This study¡¦s goal is to understand the feasibility of community overall construction that is carried out by a community union. Four villages on the right bank of Linbian Stream, Pingtung were used as study subjects. It analyzes patterns of developing bottlenecks, action strategies and future projects that are developed by a country community union gathered from various clans, so as to provide references for relevant governmental units in order to promote community construction and establish related laws and rules. Few domestic literatures addresses on the integration between community union and community construction, in particular, the role of community union in community construction and governmental strategies for the promotion and assistance of the formation of community union. Thus, in order to achieve the objectives of sustainable development of resources and the construction of local union for the local empowerment through the key role of community union, this research conducts studies on the feasible models of supportive construction and development of local community unions and concludes with concrete suggestion to offer possible solution to the difficulties of sustainable development of community resources. The study uses Literature Review, In-Depth Interviews and Participant Observation. The constructer/actor and exterior supporter of the four villages in Lintzibian, Jiangong, Shitou and Silerfafawu on the right bank of Linbian Stream, Pingtung were used as subjects. Furthermore, problem regarding clan integration in four community unions (South China Chinese, Hakka, Pingpu and Paywan) concerning water resources protection, bank beauty and water collection problem areas were researched. Successful foreign experiences from Germany regarding country community construction were introduced. The study attempts to determine the feasibility of community construction that is carried out by the community union. Based on literature review and current studies, this research aims to use the villages on the Right Bank of Linbian Stream, Pingtung as the study subjects to conduct in-depth analysis on the actual sustainable development of resource promoted by Community Union of Right Bank of Linbian Stream, Pingtung, where has be developed in the recent years, but still maintains its unique features. Three results have been found on the feasibility study of the participation of Community Union of Right Bank of Linbian Stream, Pingtung in community construction: First, in terms of organizational structure of Community Union of Right Bank of Linbian Stream, Pingtung, Pintung Community Construction Center plays a communicative role; Blue Tungkang River Conservation helps and advises each community to prepare planning and develop relevant construction skills; Linbian Nature and Cultural Conservation acts as the executive due to its rich experience of community construction. All participating communities have their own right and work with the model of ¡§self construction,¡¨ self purchasing material and labor and public participation in community design. Second, for the use of resources: Resources are composed of the symbols of ethnic characteristics, nature environment and supportive function. In 1999, Linbian and Chienkung communities began the construction projects of bank beatification and Baoanlin Yungchiuan Community and by the end of 2000, upstream Shitou of Pinbu gathering also made use of local rocks to build the unique ¡§Shitou Stone Park.¡¨ The next year, Silerfafawu of upstream Paiwan tribe built their own gathering space with stone. Consequently, each ethnic group and community express their interpretation of externally learnt theory and knowledge for environmental conservation, culture preservation, and local democratization based on ¡§local hands-on experience.¡¨ Third, in the regards of human resources: The study has found the weakness of insufficient human resources provided by governmental agencies, local talents, and local participants. This study, thus, proposes action strategies including: flexible adjustment of personnel support of the public sector, establishment of data bank of local talents of community construction, alternative military service to alleviate the problem of insufficient human resources and talent fostering to reduce the burden. Judging from action experience of the four villages, this study has also concluded that the conditions for the formation of one community union have not matured yet. Each village now has not reached the stage of having sufficient human resources and in order to build up the union; in addition to regular work, each village needs to spend more time on meeting and labor division for conciliation. As a result, some matters would be postponed for final decision or simply be put aside. Moreover, each village has undergone different community construction stages and mobilization degrees and they distinguish one another from ethnic background, industrial and commercial development, demographic structure, so each of them has its own problem to tackle with. How can they work on the construction project on the footing of mutual benefit? How can resource distribution and labor division be allocated evenly? How can the communication and system be built by the public sector to handle the possible short term union based temporary issues? Budget application and verification probably will become a common problem. In short, the union of community construction in Pingtung is at the initial testing stage.

