Coady co-hosted ABCD Forum
The Coady Institute welcomed guests from around the world July 7 – 10 to discuss “Deepening the practice of asset-based and citizen-led development”. Co-hosted by the ABCD Institute at Northwestern University, the event brought together community development practitioners with representatives from government, academia, and funding organizations. More
About ABCD
Asset-Based Community Development (ABCD) is a term coined by John McKnight and Jody Kretzmann at the ABCD Institute in Evanston, Illinois - a key Coady International Institute partner. ABCD is an approach that recognizes the strengths, gifts, talents and resources of individuals and communities, and helps communities to mobilize and build on these for sustainable development.
By focusing on assets and capacities rather than needs and deficiencies, energy is directed toward opportunities at the community level, while remaining conscious of how the policy environment could be changed to further strengthen citizens' capacity to drive their own development.
At its core are the various assets (human, social, financial, natural and physical) that already exist in the community, especially the formal and informal associations that mobilize assets and strengthen the social relationships that are important for bridging local initiatives to external opportunities.
Why has the Institute adopted this approach?
In 1939, Moses Coady, the man after whom the Coady International Institute would later be named, published a book called Masters of Their Own Destiny. In it he describes how the rural people of northeast Nova Scotia were "using what they have to create what they have not". Moses Coady promoted the formation of producer, consumer and financial cooperatives - a phenomenon that later became known as the 'Antigonish Movement'. Coady didn't call what he was doing back then ABCD, but he was describing it; promoting citizen-led development that combined people's skills, capacities, savings and social capital with physical and natural resources to build local economies. Today the Coady International Institute continues in this vein, promoting approaches to community development that place citizens at the centre of the development process and which draw on the assets communities already have to help create what they have not.
What is the goal of the Coady Institute's work in this area?
We are continuously developing our programs in asset-based and citizen-led development by:
- documenting and analyzing existing international examples of citizen-led and asset-based development;
- exploring ways in which an asset-based approach can be applied in various international contexts to stimulate citizen-led development;
- assessing the implications of an asset-based approach for the role of donors, NGOs, local governments and other intermediaries; and
- identifying the optimal policy and regulatory environment for the successful application of asset-based and citizen-led development.
Key ABCD Activities
Since 1999, the Coady International Institute has undertaken ABCD activities in the following areas: