Community Capacity and Rural Development -1-

To supplement training programs there is a need for reading materials on community and rural development, as well as evaluation and planning. However, there are no appropriate traditional development-related reading materials that match our training concept. The lack of such materials means that participants are not able to study these aspects in-depth. Under these circumstances, we gather together all of the available reading materials related to our training concept. This book provides sufficient materials for our participants to gain the knowledge for community and rural development and take in the lessons from their training program.

This book is a compilation of literatures edited for our trainings, selected existing articles, and revised papers translated into English, as necessary. Some content newly added in order to provide reading materials that coordinate with our trainings. This is, therefore, an accumulation of our knowledge on rural development and community capacity, focusing on mainly Japanese cases. Our goal with our trainings and this book is to create an environment where rural development takes place through connecting concept and practice.