Date: 2024-09-27 Page is: DBtxt003.php L0900-COofCA-2009-040000
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Burgess Manuscript
CONCEPTUAL OVERVIEW of COMMUNITY ANALYTICS Manuscript Draft from 2009 |
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Chapter 4
Community Focus |
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Community is where most living is done!
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Community enables more effective focus on people and social values:
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Structural Complexity
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Society is complex
Society is very complex. The institutional framework is very complex. The following graphic shows some of this complexity ... in a very simplified manner. There is complexity at the national level and the international level (not shown) and all sorts of complex detail at the community level. 
... but less so at the community level 
The community is where people live ... and a lot easier to understand. Even though a community is simpler ... it is still quite complex, but this complexity can be understood. Though there may be many relationships, they are relatively simple, and therefore, understandable. At the community level people have names, and are not merely part of a statistical pool. Activities are tangible, and accounting for costs and results is an exercise that everyone with interest can understand. The community is where progress dynamics have meaning and where measurement has more clarity. |
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Simplifying Progress Metrics
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Meaningful simplification is possible at the community level
Progress is all about making change ... so what changes have been achieved from the beginning of the period (BOP) to the end of the period (EOP) . The measure of this can be quite simple ... or quite complex ... but the key is for the metrics to be clear It is impossible to do management by walking around at the national level ... and even the sophisticated survey techniques and statistics that have been popularized in academia and research institutes provide rather little management information. It is, perhaps, possible to understand something about the “state” of the national economy, but rather little about how and why the economy is in this state. Progress is measured by how these many different things are getting better. Less crime, less disease, less pollution is better. More sport, more telecenters, more clinics is better. The elements are not limited to the set shown ... any item that is important can be measured in this way. The community centric perspective produces a very different and much more understandable view of how activities are done, how resources are allocated and what decisions are best. Community is where there can be accountability. The community is, after all, the most important locus of life, so quality of life impact can be monitored and measured. The CA construct for measuring progress ... the changes in the socio-economic state of the community from the beginning of the period to the end ... applies to every aspect of the community along the following lines. |
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Community Perspectives
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The primary community perspectives are the following:
In community there are all sorts of activities that go on ... economic, cultural, spiritual. All have varying importance. All interact with each other in a multitude of ways. They all have some role in success ... or they serve to constrain and limit progress. There is also governance. Human society creates governance ... it may be light, or not. Governance that is internal, local and relevant has some advantages over external governance that may not be respectful of local conditions. A mix of both may well be best ... and result in a favorable enabling environment. There is also organization. Without organization, people are severely limited ... but with organization people can do collectively many things that they cannot do on their own. More than anything else, a system is needed that allows the people of a community to self organize and optimize how the resources of the community are best used. The foundation of such as system is a set of appropriate performance metrics. This is the goal of Community Analytics (CA), which is a system of metrics for socio-economic measurement that builds on the two key ideas: (1) the basic concepts of money accountancy used by organizations; and (2) the idea that this can be modified so that it has community focus rather than organization focus, embracing accounting for value as well as simply accounting for money. The key concepts of money accountancy used by organizations are
The system of accountancy that is used by organizations record money transactions and prepare reports to the stakeholders of the organization. There is a tremendous pool of experience associated with this work ... but it has the weakness that the impact on society is not part of the system. Family The family is one of the key units of society ... and within the family the well-being and happiness of every individual is important. For the management of public policy, however, the community ... or neighborhood or block ... is easier to use as an indicator of progress and the effectiveness of interventions. There are some datasets that are best compiled using the family as the unit because this is the best place to identify impact ... as for example, the case of malaria, where interventions are undertaken in the community as a whole, and the impact is best observed within the individual families. Understanding priorities and needs A good starting point is to recognize that every community is different, and what is a top priority in one place may not be the same in another place. Priority needs are both a reflection of physical and human characteristics at a point in time, but also a reflection of history and what has been done in the past.
