Editing Community development (section)

==== United Kingdom ====
In the UK, community development has had two main traditions. The first was as an approach for preparing for the [[decolonisation |independence]] of countries from the former [[British Empire]] in the 1950s and 1960s. Domestically, community development first came into public prominence with the [[Labour Party (UK)| Labour]] Government's anti deprivation programmes of the latter 1960s and 1970s. The main example of this activity, the CDP (Community Development Programme), piloted local area-based community development. This influenced a number of largely urban local authorities, in particular in Scotland with [[Strathclyde]] Region's major community-development programme (the largest at the time in Europe).

The [[Gulbenkian Foundation]] was a key funder of commissions and reports which influenced the development of community development in the UK from the latter 1960s to the 1980s. This included recommending that there be a national institute or centre for community development, able to support practice and to advise government and local authorities on policy. This resulted in the forma establishment in 1991 of the Community Development Foundation. In 2004 the [[Carnegie United Kingdom Trust| Carnegie UK Trust]] established a commission of inquiry into the future of rural community development, examining such issues as land reform and climate change. Carnegie funded over sixty rural community-development [[action research | action-research]] projects across the UK and Ireland and national and international communities of practice to exchange experiences. This included the International Association for Community Development (IACD).

In 1999 the [[First Blair ministry|Labour Government]] established a UK-wide organisation responsible for setting [[professional training | professional-training]] standards for all education and development practitioners working within local communities. This organisation, PAULO&nbsp;– the National Training Organisation for Community Learning and Development, was named after [[Paulo Freire]] (1921-1997). It was formally recognised by [[David Blunkett]], the [[Secretary of State for Education and Employment]]. Its first chair was Charlie McConnell, the Chief Executive of the [[Scottish Community Education Council]], who had played a lead role in bringing together a range of occupational interests under a single national-training standards body, including [[community education]], community development and development education. The inclusion of community development was significant as it was initially uncertain as to whether it would join the National Training Organisation (NTO) for Social Care. The Community Learning and Development NTO represented all the main employers, trades unions, professional associations and national-development agencies working in this area across the four nations of the UK.

The new body used the wording "community learning and development" to acknowledge that all of these occupations worked primarily within local communities, and that this work encompassed not just providing less formal learning support but also a concern for the wider holistic development of those communities&nbsp;– socio-economically, environmentally, culturally and politically. By bringing together these occupational groups this created for the first time a single recognised employment-sector of nearly 300,000 full- and part-time paid staff within the UK, approximately 10% of these staff being full-time. The NTO continued to recognise the range of occupations within it, for example specialists who work primarily with young people, but all agreed that they shared a core set of professional approaches to their work. In 2002 the NTO became part of a wider [[Sector skills council | Sector Skills Council]] for lifelong learning.

The UK currently hosts the only global network of practitioners and activists working towards social justice through community development approach, the International Association for Community Development (IACD).<ref name=IACD>{{cite web|title=International Association for Community Development|url= http://www.iacdglobal.org/|access-date=7 July 2014}}</ref> IACD, formed in the USA in 1953, moved to Belgium in 1978 and was restructured and relaunched in Scotland in 1999.<ref name=IACDhistory>{{cite web|title= IACD- a brief history|url=http://www.iacdglobal.org/iacd-brief-history|access-date=7 July 2014|archive-url= https://web.archive.org/web/20140714165113/http://www.iacdglobal.org/iacd-brief-history|archive-date=14 July 2014|url-status=dead}}</ref>