Community development: on-going dialogue, wherever it happens?

The Katine community development project in north-east Uganda has just (8 November 2010) come largely to an end, after a three-year collaboration between The Guardian newspaper, Barclay’s Bank and Amref (the African Medical Research Education Foundation).
The focus is therefore currently on evaluation.

Can conversations challenge dangerous radicalism?

There are many things about which, I suspect, Baroness Warsi and I would disagree very strongly – she is ‘Chairman’ of the Conservative Party, a role to which I am unlikely ever to aspire. But there does seem to be one thing about which, if reports are to be believed, we would see eye to eye:  I gather that she, like me, believes that keeping channels of communication open is critical.

Framing communities through faith

The Economist Debate which has just finished raises some difficult questions.

The topic under vigorous discussion was This house believes that religion is a force for good. It has consistently been the case however that readers of The Economist hold no such view; throughout the exchange around three quarters of them rejected the proposition in hand.

The language of inclusion

A Guardian article today (9 October 2010) focuses on the meaning of ‘Big Society’. We are told that [the?] Big Society is about ‘passing power to the lowest possible level’, so that organisations are more responsive to the needs of those using them. One aspect of this is, the writer continues, to ‘encourage more people to play a role in society.’

Stakeholding and engagement

Is ‘stakeholding’ a formal term, used to indicate direct interest or involvement of some sort?

And is ‘engagement’ a different idea, meaning interest and / or involvement which may be much less direct?

How do these possible differences have bearing on the ways in which people in these groups should / could be consulted about changes in their communities?