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Data Elements about the Community
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Data about community
Data about a community starts to tell something or real importance ... and it becomes possible to see what are the factors that have resulted in the state of the community. If something in the data is surprising ... data at the community level helps to pin-point what caused this and why and how this came about. It is much easier at the community level to walk around and get to know what is going on ... especially the important things that affect the place ... and to see things that may be important but being ignored in the collection of data. Getting little pieces of information about the community makes it possible to start to do an accounting using the CA framework ... and with this it starts to be possible to have transparency and accountability. Data about neighborhood or block Some communities are too complex to be easy to understand ... in which case the neighborhood may be a better level for detailed data. Common sense applies. In some cases it may be appropriate to get data at the block level. In high density urban settings, the block may still be quite a large population, and the economic activities quite complex. State and Activities CA aims to put into the record everything that is important about the community. These data are of two types:
Information about activities is usually more difficult, and especially to get all the data that are needed. The data usually have more value when they are part of a time series ... what was the equivalent data for a past period ... and what is the situation now, and what will it be in the future. CA uses averages to measure progress ... to measure change ... but not to understand the data. The key is to know what goes into making the average and to understand what can be done to eliminate what is bad and to enhance what is good. When this is done, the average changes ... but trying to change the average without understanding its components is a waste of resource and energy! ------------------------------------------ Overview Data about the Community The basic identification data ------------------------------------------ Identification of the community 1 2 3 ------------------------------------------ There is a need to know some basic information about the community: Name of the community? Where is it? What is it like? ------------------------------------------ Where is it? 1 2 ------------------------------------------ There are several ways to specify the location of a community GPS coordinates Distance from three or more key places such as area town ------------------------------------------ Some general data ------------------------------------------ What is it like? 1 2 ------------------------------------------ Physical geography ------------------------------------------ Weather patterns: rainfall, temperature, humidity Item Past Now Future ------------------------------------------ Area (total) X Urban built up area X ------------------------------------------ Agriculture X Irrigated agriculture X Undeveloped dryland X Undeveloped marshland X Forest X ------------------------------------------ Number of houses X These data can sometimes be obtained from existing maps or satellite imagery. These data normally change slowly. ------------------------------------------ Population Population demographics 1 2 3 4 5 6 ------------------------------------------ What age profile; What sex mix; What socio-economic profile; What educational profile; What skills profile; What health profile. ------------------------------------------ Changes over time Item Past Now Future Population (total) X Population (male) X Population (female) X Population (5 and under) X Population (6 to 15) X Population (16 to 45) X Population (46 up) X Population (female pregnant) X Data about population changes slowly. However, from time to time there are rapid migrations that can materially change the population data. ------------------------------------------ Analysis Data about the Community People view: About people 1 2 3 4 Who are key people in the community leadership Who are people in activity leadership Who are external friends of the community Who are international friends of the community ------------------------------------------ Organization view: What organizations are in the area; 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 ------------------------------------------ Government offices Local private businesses Businesses from other places Local NGOs International NGOs Religious organizations Political organizations ------------------------------------------ Sector view: What are the economic activities; 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 ------------------------------------------ Agriculture and fisheries Post harvest processing Manufacturing Construction Transport Warehousing, wholesale Small business ... retail Etc. ------------------------------------------ Health 1 2 3 4 Patients Staff Supplies Infrastructure ------------------------------------------ Education 1 2 3 4 Students Teachers Supplies ------------------------------------------ Infrastructure Construction 1 2 3 4 5 6 ------------------------------------------ Workers Organizations Skills and knowhow Building materials Equipment Demand ------------------------------------------ Financial services 1 2 3 4 5 6 ------------------------------------------ Microfinance Government financing Donor financing Commercial banking Capital markets Insurance Jobs ... employment: ------------------------------------------ About jobs 1 2 3 4 5 6 ------------------------------------------ What jobs in agriculture, fisheries and forestry; 1. Crops 2. Livestock 3. Fisheries 4. Lumber, fuel wood What jobs in industry; What jobs in services; What jobs in trade and commerce; What jobs in tourism; What jobs in culture, entertainment, sports, etc. ------------------------------------------ About jobs and economic opportunity 1 2 3 Jobs and economic activities Security, crime, etc. Everything else that is material ------------------------------------------ Infrastructure: About infrastructure: 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 ------------------------------------------ Housing; Transport ... roads, etc. Health ... clinics, hospitals, etc. Education ... schools, etc Water Sanitation Electricity Telecom ------------------------------------------ Resources: About resources 1 2 3 4 5 6 ------------------------------------------ Minerals Energy Timber ... forest products Agricultural land Fisheries Tourist destinations ------------------------------------------ Governance: About governance 1 Government admin 2 3 4 Security ... crime Services Taxes ------------------------------------------ About crime, violence and security 1 2 3 4 Crime and violence Security Police Courts ------------------------------------------ Possibilities ... potential: About possibilities and potential 1 2 3 What is possible; What is not; What are key constraints? How can resources be best used 1 2 3 4 Natural resources Human resources Organizations Know-how ------------------------------------------ Constraints ... what is missing: About constraints 1 2 3 4 5 Financial; Organizational; Knowledge; Politics, Governance; Everything else that is material |
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