Module 3 | Part 1: Community Engagement and Development Learning Module | Introduction to Community Engagement and Community Development

QUICK LINKS
1.1 Defining Community Engagement and Community Development
1.2 Key Concepts in Community Engagement and Development

Module Learning Objectives:

1. Understand similarities and differences between Community Engagement and Community Development processes and related approaches within this guide.
2. Understand key considerations for deciding the appropriate approach for working with communities within this Communities for Animals Guide.
3. Understand key concepts and best practices in effective Community Engagement and Community Development processes.
4. Understand recommendations based on lessons learned from the field tips for promoting effective community engagement and development processes for changing behaviour to improve animal welfare.

1.1 Defining Community Engagement and Community Development

The term “community” in the context of this Communities for Animals (C4A) resource refers to a group of people within a particular geographical area, often referred to as the target or priority population. However, more broadly, community can be understood as a group of people living in the same defined area, sharing the same basic values, organization, interests or shared sense of identity [34, 35]. Understanding the characteristics which define and shape animal owning communities will be important to helping you determine the type of approach and methods best suited for working with them.

The terms community development (CD) and community engagement (CE) refer to different participatory processes or approaches for working with communities. While these terms may also be used to refer to outcomes of processes, within this guide they are used solely to refer to the processes or approaches themselves [36].

• Definition of Community Development
  ‘Community Development’ (CD) refers to “a process where community members come together to take collective action and generate solutions to common problems” [37, 38]. In in the context of animal welfare, the goal is to empower community members to work together to improve their animals’ welfare by addressing the root causes of animals’ welfare issues.

• Definition of Community Engagement
  ‘Community Engagement’ (CE) refers to a process through which community participation in decision making occurs, without any explicit aim of collective action as is implicit to a community development process [36, 39]. A generally accepted working definition of community engagement is the process of working collaboratively with and through people affiliated by geographic proximity, special interest, or similar situations to address issues affecting their well-being” [40]. In in the context of animal welfare, a community engagement process seeks to facilitate community participation in addressing the issues and affecting the welfare of their animals.

1.2 Key Concepts in Community Engagement and Development

To facilitate community engagement or development process that ensure the diverse perspectives and experiences of different individuals and social groups within a community are valued and considered, it is important to understand the key concepts outlined in the sections below, along with their implications for changing behaviour change to improve animal welfare.

COMMUNITY PARTICIPATION

Community participation is an essential element of any community engagement or development process [38, 41, 42]; however to effectively achieve it, one must first be clear about the goal of community participation. To clarify the role and influence of the public in planning and decision-making processes, the International Association of Public Participation (IAP2) defined public participation as a spectrum or continuum consisting of five levels as defined in Figure 26 including: inform, consult, involve collaborate, and empower [43]. As you move along the spectrum from left (inform) to right (empower), the extent of community members’ participation and influence over planning and decision making processes increases. It should be noted that the different participation levels and their associated goals do not represent a sequence of steps, but rather represent independent goals for community participation that one may wish to achieve [44].

Community empowerment, where community members’ take control over their lives by setting their own agendas, gain skills (or have their own skills and knowledge recognized), increase their self-confidence, solve problems and develop self-reliance, should be the goal of community engagement and development processes whenever feasible [45, 42, 37].

Informing is the only participation goal which is not associated with community engagement and development processes. This is because informing involves only one-way communication, where communities are provided with information. CE and CD processes on the other hand require two-way communication, in which communities give and receive information is required to promote access to information and ensure community meaningful participation [42]. While never a participation goal of CE or CD processes, informing communities may nevertheless be an outcome that can result from such processes e.g. informing a community about emergent animal disease risks, upcoming events or potential opportunities.

The three different approaches for working with communities (CD, CE, SOC) and associated supporting participatory learning and action (PLA) tools and facilitator resources provided within this resource support various community participation goals and provide flexibility for the variety of contexts community-based animal welfare improvement projects may be implemented. Figure 26 illustrates the participation goals on the spectrum of public participation supported by each of the C4A approaches for working with communities.