¡§How to empower the community¡¨ is the most important element to advance the performance of the community development affairs in Taiwan. To encourage the community people to care about their community public affairs and to solve their problems by themselves is the major aims of community renaissance. During 2002-2005, the Council for Cultural Affairs of the Executive Yuan had a program to empower community people. Four regional empowerment centers were appointed to execute this program. The main purpose of this study are: (1) to assess the training effectiveness of the empowerment project; (2) to explore what the factors may affect the training effectiveness of community empowerment; and (3) to evaluate the trainees¡¦ satisfaction during the training periods. In order to achieve the above three purposes, this study developed a questionnaire of community empowerment evaluation by reviewing literatures and interviewing the executives of the program. All of the four regional trainees targeted as a sample that attended this program. It adopted self- evaluation by trainees, and applied SPSS10.0 statistics software to analyze it. The results of this study revealed five indications: 1.The program was successful in strengthening community empowerment after the training courses. 2.What status people serve in their community is the only individual factor which will affect the effectiveness. 3.Personality and encouragement are also the factors will affect the effectiveness. 4.By the factor analysis, this study distinguished personality into two factors, including enthusiastic amicability and motivation. 5.There is a positive relationship between the residents¡¦ satisfaction and effectiveness.

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<p>Empowerment is a catchword that has recently entered current development debate. Development is largely perceived as a process of building capacities hence empowering people to be able to handle their affairs. As such it is a concept highly espoused by prominent development actors and mainly Non-governmental organizations (NGOs). The study attempted to examine the theoretical and empirical aspects of community empowerment from a critical perspective by surveying activities of three NGOs in Ethiopia. A recent framework developed by a working group of the World Bank for measuring and structuring analysis was used for analyzing findings. Conceptualization and practices of empowerment seem to be at a nascent stage and tools for measuring it as well / that is what the findings of the study indicate. Despite the rhetoric surrounding the concept, the experience of surveyed NGOs also shows disparities between theory and practice.</p>

This thesis investigates the understanding of health needs of women in rural Nepal using a participatory action research (PAR) framework. This framework was evaluated using a multiple case study design. The cases were women's groups being observed and researched by the researcher. The thesis is concerned with developing and evaluating the PAR methodology and is thus second order research i.e. it considers the process of researching research and the issue of multiple perspectives is an important feature. The justification of the use of a PAR framework is to be found in the forms of research that takes place 'with' people. The distinction between PAR methods and other qualitative methods is a philosophical one (Tolley and Bentley, 1996) between the roles played by the researcher and researched. The researcher "outsider" and participants "informants" are partners, sharing and learning together. The work is divided into two stages. The first is to determine the usefulness of the PAR framework in helping participants make assessments of their health needs, analyse their situation, develop strategies for solving problems themselves, and implement their own action plans. The second is to reflect on the research process itself, which allows for generation and testing of the methodology. This thesis has enhanced the contribution to the literature in this field. A development of the PAR framework emerged called the Health Analysis and Action Cycle (HAAC), via evaluating the PAR framework. The HAAC was found to be useful in allowing women's groups to assess their health needs, plan and take action to improve their health situation. For example, five of the six groups considered the importance of diarrhoea and developed strategies to reduce the incidence of diarrhoea in their communities. The sixth group's work centred on reducing the incidence of respiratory illness in their community. All the groups were able to assess, plan and implement projects to improve their environmental and hence health situation. The research stimulated collective action and empowerment of women participating in the research as it was the first time women had worked together to identify issues of diarrhoeal disease and respiratory illness and introduced preventative measures within their community. The HAAC approach, an additional innovation in this field, has relevance to the current theory and practice debate within the development sector. The model developed has possible implications for t~e concept of developing 'partnership' within the health and development sector and the development of emergent evaluation through developmental decision science.

Over the past twenty years the arts and culture have become a popular vehicle through which local economic development can be pursued. Whilst this relatively new local economic development tool has generated much interest amongst academics, many have been content to simply provide descriptive accounts of its development. Where theoretical frameworks for analysis have been applied, they have failed to adequately examine and assess those local factors which have contributed to the development of these strategies. Interestingly, the evolution of arts policy as a vehicle through which to pursue economic development, has been mirrored by proliferation In coalitions as preferred vehicles through which governing decisions, at the local level are effected. Current debates surrounding the New Urban Politics have focused on the degree to which current modes of governance reflect: widened representation; increased community empowerment; and increased local autonomy. By employing regime theory as a framework for analysis, this thesis will examine how those local political factors in two cities have influenced the development of cultural strategy. Such an exercise will enable a comment to be made on the degree to which cultural strategies reflect more co - operative forms of decision making, increased access to new forms of expertise and community empowerment.

