Rural livelihoods are threatened by disturbances that reduce household resilience. While capital assets, learning capacities, self-reliance, diversity, and connectivity enhance resilience, these indicators have not yet been fully operationalized or tested empirically over time at the household level. This study develops a livelihood resilience index that measures changes in these capacities across two rural case studies over 2013 and 2016. Results reveal declining resilience trajectories shaped by cumulative disturbances, capacity erosion, and contextual constraints. Households experienced significant losses in social, economic, and ecological diversity, leadership networks, social capital, and natural resource use. These findings demonstrate that resilience depends not only on social dimensions but critically on maintaining diversity, connectivity, learning capacity, and self-reliance. We discuss operational challenges in measuring this multidimensional index and argue that policies must address the full spectrum of resilience capacities to support rural livelihoods.
Place-based community engagement (PBCE) is an emerging approach characterized by long-term, reciprocal university-community partnerships with equal focus on student learning and community impact. Despite growing interest, comprehensive and rigorous evaluation of PBCE remains limited, especially regarding community partner and relationship outcomes. This study assessed a regional climate justice PBCE initiative using a participatory mixed-methods case study design that triangulated surveys, interviews, and social network analysis (SNA). Students reported significant gains in community knowledge and demonstrated complex systems thinking, nuanced understandings of intersectionality, and strong intentions for sustained civic engagement. Community partners reported increased organizational and research capacity but identified short engagement timeframes as a key challenge. SNA revealed moderate connectivity among partners, indicating opportunities to strengthen collective action. Both students and partners reported that longer-duration, higher-intensity engagements yielded better outcomes. Findings suggest PBCE holds promise for advancing real-world climate justice when designed with sufficient duration, intentional relationship-building, and shared governance.
Financial literacy is critical for navigating complex financial systems and building household wealth. Yet, rural communities often face structural barriers, such as fewer financial institutions and educational programs. This study examines financial literacy across urban and rural U.S. counties, highlighting how personal factors interact with place. On average, financial literacy is similar across the urban-rural spectrum, but factors shaping financial literacy differ by rurality. Higher education, self-employment, male gender, and higher income are consistently associated with greater financial literacy, while lower education and Black and Hispanic populations have disproportionately lower financial literacy in rural areas. These patterns suggest that how individuals access and engage with financial systems likely varies by the type of place they live. Understanding and addressing how demographic and socioeconomic factors interplay with the financial literacy levels of different places is critical to individual capability and wellbeing and crucial for strengthening community capacity, resilience, and equitable development.
By 2018, 1.4 billion people were members of Facebook groups, of whom 200 million belonged to significant groups defined by Facebook as "communities." This qualitative study examines geographic bounded Facebook based communities to understand their role in community life and determine whether they are communities "without kinship" or extensions of the traditional community. Based on thematic analysis of interviews with fifteen community managers, the findings indicate that geographic Facebook communities exist not only online, but in real life, blurring the distinction between online and offline spaces. The Facebook community is perceived as a geographical meeting space, despite extending beyond physical limitations. This is a paradigm shift in the concept of community development - from involvement limited by physical space to involvement in online space as well. Sustaining both requires vision, flexibility, and skills to allow constant shifting between spaces in the same community or across different online and offline communities.
We explored the adaptive capacities of rural municipal governments in Maine, USA during the COVID-19 pandemic. We interviewed staff from 20 municipalities representing a range of geographic and governance characteristics. Municipalities demonstrated limited economic development capacity. They were able to develop new information and communication strategies, yet struggled to reach all their residents. Rural governments demonstrated high community competence capacity, working together to address challenges and develop new innovations. Social capital emerged as a key capacity with many types of connections facilitating the response to COVID-19. When examining the interconnectedness of adaptive capacities, social capital was found to compensate for other, weaker capacities in rural areas. We also identified an emergent theme, in which community pride fueled local morale. We conclude that local context matters not only in how adaptive capacities operate, but also when striving to strengthen community resilience.
