Asset Based Rural Community Development:

putting the ‘rural’ into ABCD in the UK.

Dr. Rhys Evans

Abstract
Asset-Based Community Development is an approach which is quickly gathering momentum in
policy circles in a number of countries, including Canada, the United States, the UK and
Ireland. Core to the approach is the idea that communities contain a number of diverse
assets which they can use to ‘develop themselves’, some of which are material and tangible,
such as Village Halls and landscapes, and others which are intangible, including social and
cultural capital features such as language, arts and music, traditional practices, economic
history, etc. Another key factor of the ABCD approach is that central authorities have a role
to play in supporting community self-development by supporting the creation of material
assets such as buildings (but also possibly, ferries, community woodlands, sports pitches, etc)
within which the development of intangible assets can be staged.

This paper looks at the community rural development scene in the UK and Ireland to find
specific factors which rural communities need in engaging in a successful ABCD programme,
thus creating a specific Asset-Based Rural Community Development (ABRCD) model, working
from the experience of the Carnegie Commission UK’s Rural Action Research Fund.

Keywords

Community development, rural development, asset-based community

development. Rural Re-Sourcing.

1. Introduction
Asset-Based Community Development (ABDC) is an approach with a growing band of
adherents. The fundamental principle of Asset-based approaches is that investment in
Assets provides a platform for sustainable community development. The model
acknowledges that development is a process, and that assets are one essential
contributor to that process. However, what are considered to be Assets varies and the
issue is sometimes contested. An over-focus on the provision of assets tends to
continue a paradigm of communities who are passive recipients of development, based
upon their needs and demonstration of victim-hood. In both international and rural
development however, deficit-based approaches have been demonstrated to be
insufficient and as a result, ABCD approaches have tended to be partial and vulnerable
to critique on the grounds of social justice. When however, Intangible Assets,
particularly those within the categories of Human and Social Capital are included,
then communities themselves own valuable resources they can bring to the
development table. If they are put at the heart of identifying what these Assets are,

1
and developing them, the resulting development partnerships spin off not just an
increased number and quality of physical assets, but also increased individual and
social capital and capacity and enhanced local economic development.. By allowing
local access to local decisions, using local knowledges, they build sustainability into
the development process.

This paper is the result of work being done with rural communities across the UK and
Ireland by the Carnegie UK Trust. The Trust’s Rural Action Research Programme (RARP)
is in the first of its three years and is developing an asset-based approach which it is
calling Rural Re-Sourcing, designed to acknowledge the essential assets for
development which communities already possess, but which are still under-
recognized, and to support in their development. Rather than explore the actual
research [to be explored in subsequent papers in progress] this paper focuses upon the
intellectual path which led to the formation of this Programmei.

This model is an Asset-based model and it asserts that the Intangible Assets which
communities already possess are the keys to them building strong local economies and
societies. It acknowledges that building sustainability into these economies and
communities involves handing the control and delivery of local services to them in a
situation where they have identified their need and willingness to support its
satisfaction. This paper briefly touches on the building blocks from which the idea
was developed.

2. Sustainable Livelihoods
An early response to the deficiencies of Exogenous (Top-down) Development was the
Sustainable Livelihoods (SLiv) approach. Developed in the early 1990s in response to
continuing poverty in developing nations despite large scale interventions, Sustainable
Livelihoods looks to people and their ways of living to build models of sustainable
development built around the knowledge and skills of those engaging in them.
Sustainable Livelihoods is both a goal, and an approach. It features local, self
sustaining solutions to poverty and it valorises the things poor communities bring to
the development challenge.

The direct incorporation of a fundamental Social Justice approach marks SLiv as

different from many other models, particularly of structural development. As an
approach and model it was adopted by a number of key international institutions as
their model for international development, including the International Labour
Organisation (ILO), the FAO, the UNDP of the United Nations and DfID in the UK.