DIVERSITY AND INCLUSION

Diversity and inclusion are two interconnected concepts important to CE and CD processes and their ability to achieve their community participation goals [37, 42]. Diversity is about the composition individuals who may participate in any given process, or rather the representation different groups’ perspectives, knowledge, skills, and lived experiences [46]. Inclusion on the other hand refers to how well these different groups’ contributions, presence and perspectives are valued and integrated [46]. For example, a community engagement or development process where different genders, races, nationalities, and identities are present could be considered diverse, but wouldn’t be considered inclusive if only the perspectives of certain groups are valued or carry any authority or influence. How CD and CE processes are designed and facilitated is thus requires careful attention as this can significantly affect the extent to which such processes ensure diversity and inclusion, or alternatively act to reproduce and/or further reinforce or exacerbate existing inequalities (e.g. in education, access and availability of resources and services, power and influence over decision making etc.) [46, 37, 38, 42].

GENDER

In most societies, being female or male is not simply a matter of being a different sex, which refers to the biological and physical differences between females and males (e.g. bodies, hormones, and organs) [47]. People also face different expectations about how they should behave, what their roles and relations with others in the family, workplace and society should be depending on their sex. These socially and culturally constructed gender norms can result in unequal access and availability of resources and services, decision making power, and ability to influence and participate between the sexes [47, 48]. Similarly, these gender differences can affect men and women’s barriers and motivators to changing behaviour to improve animal welfare [49, 50, 45].

INTERSECTIONALITY

An example of the implications of intersecting social characteristics for animal welfare is provided below to better bring this concept to life.

A woman from a patriarchal social system in which men hold most of the power while women are excluded from it, is subject to gender norms in which she is expected to take on traditional unpaid care work within her household which includes caring for the household’s livestock.

These gender norms mean that growing up, she was not prioritized to attend school like males in her family and therefore has limited education and skills for gaining paid employment. Her society’s gender roles similarly dictate that men in her household act predominantly as income earners and decision makers within the household, and control household finances. She and her husband are also migrants, and they face discrimination in employment opportunities making it difficult for them to secure higher paying jobs because these are typically awarded to locals. Due to her migratory status, she is also unable to obtain a government issued identity card, which means she is unable to access benefits or opportunities provided by the local government related to the provision of training opportunities and subsidies for livestock improvement. Her inability to access these opportunities limit her options for improving her livestock’s health and productivity, thereby further limiting the amount of income generated to care for her family and livestock. However, even if she could secure a an identity card and access such training opportunities, males in her household would attend as men are prioritized for participation in education opportunities since it believed that women’s socially prescribed gender roles mean they don’t need or benefit from furthering their education. As her family does not earn much money, she is considered to be of lower socio-economic status, and while her care giving role means she has in-depth knowledge of the conditions and needs of her household’s livestock, she is unable access sufficient resources to adequately meet them.

Despite her in-depth knowledge of her animals needs for health treatment, she is also unable to call animal health service providers herself because they don’t respond to her calls because service providers prefer to deal with men because they know they are household decision makers and control household finances and don’t think women are authorized to make such decision or able to pay. When she asks men in the household for resources and services she’s identified are needed to keep the animals healthy and productive, they similarly don’t value her knowledge or livestock caring role since it doesn’t generate income consider her to be uneducated. However, other low income households who are not migrants have identify cards and both men and women can access subsidized animal related resources and health care services.

This example illustrates how gender, socio-economic status, migratory status, and education level all combine to exacerbate the constraints faced in accessing opportunities and resources for improving animals’ welfare. Understanding the intersecting personal attributes and circumstances which contribute to different groups’ inequality and disadvantage is important to designing and implementing projects in ways that promote diversity, inclusion and equality, and address barriers to desired change [51, 37, 42]. Using an intersectional lens may highlight needs for not just mitigating further exacerbation of existing inequalities, but also for addressing them to achieve more equitable benefits and improved outcomes for both people and animals [51].

EQUALITY AND EQUITY

While the terms equality and equity may seem similar, the implementation of one versus the other within CE or CD projects can lead to dramatically different outcomes for marginalized or discriminated individuals or groups [52].

Equality refers to each individual or group of people having the same resources or opportunities, and being treated the same regardless of their differences [52].

