Author: Dr. Akwugo Emejulu, the University of Edinburgh

Date: 22 April 2015

Guest blogger Dr Akwugo Emejulu from the University of Edinburgh, reflects on the relevance of asset-based community development in Scotland.

Asset-based community development (ABCD) has captured the imagination of some policymakers and practitioners interested in grassroots democracy, participation and anti-poverty work in Scotland.

But she asks ‘What might it’s problem be? ABCD, perhaps inadvertently, directly contributes to privatising social problems by shifting the responsibility for tackling inequality and injustice from the state to individuals and communities using the rhetoric of ‘community empowerment’.

She argues that it accommodates, rather than counters, neoliberalism. And in this moment of unprecedented cuts to public spending, it is not surprising that ABCD is in the ascendency.

Read the post on the What Works Scotland blog