A community water supply project in Cameroon illustrates the following constraints on community participation in development: paternalistic authorities, prescriptive role of the state, selective participation, bias toward "hard" issues, inattention to negative results, group conflicts, gatekeeping, pressure for immediate results,…

Includes "The Case of Western Europe: Integration and Change in the EEC--The Fortress and the Excluded" (Conroy); "The Case of Eastern Europe: Why Community Development Still Has to Find a Role in Hungary" (Tausz); and "The Case of the Third World: People's Self-Development (Rahman). (SK)

To examine the potential role of community social work in developing countries and the extent to which social workers in those countries are prepared, data from 22 schools of social work and 43 social work courses were analyzed. The authors emphasize that more community work teaching is needed. (MF)

Nonformal educators in Botswana have shown that the performing arts, "popular" or "folk" theater, can play an important role in community education but that problems must be resolved to achieve progressive social change. (MF)

Argues that community development is an appropriate arena for using participatory research techniques, since community development depends strongly on citizen involvement. Features a case study of use of the participatory research technique in a project aimed at attacking rural poverty in Nigeria. (CH)

Developing countries cannot simply pattern their social welfare programs after the programs in developed nations because their needs are quite different. Educational levels, degrees of urbanization, and wealth of the countries must be considered. Individual communities must be involved in a real sense if social welfare programs are to succeed. (AG)

In Western countries, community work is often carried out without attention to comparable activities in developing societies. There is a need for collaboration and exchange, and practices must be changed to accommodate them. (JOW)

Compares attempts at community development in Nigeria under English and French colonialism with postcolonial grass-roots efforts up to the post-cold war era. Suggests the need to rethink the structure and role of the state in society. (SK)

This article highlights some issues raised at the 1985 Botswana workshop that focused on community financing of primary and secondary schools. Discusses mechanisms for raising resources (charges on pupils, resources from within the community, resources from outside the community), problems of quality and equity, and central guidance and control.…

Attempts to discover how and why community development has been used in the past, and to formulate some ideas on prospects for community development in the future. (CT)

Examines the implications of the Bhopal catastrophe and the organization by the consumer movement of a coalition of community action groups--The International Coalition for Justice in Bhopal--that links action in the developed and developing countries. (JOW)

Nongovernmental organizations in developing countries tend to depoliticize citizens. They must change their perception of their role, stop portraying themselves as nonaccountable, stop creating community businesses that do not incorporate the market, and admit a role for private industry. (SK)

Despite the newly decentralized local government system in Ghana, communities have been slow to develop broad-based participatory consultative processes for community development. Inflexible bureaucracy also hinders involvement of stakeholders. (SK)

Reviews eight books: "Autonomous Development" (R. Carmen); "Community Power and Grassroots Democracy" (M. Kaufman, H. Alfonso); "Questioning Empowerment" (J. Rowlands); "Seeking a Balance" (A. Fowler); "Funding Community Initiatives" (S. Arrossi et al.); "Whose Voice?" (J. Holland, J.…