Equity is a means for achieving equality by seeking to understand the inequalities that exist, and working to address them so that all groups have what they need to have equal opportunities [52]. The concept recognizes that different groups have different needs and social power and that these differences can make it more challenging for some groups to achieve the same goals with the same effort [52, 46]. As such, it seeks to identify and address these different needs in a manner that rectifies the imbalance between groups. In the development context, an equity goal often requires built-in measures to compensate for the historical and social disadvantages of discriminated and marginalized groups to ensure that all have the exact resources and opportunities they need to reach an equal outcome in accordance with their circumstances [52, 53, 51]. Although this may mean that treatment will be different, it will also be fair.

Equality and equity are important to achieving meaningful and representative community participation in any CE or CD process, as different community members or groups may face different barriers to participation as a result of their identifying attributes, whether socially, economically, demographically or geographically defined [46, 51, 38, 42]. For example, in many societies, social constructs of gender often dictate what the acceptable roles and responsibilities for males and females, with women’s roles often including reproductive/care roles within the household, in addition to productive roles (e.g. paid work) and community roles which are also prescribed to men [47]. As a result, women in such contexts may face increased barriers to participation due to constraints on their available time in light of their gender responsibilities when compared to men, or in contexts where civic participation may be considered to be the role of males in household [47]. For CE or CD processes to promote equality in participation in such circumstances, the unique circumstances of both men and women would first need to be understood, and then strategies developed to enable women to overcome the gendered barriers to participation they may face [51, 37, 42]. In the context of promoting animal welfare for example, promoting gender equality by addressing gender inequities may be important if a context where women play critical roles in their animals’ husbandry and management, but do not have decision making authority or the ability to access resources within their households to improve their animals’ welfare as can male household members.

Equality and equity are also important to understand in terms of behaviour change for improving animal welfare, as marginalized or discriminated groups are likely to face greater barriers to change than non-marginalized members of society (e.g. due to gender, age, race, religion, socio-economic, status, urban vs. rural etc.) . Thus achieving equality in animal welfare improvement outcomes across all sectors of an animal owning community may require specific measures be taken to address the inequities in how marginalized groups’ needs are considered, their contributions valued, and their ability to access opportunities and resources as needed [49, 50].

GENDER MAINSTREAMING

Gender mainstreaming is a globally accepted strategy or process for promoting gender equality. It involves ensuring that gendered analysis, gender perspectives, and attention to the goal of gender equality are central to any planned actions such as project activities, programmes, policies, and legislation so that inequality is not perpetuated [54, 47, 42]. Underlying the concept of mainstreaming gender is a recognition that women and men have different lived experiences and circumstances which affect their needs and access and availability of opportunities. Thus, gender mainstreaming can be a useful strategy for helping understand and address gender disparities and gaps and promote greater equality in such areas as the division of labour between men and women; access to and control over resources, services, information and opportunities; and distribution of power and decision-making [55, 47].

As such, it is not solely about ensuring both men and women participate in a project. For example, gender roles and responsibilities and associated social norms can shape men, women, boys’ and girls’ roles and responsibilities related to their animals, their access and availability of animal related resources and services, and their decision-making power related to their animals, which can either support or hinder their efforts to improve their animals’ welfare [45]. Unless a gender mainstreaming approach is adopted, such disparities may not be fully understood and projects unable to be designed in ways to help overcome them, which may result in less favourable outcomes for both animals and people.

The Gender Integration Continuum illustrated in Figure 28 was originally developed by the Interagency Gender Working Group (IGWG) for promoting equality and helping to mitigate the perpetuation of inequalities between men and women within any project/programme/policy, and can be used as either a diagnostic tool or a planning framework [56].

• Gender Integration Continuum as a Diagnostic Tool [56]: As a diagnostic tool, the continuum can be used to assess if and how well gender considerations are integrated within projects/programmes/policies to improve outcomes. In this way, it provides a useful framework for categorizing approaches by how they treat gender norms and inequities in the design, implementation, monitoring and evaluation of projects/programmes/policies.
  
• Gender Integration Continuum as a Planning Framework [56]: As a planning framework, it can help determine how to move along the continuum toward more transformative gender programming. In this context, it is important to emphasize that programmatic interventions should always aim to be “gender aware” at a minimum, and to move towards “transformative gender programming” to the greatest extent feasible.

