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Directions
and a map to
the
CDRA Centre in Cape Town
An Overview of CDRA
The
Community Development Resource Association (CDRA) is a South
African NGO operating as a ‘Centre for Developmental Practice’.
“We aim to bring about and support authentic, coherent and
effective development practice amongst people, organisations and
institutions working towards those forms of social
transformation that most benefit the poor and the marginalised”.(From CDRA mission statement)
What do we
mean by a 'Developmental Practice?'
CDRA is
highly critical of much that is done in the name of development.
But instead of rejecting the concept of development we are
committed to building a practice based on a particular
and quite distinct understanding of it. We see
development as an innate and ongoing life process to be
recognised, respected and worked with, to be unlocked and
enhanced. We do not see it as something that can be created or
delivered through projects designed from the outside. With this as
a fundamental orientation, we see a developmental practice
as a conscious, facilitative approach to social transformation.
Effective developmental practice respectfully accompanies and
supports people and their organisations, communities and
movements, in their own efforts to realise
their aspirations, make
their choices and access
their fair share of resources. And in so doing
adding their contribution, more fully and equitably, to shaping an
interdependent world for present and future generations.
What do we do? With whom?
We
offer an integrated service comprising action research through
collaborative inquiry, a range of courses for development
practitioners, organisational development accompaniment, and the
production and dissemination of perspectives and lessons learnt.
This resource is available
locally and
internationally to organisations,
institutions and individuals who are striving to build a practice
that better reflects the requirements, constraints and demands of
effective social development.
Our
‘target’ – the focus of our attentions – is the approaches,
methods and practices of ‘the development sector’ itself. We aim
to influence the development sector, towards enabling approaches
that are effective, appropriate to the realities of human
development and make best use of the resources that have been
entrusted to us.
Our
years of practice have shown that the development sector risks
undoing the very good that it aims to achieve because of the
approach and methods used in pursuit of its goals. We aim to help
the sector become more congruent with its own aims.
Our experience has
shown us that continuous personal and organisational learning is
the way to achieving a developmental approach. To realising the
goals of development where individuals, organisations and whole
communities are increasingly able to exercise choice, to be
authors of their own continued existence, in word and deed.
What strategies
do we employ?
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Collaborative action research
– facilitated and collaborative processes aimed at creating the
conditions for rigorous peer learning from experience, designed to
surface, share and improve practice, to generate a practitioner
voice on matters that shape the sector, to develop relationships
and culture in the sector that support continuous improvement and
to record and disseminate the results of these for a wider
audience.
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Courses
– a range of courses aimed at supporting more effective and
developmental practices and ongoing learning in the individual
practitioners, organisations and networks that we serve.
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Organisational accompaniment
– an approach to organisational development consultancy that
commits to walking with our clients through their processes of
change, implementation, review and re-commitment.
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Internal organisational development and
governance
– maintaining the ongoing health, development and accountability
of our own organisation which, as an NGO, is willingly bound by
those same commitments to social and financial transparency and
accountability as are those we serve.
Our Mission
Statement...
The
Community Development Resource Association is a non-governmental
African organisation advancing conscious and continuous learning
about development processes and the art of intervention. We aim
to help bring about and support authentic and coherent development
practice amongst people, organisations and institutions working
towards those forms of social transformation that most benefit the
poor and marginalised.
We
do this through organisational interventions, training, accompanied
learning and collaborative explorations. Out of active reflection
on our experience, and through writing and disseminating, we share
our insights and lessons gained, seeking to impact on wider development
thinking and processes. Our work strives towards a just and civil
society; a society in which more people have access to resources
and power over choices.
Our
work is underpinned and informed by a commitment to enabling individuals,
organisations and institutions to challenge socially restricting
paradigms and practices. We strive to bring to birth new consciousness,
creativity and strength in ourselves, and in those with whom we
work, thus facilitating our collective development towards a more
human, purposeful and conscious future. We are committed to accompanying
these individuals, organisations and institutions through their
crises of growth and development towards healthy interdependence.
Origins and achievements
CDRA
is a non-governmental organisation based in Cape Town, South Africa,
that works with people who are engaged in social transformation with
marginalised communities. We help development practitioners and their
organisations create genuine and consistent developmental practices in
the field and, through that, the kinds of organisations and leadership
that make these practices a sustainable reality.
CDRA came into being in
1987, during a very significant period in the history of South Africa
– a time when one regime was in its death throes and another was
waiting to be born. Its purpose was to provide organisation
development services to non-governmental service organisations, which
later became known as NGOs.
Over the
years CDRA has pioneered and provided organisation development (OD)
services to improve the effectiveness of more than 500 development
organisations, both in Africa as well as further afield. Working with
small community-based organisations, through all sizes of NGOs to
large international agencies, we have generated and benefited from a
diverse range of experience.
Training (and
learning from) donors, leaders, managers, capacity builders, OD
practitioners and field workers operating at many levels in the
aid/development chain has further contributed to our learning. Our
long cultivated practice of organisational reflection and learning
from experience has enabled us to deepen our understanding and produce
important and provocative publications which have had a significant
impact on the development sector.
CDRA
has done far more than develop and provide an effective
capacity-building service. It has succeeded in promoting a
challenging, rigorous and disciplined approach to development
practice, as well as an approach to organisation which can help build
social formations that are effective in supporting such practice.
There is a tendency for some development interventions to foster
dysfunctional dependence in their recipients, and CDRA works to
prevent such bad practice from occurring, as this contradicts our
understanding of what is truly developmental.
Our type of approach
demands a new level of responsibility and rigour from those who
practise development – as such, it is very important not to ignore the
practitioner’s own developmental process, or the relationship between
practitioners and their cultures, and those receiving services. CDRA
emphasises the interdependent and systemic nature of social process.
More broadly, that means
that CDRA sees itself as the purveyors and sharers of an integrated,
reflective, nurturing yet rigorous development practice, where
authenticity is the key value – and one that subsumes and includes
all the others.
Developing Partnerships and Learning
The types of requests we
have received have changed over the years. There has been a
significant shift away from capacity issues related to internal
organisational identity and functioning. Questions of leadership and
management have receded. Questions such as: “What should we as an
organisation be doing?” and “How can we best organise and manage
ourselves?” are now rare. In their place a much more specific and
practical focus on delivery is emerging.
We have worked with
organisations who are struggling in a variety of ways to be effective
and viable. Some remain consumed by their attempts to become more
strategic in the planning and delivery of their services - and more
organised in their internal functioning. But increasingly,
organisations are becoming conscious of their inability to deliver
their products and services in ways that contribute positively to
their own sense of what meaningful development is. We have explored
with them what they mean by development and how it can be measured,
and have tried to assist them to understand why it is so difficult to
introduce and sustain developmental practice in the development
sector.
What
is clear is that there is a great need to build a developmental
discipline and practice – a need which exists at all levels in the
development sector, from the well-resourced international agencies to
the small local and community- based NGOs. Whilst development theory
abounds, a conscious, coherent, disciplined and genuinely effective
practice lags far behind. In order to impact more directly on
practice and to promote a focus on developmental practice, CDRA has
therefore decided to become a Centre for Developmental Practice.
Creating the
Centre for Developmental Practice
The establishment of a
Centre for Developmental Practice indicates an intention to share the
work of CDRA more widely, to attempt to disseminate and promote its
approach to the benefit of a wider group of people – both
practitioners and organisations.
By forming ourselves into a
Centre for Developmental Practice we are bringing to the sector a
resource to help practitioners and organisations develop their
practice, nurturing in them a developmental, and therefore
transformational, way of understanding the world and intervening in
it.
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