The Asset Based Community Development approach espouses the belief that local residents should identify their own community's problems and the solutions to those same problems.

Put simply, the approach argues that little is achieved by identifying 'needs' and rather the emphasis should be on the 'assets' in any given community. While the 'needs' based approach tends to prescribe 'solutions' by creating agencies that deliver services to clients, the ABCD approach focuses on empowering citizens. One of the basic theses of ABCD is that over reliance on Human Services creates a dependency culture which limits people's potential and ability to exercise control over their lives.

One of the key difficulties within the community development sector today is that many service driven institutions espouse community involvement but somehow still manage to engage on their terms only. For example they may manage their relationship with the community by setting funding criteria that focus on their own needs and not necessarily on those of the community. For organisations that truly wish to engage in community participation they must step back and enable the community to decide what its priorities are.

Click here for more details on the Asset Based Community Development Approach