Community as a response: Communities organizing for their development

In March 2021, the World Communities Forum brought together organizations working with local communities to reflect on the past year and how COVID-19 has impacted the work that they do. TrustAfrica hosted a session on “Community as a response: Communities organizing for their development” to tease out what are the enablers in supporting local communities in self-organizing for their development.

This follow-up report elevates key recommendations offered during the session, by first giving some context on the challenges faced by local communities (often in conflict) and then looks at the factors that have enabled communities to respond to development challenges, including what priority interventions donors should invest in to support community actors to build resilience when responding to power dynamics within the broken aid system in the Global South.

Authors: Florence Kayemba (Stakeholder Democracy Network), Ese Emerhi (Formerly TrustAfrica, now with the GFCF) & Charles Kojo Vandyck (West Africa Civil Society Institute)

Published: April 2021

Published by: TrustAfrica

Download: ‘Community as a response: Communities organizing for their development‘