Best Practices and Community Asset Management Projects as Vehicles for Communicating Development

Abstract

Drawing on recent research on communication for urban development and on new research on ’Localising the Habitat Agenda’, this article focuses on the communication aspects of transferring projects and good practices to different cultural contexts.

Communicating knowledge for the poor has been a research priority for development agencies in UK and USA for the last decade, as communicating best or good practices for achieving development has not been particularly easy or successful. In order to understand the reasons for these communication gaps, the Max Lock Centre at the University of Westminster, UK, undertook research into the complexity of the communication process, and developed methodologies to ensure the effective transfer of knowledge to differing contexts. There are two related challenges to this task. The first is the understanding that communication is a complex process involving actors and actions. The complexity of the interplay between these explains why the communication process suffers gaps that are difficult to bridge; this is why knowledge or best practices can be only communicated if certain conditions are met. The second involves finding a methodology for communicating projects and best practices to different contexts in which practices can be applied.

Citation

Gandelsonas, C. (2005), "Best Practices and Community Asset Management Projects as Vehicles for Communicating Development", Open House International, Vol. 30 No. 2, pp. 25-34. https://doi.org/10.1108/OHI-02-2005-B0004