Aboriginal Co-operatives in Canada - Centre for the Study of Co ...

A P P E N D I X D ~government those functions and activities that are otherwise impossible for thecommunities to handle themselves.Government has a major climate-setting role to play before any initiative is taken toimplement an organized community development process. Government must exercisestrong leadership to shift popular expectation from dependency upon government toincreased citizen responsibility for development. Four specific leadership functions canbe identified:1) to enable the population to come to a clear understanding of the reasons whyit is difficult to achieve development or even maintain economic well-being;2) to assist citizens to acquire skills for fact finding, analysis, and deciding uponalternatives for action;3) to enable the population to identify its own development aspirations; and,4) to establish a more trusting and mutually supportive relationship between publicand community groups.Each of these leadership roles will necessarily be highly educational because they callfor behavioural changes, both on the part of government agents and citizens. They arefunctions that go beyond statement of policy and into activities that allow citizens tolearn about their circumstances by becoming data gatherers and decision makersthemselves.Government’s Role in Sustaining a Community Economic Development ProcessWhen the process of formulating a development plan is in progress, governments becomea principal resource for assisting the community in finding the necessary resources totransform plans into action. This calls for enormous flexibility and skill on the part ofgovernment policy makers and their agents in the community, as each community has itsown particular requirements for assistance in relation to available resources. Flexibility andskill are the necessary attributes to break the tension between the bureaucratic need tospecify precise direction for development and the citizens’ need to engage in those aspectsof development that touch most directly upon their immediate interests.Government systems for providing financial assistance to development projects mustbe able to take into account the diverse range of “equity” that a community is able toassemble. Government policy must be flexible enough, for example, to allow for voluntarycontributions and to make up for forms of required equity that the community is unable toprovide. These variations suggest uneven applications of programme specifications. This is252 ~ H A M M O N D K E T I L S O N