Community Development and Empowerment.

Objective: to assist communities with the information, training and support needed to achieve improvements in the
quality of life of residents and contribute to participatory governance processes.

Planact recognizes that for meaningful change to occur, localities require organized and empowered communities
that can articulate their needs and have a strong presence in planning and development processes, as well as
a well-capacitated local government that is sensitive to the needs of poor communities. Planact begins its
interventions at community level with the community perspective uppermost. Taking a longer term view, Planact seeks
to build organisations of civil society that are able to defend existing gains and advance the collective interests
and human rights of the socially excluded as a whole.

Planact assists poor, marginalised communities to access housing with security of tenure and basic services in
order to create habitable environments. We also aim to ensure that those processes link issues of provision to
participatory processes, decision-making and ownership of projects and that economic benefits that accrue from
these processes actually benefit communities directly. Thus, strategies to create opportunities for sustainable
livelihoods for the community are pursued.

Planact provides intensive organisational development support to community structures designed to give voice to the
entire community; helping the community to articulate its development needs and priorities and then developing
communication mechanisms between communities and government so that the community can advocate for these
to be addressed. Specific training and support is provided depending upon the needs of the target communities from
the following menu of services:

• Informal Settlement Upgrading
• Housing Delivery Management
• Local Economic Development
• HIV/AIDS Community-Based Support
• Community-Based Planning
• Organisational Capacity-Building
• Participatory Local Governance.

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