What are some approaches to planning and problem solving?
Strategic planning has been a common approach to help communities set priorities for community development. Strategic planning may uncover local problems, resource constraints, deficiencies and unmet basic needs to encourage participation and solve problems. A newer approach, using elements of strategic planning, is known in the literature as appreciative inquiry. Appreciative inquiry focuses on a community’s achievements rather than its problems, and seeks to go beyond participation to foster inspiration at the grass-roots level.