1. Social Development Approaches
Mohammad Habeeb
Master of social Work (2016-2018)
Maulana azad national urdu university hyderabad
INTRODUCTION:
The social development, a component of sustainable development,
aims at improving the human well-being in the society. This is
achieved through the improvement of three main areas: education,
health and employment.
Social development means that we must invest in people. It is
necessary to remove barriers keeping citizens from living in decent
living conditions.
Social development enables people to progress towards self-
sufficiency.
An approach is a set of steps, a way of leading something according
to some principles and some set orders.
The choice of this theme is not useless; on the contrary, it has much
importance for future social development agents we are. The goal is
to familiarize ourselves with the terminologies of these approaches in
English.
In fact, the Social development approaches which are subject of this
presentation are so numerous, but we are going to study five of them
(mostly used), as below-mentioned:
The territorial approach

2. The Participatory approach
The Gender approach
The environmental approach
The Partnership approach
1-Territorial approach:
This means that any social development initiative is designed on a
precise space called “TERRITORY” (otherwise based on a limited
territory), taking into account its particularities, its potentials, assets,
strengths and weaknesses in term of geographical position, economic
and social dynamic, cultural and ethnic characteristics.
2- The participatory approach:
It results from the idea to make participate the target and beneficiary
populations. It can be defined as a social process that is to restore the
people's power of initiative and decision in the definition and
implementation of actions concerning their own future. This means
that external decision makers recognize the representatives of the
population as active elements of social change. Hence the necessity to
involve them within the framework of partnership relation.
3- The gender Approach:
The Gender referring to the social, economic, and cultural roles of
men and women, as well as relations between them, takes into
account the specific responsibilities of men and women in a culture or
in different population groups (seniors, ethnic groups, etc.)

3. Its approach consists in systematically taking into account the
differences in term of conditions, situations, capabilities and needs of
women and men in all development policies and actions in order to
set up a new equitable partnership between women and men,
respecting the right and ensuring their equal, full and complete
participation at all levels. The final goal is to come to an equitable
development and their empowerment.
4- The environmental approach:
Facing the challenges of sustainable development, the choice of social
development initiatives must be based on the following compromises:
In a project design, take into account the climate (sunshine, wind, and
rainfalls), the waterways...
take into account the real impact of equipment and facilities on the
environment (natural resources, watershed, biodiversity…), during
their choice and installations.
5- The Partnership approach:
It consists of the putting in synergy (networking) of a mosaic of
actors (civil society, local authorities, central departments,
international NGOs…) gathering them around a sole vision.
It is based on the principle of trust, sharing of knowledge and the
complementarities of skills.
II- The objectives, the importance and the challenges:
1 - The objectives and the importance:
Among their objectives, they aim at:
- Adjusting the mistakes of the classical projects

4. - Repairing the damages of the SAP (structural adjustment
program)
- Capacity building
- Establishing equity, equality
- Empowering women
- Fighting against social exclusion
- More improving living conditions and standard of living
- improving the ability of everyone to take full control of his
individual and collective destiny
- Preserving the ecological equilibrium
- Gaining the parity M / W in the development process and
reducing the Poverty among Women
- The full participation of women at all stages and at all areas of
the development process to achieve gender equality
Among their importance:
In response to the question “why these approaches?” we say that the
experiences of the past have proved that human development can not
be achieved without the participation of men and women Indeed, the
participatory approach guarantees accountability and awareness of
people As far as civil society is concerned, it considers these
approaches as a crucial lever for strengthening local and participatory
democracy, decentralization and good governance at local and

5. national levels, making easy the access of all to the basic social
services.
The approaches’ integration into Social development projects:
The tools of analysis:
1- The territorial approach:
- The map of the territory of the project
- The territorial diagnosis
- The sociogram
- The local development planning
- The on going or achieved projects
- The poverty and precariousness data
2- The Participatory and partnership approaches:
- Meeting with local actors
- The putting in place of a committee
- Social animation, dialogue, communication and training
- Advocacy and mobilization
- Principle of subsidiary

6. - All participatory methods insist on people and external partners’
participation not only in decision-making but also in the process of
preparation of decision making.
3- The Gender approach:
- Who does what? (With whom? For whom? Why?)
- How, with what means?
- Who owns what?
- Who takes control of resources?
- Who decides de what?
- Who is responsible for what?
- Who does right have to quoi?
- Who enjoys some profits?
- Who gains what? Who spends what?
(Why? After every question)
4- The environmental approach
- Does the project take into account the physical characteristics
and climate?
- Has it an impact on the environment? If so, how?
- Does the project use renewable resources?

7. - Does the project have an impact on future water consumption?