Road Mapping: Towards Self-Reliance

In 2015, ChildFund New Zealand and our long-term Local Partners developed a community development planning tool, the Road Maps, to support their goal of becoming self-reliant. It was our Local Partners— community-based organisations (CBOs) in Kenya, Sri Lanka, Vietnam, and Zambia—who identified self-reliance as being vital to the development of their communities, and now they are leading their communities through the Road Mapping process.

For ChildFund New Zealand, supporting CBOs and their communities to realise self-reliance is central to our programme philosophy which aims to strengthen and develop livelihoods, reduce vulnerabilities, and end long-term dependency on external interventions.

Today, our Local Partners’ Road Maps act as strategic plans, support funding proposals, serve as communication tools, and have been demonstrably adopted by the communities who created them. The Road Map in Sri Lanka, for example, is referred to as the ‘Mother Document’, while communities in Zambia track their progress against these plans, and organise support and local contributions to achieve their objectives.

To aid other organisations and communities in the development of their own Road Maps, we have developed a guidebook called Road Mapping: Towards Self-Reliance. Please contact us if you're planning to use this guide for your community. Email quenelda@childfund.org.nz for more information.

Click here or on the image below to view Road Mapping: Towards Self-Reliance.