Remote work became increasingly feasible following the Covid-19 pandemic because of technological advancements, gaining global traction. It has made emerging economies like the Global South a desirable destination for digital nomads. This research explores the nexus of digital nomadism and sustainable development, addressing its positive and negative contributions toward economic growth, social cohesion, and environmental sustainability in the Global South. It also investigates the role digital nomadism plays in exacerbation of inequalities, including its influence on local economies as well as its social and cultural consequences for host communities. Environmental impacts stemming from higher tourism and increased resource consumption are also assessed. This paper's research analysis draws from fields such as the United Nations' Sustainable Development Goals and globalization theories to evaluate the effects of digital nomadism. It concludes with policy recommendations intended to enhance the beneficial impacts of digital nomadism and mitigate its negative effects.
The Institutional Review Board (IRB) was created to protect human research subjects. In community-based research, the IRB protections can inhibit centering the voices and experiences of community members themselves. This paper centers on a year-long IRB review for a community-based research project where the authors attempted to center community members' experiences and use student researchers. Ultimately, the authors decided not to pursue the research through the IRB and become consultants for the nonprofit instead. The authors of this paper adopt a critical lens as they discuss how risk aversion, paternalism, and epistemic injustice work against community-based research and offer potential solutions for IRBs and researchers to use in the future.
The Democracy Ambassador program involves training community members to deliver electoral education and enrollment sessions through outreach to community services, gatherings and events. The program features peer-to-peer learning sessions run by community members delivered to groups under-represented in democracy including people with disability, people experiencing homelessness, people in prison, Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people, culturally and linguistically diverse communities and young people. Mixed-methods evaluation of the program included evaluation of the training of Democracy Ambassadors, outcomes for session participants, feedback from stakeholders and the program team. The evaluation suggests that trained community members delivering electoral education sessions increases electoral literacy and voting confidence in the peer community members reached. This evidence of the effectiveness of the Democracy Ambassador program suggests it could inform efforts to improve electoral literacy and participation in other jurisdictions and communities.
This study examines the social dimensions of Urban Rivers' Free Kayak Days at the Bubbly Creek Floating Gardens in Chicago, Illinois. Floating gardens are a form of blue-green infrastructure that provide ecological benefits, including nutrient removal, habitat creation, and shoreline stabilization, while also offering recreational and educational opportunities. Guided by environmental justice scholarship, our interdisciplinary team conducted participant observation to evaluate whether Urban Rivers' Freek Kayak Days effectively engaged residents from surrounding marginalized communities. Four themes emerged: (1) access and inclusion, highlighting reduced financial barriers but ongoing challenges related to safety perceptions, cultural relevance, and physical accessibility; (2) community engagement and awareness, emphasizing the importance of inter-organizational collaboration and targeted outreach; (3) environmental perceptions and education, showing how kayaking fosters place-based environmental learning despite lingering negative views of river health; and (4) social and recreational dynamics, illustrating the program's ability to build social cohesion and promote mental well-being.
This study investigates how local enterprise development (LED) can serve as a catalyst for community-driven development, sustainability, and security in the Save Valley Conservancy (SVC), Zimbabwe. Operating within a context of contested land-tenure arrangements and fragmented governance structures, the SVC faces complex socio-ecological challenges. Using focus group discussions complemented by thematic analysis as the primary qualitative method, the research captures collective community perspectives on enterprise initiatives, conservation priorities, and governance dynamics. The findings contribute to theory-building in community development by illustrating how locally driven enterprises can enhance ecological stewardship, improve livelihoods and strengthen institutional resilience. The study proposes a socially embedded framework for inclusive development in conservation areas and outlines clear implications for practice and policy, particularly in designing participatory governance models and sustainable livelihood strategies in ecologically vulnerable regions.
