Community Development Theory and Practice

Community Development Theory and Practice is a comprehensive text with an African context, valuable to all development stakeholders. The book has eight detailed and descriptive chapters which cover community development concepts, processes, paradigm shifts, approaches and tools that community development workers can use to bring people-centered development. The book gives a global historical overview of community development and shows the wake of community development practice in Tanzania for a period of more than 50 years, giving specific examples of its role on the development of women in the country throughout this period. In this book, the author clears the cloud surrounding the conceptual and practical differences between community development and social welfare services in Tanzania. This is done by tracing the origins of the two terms from 1960s, when the United States of America Government defined the terms within their operational contexts, and assigned their functions to two distinctive departments to show their main differences in meeting the needs of communities. The book draws on the author's extensive classroom and field experiences and shares the best practices and lessons learned through a community development theory and practice journey.