[PDF] Community Development Toolkit - CommDev

Development Opportunity9RankingDescriptionThe Development Opportunity Ranking toolcombines assessment and planningprocesses. Community members identifytheir major development priorities orconcerns and then assess the bestopportunities for achieving desired changes.The meetings needed to undertake this twostepprocess may stretch over severalsessions, depending upon the time availableto participants and how much discussion andresearch they might like to pursue betweenworkshop sessions.This tool requires a facilitator to encouragecommunity members to think broadly aboutpotential development opportunities,perhaps introducing ideas by describingprograms they have seen elsewhere(although they need to be careful not toimpose their own ideas upon the community).This is best undertaken in a small groupsetting, conducted in the community orvillage where stakeholders live. It shouldbegin with a non-threatening, focuseddiscussion that uses small group dynamicsto produce a complete and ranked census ofthe development opportunities identified byindividual households and the communityas a whole.A list of potential opportunities to addresseach development challenge should bedrawn up from community discussions,taking into consideration the community’scapacity to address these challengesthemselves. Each opportunity should thenbe ranked for its suitability as a solutionusing an agreed set of criteria, many ofwhich are tried and tested. The beauty ofthis process is that opportunities thatrequire little outside input or finance oftenscore higher than those dependent onassistance. This can be enlightening for acommunity by helping them realize thepower of self-management. This prioritizationof opportunities can allow communities tostart work on some of the “easier” options,while you may look into how your projectcould support the more complex orresource-intensive options.PLANNING TOOLSCommunity Development Toolkit101