The gender integration continuum provides a two-tiered process of analysis that begins with determining whether interventions are “gender blind” or “gender aware,” and then considers whether they are exploitative, accommodating or transformative as defined below and illustrated with examples from animal welfare improvement projects in Figure 28 [56]:

1. Gender Blind [56]: gender blind refers to projects/programmes/policies which are designed without prior analysis of the culturally-defined set of economic, social, and political roles, responsibilities, rights, entitlements, obligations, and power relations associated with being female and male and the dynamics between and among men and women, boys and girls. Gender blind programs/policies ignore gender considerations altogether, and may be unintentionally exploitative or accommodating. They are much less likely to be transformative, as this presumes they would be proactive and intentional in their effort to promote gender equality.
   
2. Gender Aware [56]: gender aware refers to policies and programs which deliberately examine and address the set of economic, social, and political roles, responsibilities, rights, entitlements, obligations and power relations associated with being female and male and the dynamics between and among men and women, boys and girls. Gender aware programs/policies examine and address the anticipated gender related outcomes during both the design and implementation of such programmes/policies. Thus an important prerequisite for all gender-integrated interventions is to be gender aware.

• Gender Exploitative [56]: refers to projects/programmes/policies which intentionally or unintentionally reinforce or take advantage of gender inequalities and stereotypes in pursuit of desired outcomes. This approach is harmful and can exacerbate inequalities, and undermine the objectives of the program in the long run. Under no circumstances should programs/policies adopt an exploitative approach as one of the fundamental best practices in CE and CD processes is the principle of “do no harm”, a concept further explained the shared core values and principles section below.
• Gender Accommodating [56]: Gender accommodating projects/programmes/policies acknowledge but work around gender differences and inequalities to achieve project objectives. Although this approach may result in short term benefits and realization of outcomes, it does not attempt to reduce gender inequality or address the gender and thus may not result in achievement of lasting change.
• Gender Transformative [56]: Gender transformative refers to projects/programmes/policies that seek to transform gender roles and relations to promote equality and achieve program objectives. Transformative approaches thus seek to promote greater equity as a means to achieving equality by:
  1) Fostering critical examination of inequalities and gender roles, norms and dynamics
  2) Recognizing and strengthening positive norms that support equality and an enabling environment,
  3) Elevating the relative position of women, girls and marginalized groups as equals to others in society, and
  4) Transforming the underlying social structures, policies and broadly held social norms that perpetuate gender inequalities.

As the continuum reflects a spectrum, a particular project may not fall neatly under one type of approach, and may include, for example, both accommodating and transformative elements [56]. The adapted continuum in Figure 28 attempts to illustrate this using the colour red and the dotted line to indicate that while some interventions may be exploitative, or contain elements that are exploitative (intentionally or unintentionally), the aim should always be to move them towards transformative approaches [56]. Integrating gender and striving to move toward more gender transformative programs/policies results in gradually challenging existing gender inequities and positive changes in power relations and/or the set of economic, social and political roles, responsibilities, rights, entitlements and obligations associated with particular gender groups [56, 47]. It is also important to note that the pursuit of transformative programming can always be integrated into ongoing projects without having to start the project over [56].

In the context of animal welfare improvement projects, gender mainstreaming is important ensures the different needs and situations of women, men, boys and girls influencing animals’ welfare are understood. This understanding is helpful to informing the design and implementation of effective CE and CD processes that promote equality in participation, opportunities, and access to resources for all animal owning community members to improve and benefit from improved animal welfare.

However, gender mainstreaming need not be limited to considerations of gender and it is recommended that an intersectional lens be adopted within gender mainstreaming, and any analysis conducted should not only consider gender, but also other relevant intersecting social categorizations that may be exacerbating patterns of inequalities [57, 51, 33]. This will help ensure that any CE or CD approach is designed and implemented in ways which do not reproduce or exacerbate existing inequalities, particularly amongst the most marginalized. In addition, understanding intersectionality in the context of communities with whom you work can help inform development of transformative strategies as needed to better achieve and sustain beneficial outcomes and greater equality for all [46].

Link to References Cited

Quiz 7: Key Concepts in Community Engagement and Development