The Isoya Rural Development Project appears to have enhanced Nigerian women's multiple roles (maternal, occupational, conjugal, domestic, kin, community, and individual). Limitations of the project include poor rural infrastructure, male-oriented cultural norms, and lack of direct access to land by women. (SK)

A survey of 23 chairpersons of town unions (rural sociocultural organizations) in Nigeria indicated that self-help projects in education and rural development were concentrated in areas lacking infrastructure. Recommendations were made for an organizing framework, leadership training, government assistance, and efforts to encourage active…

The Village Polytechnic Movement consists of setting up training centers for the purpose of teaching locally-needed skills to primary school dropouts in rural Kenya. In addition to explaining the philosophy of the movement, the author comments upon its organization and future. (AG)

A report by the Regional and Community Development Section of the United Nations which states that community development has to give close attention to the strategy and tactics it considers using and the time needed to realize its goals. (Author/DR)

An effort to introduce the plow to Timor farmers faced following barriers: nature of the land and climate, strongly demarcated traditional system, tensions among ethnic groups, cattlelords system, necessary time to place/retain trainers in villages. Positive factors were concrete results, use of small groups and native trainers, age of adopters,…

A study of three Nigerian villages produced the following suggestions for improving the problems facing rural community development: democratic participative decision making, care in project selection, government incentives, promotion of adult literacy, and well-trained community workers. (SK)

The author reviews the "Cultural Missions Programme" of Mexico's educational reform after 1920, in which groups of teachers using Catholic missionary methods fought poverty and ignorance in rural Mexico. These mission programs embody most of the community development principles and are still needed. (MF)

An article by the Secretariat of the Economic Commission for Latin America, United Nations, which discusses regional factors affecting rural and community development in the Caribbean, existing community development programs, and emerging trends in the region. (Author/DR)

Includes "Community Work in the U.K.: Reflections on the 1980s" (Miller, Bryant); "Multiplication and Divisions: Trends in Community Development in Ireland since the 1960s" (Cinneide, Walsh); "Reconstruction to Deconstruction: The Transformation of Community Work in Australia" (Meekosha; Mowbray): "Community…

An extension program sponsored by the Venezuelan government attempted to change a rural area's shifting cultivation system into one that produced cash crops. The program's failure was due in part to the lack of understanding on the part of the extension agents regarding the communities' traditional resource use systems. (LH)

The author encountered many obstacles to Papua New Guinea's transformation from a subsistence to a cash economy during two months' field work: the people's conservatism, lack of confidence, indifference to cash, and deep commitment to tradition. These, and "subsistence affluence," warn against hastily exposing the people to inflation's…

The author describes an Indonesian program for village development: graduate students in any discipline at State universities must spend six months working at community development in a village in order to receive their master's degrees. Results have been varied; the author raises several questions and warns against unexpected negative results.…

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)