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AUTHOR'S PREFACE


The two pieces which comprise this Development Dossier emerge out of the collective reflections-on-experience of the consultants of the Community Development Resource Association, a South African-based NGO consultancy practice which has been in existence for some thirteen years. During this time we have consulted to-and provided training for-development organisations and practitioners throughout Southern and East Africa and Eastern Europe, as well as donor organisations and programme officers in the North. This has provided us with an overview of, and a singular perspective on, development practice and capacity-building interventions. As a result of some of the publications which we have already produced on these and related topics, I was invited to present our particular perspective on development and capacity building for this Development Dossier.

I have written these pieces, as a practitioner and out of the experience of practice, with a sense of urgency. It is becoming more and more difficult for us as development practitioners to justify, to ourselves, our allegiance to the practice of development when the development sector has largely become a farce, at best, and yet another instrument of hegemony, at worst.

Our own practice becomes limited when the organisations we consult to, development organisations, are unbearably constrained by having to work within the milieu of a development sector which is unthinking, and which has dominant allegiances with those very forces which conspire to maintain the status quo. Yet there are many development practitioners, organisations and donors who are genuinely trying to develop alternative practices. This Development Dossier is written with the specific intent of improving the practice of development and capacity building.

It comprises two pieces. The first has been adapted from our 1998 Annual Report; the second is an adaptation of a chapter from a forthcoming book on Organisation Development. Together these two pieces now form one argument and perspective with respect to new ways of looking at development and capacity-building practice. Given that capacity building has become an important and ubiquitous concept within the development sector, yet with little coherent or collective appreciation-either for the theory or the practice- this publication is timely and challenging and will, hopefully, inspire new ways of apprehending and practising development.

The arguments presented here are radical alternatives to conventional development and capacity-building practice. As such, they will inevitably be treated with a certain degree of scepticism, given our fear of the unknown, our resistance to change, and the moribund sense of the impossibility of adapting and modifying a vast and complicated system which has been dedicated to pursuing a particular approach. The daunting challenge of turning both the approach and the system-organisational, procedural, methodological-on their heads. Challenges indeed. Not to be underestimated, nor disrespected. It is inevitable that the perspectives presented here will be resisted simply because the challenge of change is so daunting. Easier to stay with the known, with the conventional, than to be the individual to rock the seemingly intransigent boat. Yet if the challenge is rejected on these grounds-and there are no other grounds on which to base a rejection of at least the possibility of the validity of these arguments-then there is little option for anything other than an increasing cynicism with respect to the development endeavour, and the building of capacity in particular. We know already that the development sector is having great difficulty in achieving its supposed goals; it is difficult to escape this conclusion when looking at the achievements to date. Cynicism, manifested as an increasing tiredness and a dependence on confirmations generated by adherence to, and "successful" applications of, current organisational realities rather than on developmental impact itself, is already rampant within the development sector. If we are honest with ourselves, we cannot deny this creeping paralysis. Alternatives, even if only experimental at this stage, are called for.

Such alternatives are radical. No doubt, and in the literal sense of the word. It will require enormous effort of will for individuals to begin to challenge the conventional, and to experiment with new forms of practice and organisation. And there can be no doubt that change will depend on individual initiative-the system will not change all at once, and it will not change unless individuals begin to make that change happen. Thus, rather than presenting specific guidelines here as to how organisational and bureaucratic reality will have to adapt in order to encompass and support such change, I would like to invite those who engage with this publication to think through the questions which it raises for them, and to begin to discuss such questions amongst colleagues, within their own organisations, and with myself. Such questions may relate to theory, practice, methodology, organisational reality and procedure, and evaluative or strategic concerns. (It would be helpful if they were based on genuine attempts to think through one's own practical response to thoughts of implementing such an alternative perspective.) In this way, a dialogue may begin which could help us all to move forward. We would all, then, be practising development ourselves, rather than simply reading about it, or doing it to others.

Allan Kaplan
January 1999


Allan Kaplan can be contacted at:
Community Development Resource Association (CDRA)
P.O. Box 221, Woodstock 7915
South Africa
Telephone +27-21/462 3902
Fax +27-21/462 3918
E-mail <cdra@wn.apc.org>
Website (www.cdra.org.za)

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