<p>Empowerment is a catchword that has recently entered current development debate. Development is largely perceived as a process of building capacities hence empowering people to be able to handle their affairs. As such it is a concept highly espoused by prominent development actors and mainly Non-governmental organizations (NGOs). The study attempted to examine the theoretical and empirical aspects of community empowerment from a critical perspective by surveying activities of three NGOs in Ethiopia. A recent framework developed by a working group of the World Bank for measuring and structuring analysis was used for analyzing findings. Conceptualization and practices of empowerment seem to be at a nascent stage and tools for measuring it as well / that is what the findings of the study indicate. Despite the rhetoric surrounding the concept, the experience of surveyed NGOs also shows disparities between theory and practice.</p>

Masters in Public Administration - MPA / Empowerment is a catchword that has recently entered current development debate. Development is largely perceived as a process of building capacities hence empowering people to be able to handle their affairs. As such it is a concept highly espoused by prominent development actors and mainly Non-governmental organizations (NGOs). The study attempted to examine the theoretical and empirical aspects of community empowerment from a critical perspective by surveying activities of three NGOs in Ethiopia. A recent framework developed by a working group of the World Bank for measuring and structuring analysis was used for analyzing findings. Conceptualization and practices of empowerment seem to be at a nascent stage and tools for measuring it as well; that is what the findings of the study indicate. Despite the rhetoric surrounding the concept, the experience of surveyed NGOs also shows disparities between theory and practice. / South Africa

The purpose of this study was to understand residents¡¦ sense of community and their cognition of community empowerment of metropolitan communities, and to investigate the relationship between residents¡¦ sense of community and their cognition of community empowerment in He-ti Community, Kaohsiung City. Hopefully, this study might offer related suggestions to boost community empowerment of metropolitan communities. The methodology of this study was using questionnaire survey to collect data on the He-ti Community for analysis. The subjects of this study were community residents of 20 year-old and above. ¡§Questionnaire about residents¡¦ sense of community and their cognition of community empowerment¡¨, which was developed and based on related literatures, was adopted as tool for this survey. 600 questionnaires were issued while 505 valid questionnaires were received, with valid sample rate 84.17¢H. The main conclusions of this study are as follows: 1. Residents of the community have the above average degree on sense of community, especially on the ¡§community identification¡¨ domain, but the domain of ¡§community familiarity¡¨ in need of improvement. 2. The cognition of community empowerment among the residents¡¦ are below the middle with the highest on the domain of ¡§actual boost¡¨ and the lowest on the domain of ¡§policy content¡¨. 3. The residents of male, the age above 50, the education below junior high school, married, having children with the age below 18, with house self-having and filling the autonomy post, have higher degree of sense of community. 4. The residents of male, the age between 50 and 59, having no children with age below 18, living in community 5~9 years and filling the autonomy post, have higher degree on cognition of community empowerment. 5. There is a positive correlation between residents¡¦ sense of community and their cognition of community empowerment. 6. Residents¡¦ sense of community has a significant prediction on their cognition of community empowerment. The prediction capacity of factor ¡§community concern¡¨ is the highest with the factor ¡§community familiarity¡¨ the second highest. Based upon the above conclusions, this study offers several related suggestions to the governments, community autonomies and future researchers for their reference to boost ulterior community empowerment and researches.

Water quality is a substantial issue in rural and urban areas in the Midwestern United States. Water resources, such as streams, are often impaired by pollution. This can pose a threat to the natural ecosystem and the health of those that live within it. In the Lower Kaskaskia River region, Illinois communities are faced with impaired water resources. In order to effectively manage for healthy waterways, communities must have skills and resources to address threats to water quality. This study assessed capacity for effective watershed management in four communities within the Lower Kaskaskia River region. Each community exists within a subwatershed of the Lower Kaskaskia River Watershed. A stratified, random sample of 3,609 residents living within the four watersheds was taken to gather data on several community capacity indicators for each watershed community. A questionnaire was distributed to individuals living within the study area to measure dimensions of community capacity and familiarity with water conservation practices. With data from the questionnaire, it was possible to measure collective action, community empowerment, and shared vision for each of the communities within the study area. Exploratory factor analysis yielded outcomes that differed from theoretical literature on the topic. A stepwise regression analysis illustrated the importance of community empowerment in explaining the greatest amount of variability (39%) in community capacity. Once reliable measures of community capacity were established, it was possible to examine them across urban and rural areas. A multivariate analysis showed no significant difference between urban and rural community type in regards to levels of community empowerment, collective action, shared vision, and community capacity. Measurements of community capacity were not significantly different at á = 0.05 across urban and rural communities; however, practical differences between urban and rural communities were identified. Understanding practical differences in community capacity between different community types will assist in the development of outreach and education techniques that are relevant for both urban and rural communities that exist within the study area. Outreach and education strategies will allow for the implementation of effective natural resource management within the study communities, while informing citizens and leaders on watershed conservation practices that can be implemented at the individual and community levels.