3. The Five Capitals Model

The organisation Forum for the Future is one of the leading bodies promoting
sustainability in the UK and its ideas have contributed significantly to the development
of the ABRCD model. Founded in 1996, it was formed “out of a conviction that many
of the solutions needed to defuse the environmental crisis and build a more
sustainable society are already to hand” (FftF 2006). It developed and promoted what

2
was called the Five Capitals Model. This stipulated that successful local development
is built out of a set of resources which people in communities bring to the
development project. In this model, resources are treated like financial capital in
that they are fundamental assets which are integral components of the development
process. These Five Capitals are: Natural, Human, Social, Manufactured and Financial
Capital. Examples of each are included in the table below. This approach was further
developed with the establishment of the UK Sustainable Development Commission by
the Prime Minister, Tony Blair, in 2000 with FftF founder Jonathon Porritt, as its
Chairman.

Fig 1. The Five Capitals Model

Natural Biodiversity

Landscape character
Soils
Water
Air and climate
Minerals and other
non-renewables
Human Employment and
skills base

Education and training

Health and well-being
Social Leadership and trust

Community cohesion
and sense of place
Stakeholder networks
and processes
Manufactured Archeology

Buildings and built

heritage
Transport infrastructure,
traffic and access
networks
Processes and waste
products
Energy production and
Consumption
IT and telecommunications
Financial Public funding
e.g. for CAP or rural
regeneration
BB Local authority
expenditure

3
 Conservation funding
Local and extra-local business investment
Other (such as match
funding)
(source: Forum for the Future 2004.)

The Five Capitals approach offers a path away from seeing people and communities as
‘victims’ and a way out of the self-perpetuating trap of ‘needs-based‘ development.
It offers a multi-level, multiple input model which is able to identify important
contributors to the development task (assets) in the least endowed of citizens. It
asserts that true sustainability derives from ownership of the process by those who are
both its subjects and its objects.

Good work has been done by the Forum for the Future in England in developing this
approach and it’s success can be seen in its influence on contemporary attempts to re-
think rural development by Defra, by the Big Lottery Fund (a major funder of rural
community development) and by the Carnegie UK Trust.

The idea of these Capitals being resources for development brings us to the next step
along this model of community development -- Asset-based approaches.

4. Asset-based Community Development approaches (ABCD)

Another of the responses to the deficiencies of ‘needs-based’ approaches to
development has been a focus upon Asset-based Community Development.
Promulgated and promoted in North America in the 1990s, it arose from the challenges
of regenerating American urban and rural communities which were locked in self-
reinforcing cycles of deprivation. The two main proponents of this approach came
from Northwestern University in Chicago (Kretzmann & McKnight 1993) and the Coady
Institute in Canada. “ABCD draws attention to social assets: the gifts and talents of
individuals, and the social relationships that fuel local associations and informal
networks” (Mathie, Cunningham 2002). Here the focus is upon ‘unrealized’ resources
such as personal skills and attributes, relationships and social capital as key assets in
the task of building sustainable development from the ground up. American
development charities including the Ford Foundation have begun adopting an asset-
based approach in recent years.

These intangible resources are similar to those identified by Bryden and others in their
Distinctiveness of Rural Areas (DORA) project (Bryden et al 2002), which looked for
social and cultural factors distinguishing differential performance in local economic
development. Winning an EU award for research quality, this work became influential
in the inclusion of local communities, knowledges and practices, relationships and
network into new European models of rural development in Europe. In their study,
key factors in the success of endogenous development were seen to be networks and
relationships, whether of kin, religion, work practice or regional identity. These were
identified as assets which belonged to people in places and were seen to be key
contributors to success in rural economic and social development.

4
In effect, these intangible resources amount to social capital (Ray 2001, Coleman
1988). The Asset-based Community Development model thus acknowledges a two-fold
aspect of development, with central funders on one hand and engaged communities on
the other. Although social justice concerns lay behind the development of the ABCD
approach, in practice it has come under criticism as it can be seen as allowing central
authorities to wipe their hands of any responsibility beyond investing in material
assets. The model as it has been institutionalised, particularly in America, does not
acknowledge the fact that social capital is a process, not a fixed point, and though it
has an emphasis on social capital, it misses a potentially large number of still-
unrecognized assets such as those contained in the Five Capitals model.