This study examines the Mentari Waste Bank in Gresik, Indonesia, addressing gaps in the community-based waste management literature. It explores the interaction between social capital, the Mentality, Systems, and Networks (MSN) framework, and Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). With Indonesia's population exceeding 281 million in 2024 and East Java generating 6.1 million tons of waste annually, unsustainable practices pose significant risks. Using a descriptive qualitative case study approach, data were collected via interviews, observations, and document analysis. The findings show that the Mentari Waste Bank promotes environmental awareness and economic resilience by integrating the MSN framework. Educational campaigns and trust-building shifted mind-sets toward waste sorting and recycling. Innovations like composters and eco-enzymes reduced landfill dependency by 30%, aligning with SDG 11 and SDG 12. Collaboration with local governments, NGOs, and media strengthened social capital, enabling scalable solutions. This study offers actionable insights for policymakers to replicate the model globally.
This paper presents community development as practiced in precolonial Africa, highlighting, in a brief manner, the nature of its practice in colonial and postcolonial periods. The paper lays bare the underpinning conceptual elements that elicited an individual's unalloyed commitment to communal values in the precolonial era. In the precolonial context, the experienced collective wellbeing was a necessary offshoot of the individual's well-developed self-help spirit and initiatives, which had its basis in an ethic of duty that was culturally the norm. The paper further presents some conceptual reorientations in colonial and postcolonial eras, highlighting also their drawbacks in community development practice. It argues that achieving ownership and sustainability in the community development sector in postcolonial Africa requires instituting multisectoral policies that can revitalize the traditional African self-help spirit and also prioritize an ethic of duty.
Bangladesh has a large population and one-third of it is the youth whose participation in community development activities is crucial for overall development of the country. This study explores youth attitudes and active participation in community development activities by using the Community Development Participation Scale (CDPS). Participants showed positive attitudes toward community development activities but demonstrate a slightly lower level of active participation. Attitude toward community development activities emerged as the strongest predictor of active participation. Participation also varied across youth gender and place of residence. Female and urban youth participation was comparatively lower than that of their male and rural counterparts. Youth participation in community development is hindered by various socioeconomic and political barriers. This study recommends providing adequate resources, skill development training, and youth inclusion in the policymaking process to enhance youth contributions to community development in Bangladesh.
This study investigates how residents of Sarapiqu & iacute;, an emerging tourism destination, perceive sustainability and tourism, and what influences their willingness to engage in sustainable tourism development initiatives. Guided by the Norm Activation Model (NAM), the study employs a mixed-methods approach and draws perspectives from both sustainability and community-based tourism. Focus group findings reveal a strong understanding of sustainability and a generally positive sentiment toward tourism across various stakeholder groups. However, survey results highlight a gap between residents' support for sustainable tourism and their actual intention to participate in related initiatives. The quantitative analysis also emphasizes the critical role of knowledge in shaping these intentions. Collectively, the findings question the applicability of NAM in this context, suggesting that resident sentiment is more closely tied to social norms in non-western settings. The study underscores the need for a more comprehensive, cross-cultural framework to better understand resident attitudes in developing and emerging destinations.
This article proposes everyday peace as a strengths-based community development framework with significant ability to empower local peacebuilding agency. Most peacebuilding focusses on strengthening social cohesion, and thus starts by searching for common ground, bringing together those who can quickly move toward local negotiated outcomes. After serious intercommunal or sectarian violence, however, this may be neither safe nor possible. By contrast, "everyday peace" describes the methods by which ordinary people manage daily interactions in deeply divided societies, to sidestep or mitigate tensions and conflict triggers. Grounded in the everyday life of ordinary people, it is a broader concept recognizing the often-significant steps taken by people with restricted agency. This paper proposes that the principles are highly compatible, and community development is ideal for operationalizing everyday peace. Everyday peace thus offers a valuable framework for bottom-up peacebuilding, emphasizing the importance of recognizing and strengthening the agency of individuals in conflict-affected contexts.
