private (profit and non-profit) component, has lead to the diversification of the expectance horizon and range of actions intended for the development of local communities. The activities of non-governmental organisations, of local initiative groups form this register and these organised entities present themselves as undertakers of collective actions intended to mobilise the resources for development. The types of community intervention presented, community facilitator and local development agent, have generated new attitudes (anti-resignation) and faith that for certain problems (referring to the management of poverty or well-being) solutions can be found at local level. The two models analysed are the result of the initiative of certain NGOs (Centre for Rural Assistance - member of SON and the Civitas Foundation) which have tried to underline the need for professionalization in the field of community development, by introducing new positions in the community landscape. The need for professionalization is not the consequence of rationalization or streamlining of administrative actions, but the mimetic answer based on the successful models of those near us. Small successes (solving a problem, winning a project, etc.) occurring in the early phases of community development initiatives have the role to positively motivate local initiative groups, to mobilise resources and stimulate participation. An important element results from this and it refers to the appropriate administration of the resources of the new forms of institutional organisation, aimed at generating community development. Efficient administration of partnerships, along with the capacity to carry out participatory development strategies, represent two of the competences leading to the mobilisation of intra and extra community resources.

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Resources and links

Civic Practices Network http://www.cpn.org/ The Policy Research Action Group http://www.luc.edu/curl/prag/ Community Tool Box http://ctb.ku.edu/en/default.aspx Sustainable Development Communication Network http://www.sdgateway.net http://www.iisd.org/sd/

International Association for Community Development http://www.iacdglobal.org/ Community Resource Group http://www.crg.org/ Southern Rural Development Center http://srdc.msstate.edu The Rural Life Center at Kenyon College http://rurallife.kenyon.edu The Community Development Society http://www.comm-dev.org United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) Rural and Community Development http://www.rurdev.usda.gov/ Council for Urban Economic Development and International Economic Development http://www.iedconline.org/

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