5. Asset-based Rural Community Development (ABRCD) in the UK

Although the UK and Ireland have different systems of governance, and have seen
differing economic and social development in the last decade, their rural areas
originate from the same historic model of land-based development, and are faced with
a number of similar challenges. These include rural places being subject to a set of
changing discourses and practices which have had a large impact on rural development
structures. In the first place, the low population densities and the distributed nature
of that population places rural communities at a disadvantage when governments are
increasingly forced to provide value for money in the delivery of services.
Privatisation of delivery and the consolidation of the UK private services sector has led
to a kind of centralisation which favours cost-effectiveness over universal delivery of
services. This neo-liberal, market-based regime has meant that UK rural communities
suffer from a market failure in terms of both public service provision, and often,
private market provision.

At the same time, the small size of the UK and Ireland and the growth and spread of
their relatively large populations has meant that local distinct and rural identities are
increasingly coming under threat as the larger national culture increasingly penetrates
the most remote corners of these islands.

A further challenge faced by rural communities is the short term nature of investment
and support. Government responses to the challenges of rural development have
undergone frequent changes as policy makers struggle to respond to declining fortunes
in the productive sector (agriculture, forestry, fishing), to new European regulations
and the impact of the Global Economy. Old policies are replaced by newer ones and
project timelines often are very short –one or two years at best. Additionally, the
need to respond to a plethora of issues such as new animal welfare and hunting
legislation,= and environmental protection regulation, as well as changing governance
and agricultural support have created new opportunities, but at the same time kept
the rural development landscape destabilized.

Thus rural communities in the UK are struggling against multiple challenges –

government retreat from universal or public provision of services; the loss of local
identities and cultures through out-migration and changing cultural and consumption
practices; and short term initiatives from constantly changing forms of governance and
of responsibility for rural development.

5
6. Responding to the Challenge -- Rural Re-Sourcing
In response to this, the Carnegie UK Trust has adopted a resource-based approach,
growing out of its consultation with communities across the UK and Ireland. Working
with the Forum for the Future in the UK, and the International Association of
Community Development world-wide, it has identified two areas of particular concern.
The first is the short-term nature of funding and support for rural community
development. The second, and the subject of this paper, is the imperative to move
from needs-based projects to asset-based ones. Built into the new Rural Action
Research Programme, this asset, or resource-based approach is being called Rural Re-
Sourcing, indicating that it looks to existing community assets as the source of
development potential. The Rural Re-Sourcing project mirrors the development of the
ABRCD model.

This model asserts that the Intangible Assets which communities already possess are
the key to them building strong local economies and societies. Things like existing
landscape features, local biotic diversity, local practices and local knowledges which
once were considered ‘backward’ are now resources which can be mobilized by
communities to participate in the burgeoning ‘experience’ economy. This economic
sector gives new economic and social value to resources which were previously
debased or ignored, capitalising on the distinctiveness of local rural places. And, at
the same time, these newly re-valued resources contribute to the growth of local
pride in place.

Further, this model acknowledges that building sustainability into these economies and
communities involves handing the control and where possible, the delivery of local
services to them in a situation where they have identified their need and willingness
to support it’s satisfaction. It asserts that partnership working, with the integration
of complimentary knowledges and assets, forms the most productive and sustainable
way of engaging in rural development as local people bring the drive and ownership of
their development to the support that central authorities can deliver.

In this there are joint but distinct roles for communities, policy practitioners and for
central funders. Communities have the responsibility to participate – to engage in the
hard local work involved in creating a collective endeavour. Central funders need to
recognize that any Capital funding for Community Property must be built upon a
thorough consultation process which identifies which assets the community wishes to
develop, before commitment is made on building or land. And Policy Practitioners
between the two need to work with them to ensure that the conflicting demands of
bureaucratic systems do not work against the project.