Mentoring can have positive impacts in workforce development, employee productivity, retention, job commitment, and satisfaction. But the business press and research literature indicate traditional formal mentoring programs can seem obligatory rather than engaging. Conversely, informal mentoring rarely incorporates structure, goal setting, or evaluation. This article outlines a new intermediary conceptual model for nonformal mentoring that is theoretically grounded in adult and social learning theories, nonformal education, and teaching praxis. It draws upon adult development and motivation theories as well. It emerged from a four-year, multi-phase inquiry informed by practice. This framework can shift the context and structure of existing mentoring programs encouraging flexibility and personalization driven by mentee interests and needs. Cooperative Extension and community development practitioners are recognized as experts in workforce development and adult learning strategies. This positions them to share this framework bridging formal and informal structures, transforming mentoring across business, nonprofit, government, and academic sectors.
This study analyzes rural development governance in the Shouf El-Souayjani Union of Municipalities, a historically rich yet institutionally neglected region in Lebanon. It focuses on local institutions, policy, and stakeholder dynamics and their impact on how tourism contributes to inclusive communities. The research is based on 41 semi-structured interviews with various stakeholders, including municipality and ministry representatives, NGOs, guesthouse owners, syndicates, private sector actors, and environmental associations. The results identify key features of the setting, including institutional fragmentation, political interference, and legal gaps. However, grassroots initiatives, decentralized tourist destination management, community resilience, and capacity building are promising avenues for integrating tourism into development policymaking. Drawing upon discourses of governance and sustainability, this study validates calls for participatory planning, continuity among policymakers, and inter-sector collaboration. Moreover, it contributes to the international debate concerning rural development through tourism. It supports the UN SDGs, particularly those for 8, 11, 12, and 17.
The study compares the "bowling alone" method of quantifying social capital - based on the density of civic organizations and brick-and-mortar institutions - with newer approaches that draw on billions of online friendship ties to assess economic connectedness and social cohesion. Using county-level data from across the continental United States, indices of traditional and digital social capital are constructed and compared, mapping their geographic distributions and assessing their correlation. The analysis reveals that these two measures are only weakly correlated and exhibit strikingly different spatial patterns, with traditional social capital highest in rural areas and digital social capital concentrated in metropolitan regions. For the community development literature, the study tests each measure's predictive validity against county-level outcomes such as population growth, income changes, and employment trends. Findings suggest that each measure captures complementary, non-substitutable dimensions of community connectedness, emphasizing the need for an integrated approach to understanding local social ties.
This study proposes a comprehensive Asnaf (zakat recipients) development framework that promotes sustainable empowerment and self-reliance through spiritually grounded community and economic development. Anchored in Maqasid al-Shariah and al-Falah, the framework integrates Brown and Hannis's 10-Step Community Development Model and incorporates SMART goals to ensure structured, measurable outcomes. Using qualitative document analysis of data from Malaysian zakat institutions and global poverty programs, the study emphasizes internal capacity building among amil zakat, including role clarity and performance monitoring. It also draws on international models such as Conditional Cash Transfers and Welfare-to-Work to highlight the importance of behavioral change and strategic investment. Community development is promoted through inclusive participation, such as local support for Asnaf entrepreneurship, religious engagement, and ecosystem linkages between zakat payers and recipients. Adaptable to Malaysia's decentralized zakat governance, the framework supports broader application across OIC member states and offers an ethically grounded model for long-term poverty alleviation.
This study explores the resilience of community-based tourism (CBT) destinations in Vietnam, in the face of external shocks, focusing on the recovery processes following the COVID-19 pandemic. Using data collected from 143 villagers, focus group discussions, and in-depth interviews, the research highlights the pivotal role of women in sustaining CBT initiatives. The findings underscore the necessity of gender-inclusive policies to foster leadership and enhance community capacity. Sociocultural factors, such as social cohesion and trust, emerge as the primary drivers of adaptive strategies, outweighing the psychological and economic impacts of crises. Intrinsic motivations, including cultural preservation and a shared sense of identity, are found to be more influential than economic incentives in sustaining participation in CBT activities. To enhance resilience and support sustainable development, recovery efforts should prioritize rebuilding social cohesion through participatory and community-led initiatives, alongside targeted investments in education, infrastructure, and cultural promotion.
