D.Litt.et Phil. / The Chief Directorate: Population Development which is responsible for the implementation of the Population Development Programme and the Rural Foundation, regard the community development strategy as one of the most important means of improving the quality of life of the population and especially of the farm worker. Against the above-mentioned background this study firstly draws a comparison between the levels of development of Third World inhabitants, the Third World component in South Africa and farm workers. In this regard it is concluded that the level of development of farm workers corresponds with that of Third World inhabitants, and that they are even worse off than the rest of the third World component in South Africa. Secondly, the community development strategy, which forms part of South Africa's official development policy, is being evaluated with regard to other existing international development strategies. It is concluded that the community development strategy is a potentially useful tool for the furthering of development. Lastly, a synthesis is made between the theory and practice of the community development approach, within a suggested implementation model. The implementation model (see Diagrams 1 to 4) is developed incrementally in this study according to the following three schools of thought most commonly applied in practice: Endogenous initiative,where the community acts solely on its own initiative; Exogenous initiative, where the community's latent initiative is stimulated by an outside catalyst; and Concerted initiative, where the community does have its own initiative, but needs help from outside and consequently invites the help of (for instance) a community developer.