By adding value to the assets that communities already possess, and by building clear
rational processes by which they can develop them themselves, ABRCD in the UK will
provide a platform from which rural communities across the UK can attempt to build
new bright futures.

Unlike other ABCD models, this new Asset-Based Rural Community Development model
incorporates support for increased community capacity as a central principle. This
accomplishes an important Social Justice objective in that, by supporting the
community in its development of its intangibles, support is explicitly given for local

6
values, practices and customs and local priorities. It also acknowledges the
importance of individual people and their community networks in the development
partnership. Their ‘buy-in’ and the quality of provision local knowledge builds
sustainability into the model. By incorporating the Five Capitals analysis of what
constitutes Assets a far greater range of what communities own is acknowledged, and
support in the development of those resources empowers them in partnership with
governments.

7. Conclusion
There is general agreement that endogenous (bottom-up) development is preferable to
exogenous (top-down) development in terms of delivering benefits to communities
which are appropriate and sustainable. The trouble with supporting endogenous
approaches lies in the mechanics of the development partnership. Until local people
are seen as valuable actors, possessing important assets in the development process,
development will remain expensive and the results less than satisfactory. By
supporting the development of both tangible and intangible assets, ABRCD approaches
offer both policy and community circles the chance of a system of development which
is more efficient and productive, and which is more satisfying to the people on the
ground.

7
References

Bryden, John, K. Hart. (2001) DORA: Dynamics of Rural Areas. The

International Comparison, An EU Project involving Germany, Greece,
Scotland, Sweden. Arkleton Centre for Rural Development Research, University
of Aberdeen, UK.

Coleman, J. (1988), “Social Capital in the Creation of Human Capital”

American Journal of Sociology 94, pp. 95-120.

DFID Sustainable Livelihoods Approach Guidance Sheets. Livelihoods Connect

(http://www.livelihoods.org/info/info_guidancesheets.html accessed
14.02.2006)

Forum for the Future (2004) Making Land Use Sustainable. Forum for the
Future: London.

Forum for the Future (2006) http://www.forumforthefuture.org.uk

Kretzmann, J. & McKnight, J. (1993). Building communities from the inside

out. Chicago, IL: ACTA Publications

Mathie, A & G. Cunningham. (2002) From Clients to Citizens: Asset-Based

Community Development as strategy for Community Development. The Coady
International Institute: St. Francis Xavier University, Canada.

Mathie A & G. Cunningham (2003) Who is Driving Development?

Reflections on the Transformative Potential of Asset-Based Community
Development The Coady International Institute: St. Francis Xavier University,
Canada.

Ray, Christopher, 2001: Culture Economies. Newcastle: CRE Press.

Relevant links:

Department for International Development, UK. http://www.dfid.gov.uk/

Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, UK.

http://www.defra.gov.uk/

Forum for the Future, UK. http://www.forumforthefuture.org.uk/

The Big Lottery Fund, UK. http://www.biglotteryfund.org.uk/

The Carnegie UK Trust, Rural Commission. www.carnegieuktrust.org.uk/

8
The Ford Foundation, USA. http://www.fordfound.org/

UK Sustainable Development Commission. http://www.sd-commission.org.uk/

About the Author

Dr. Rhys Evans is an human geographer working within the field of rural community
development. He was a core research fellow at the Arkleton Centre for Rural
Development Research at the University of Aberdeen and subsequently Senior Research
Fellow at the Centre for Mountain Studies at Perth College UHI. Since July 2005 he has
operated Integrate Consulting as an independent research and consulting service
(www.integrateconsulting.co.uk ). His clients include the Carnegie UK Trust,
Communities Scotland, and the University of the Highlands and Islands Millennium
Institute.

He can be contacted at: Integrate Consulting, 1 Priory Pl., Perth, UK. PH2 0EA /
01738 560 310 / highmiler@gmail.com

9
i
The author wishes to express his appreciation to the Carnegie UK Trust (http://www.carnegieuktrust.org.uk/ ) for its
support in developing these ideas, and to the colleagues and Commissioners also working on it, who have all contributed
significantly to the formation of these ideas.