Fifteen years ago, the term `community capacity-building' was not to be found anywhere within the policy literature. Now it is used worldwide, particularly in the context of urban policy, regeneration and social development. The paper argues that the term has been introduced as part of a political fashion but that in practice it is difficult to distinguish it from the practice of community development. A critique, drawing on experience worldwide, suggests that its widespread use represents a continuing failure of governments properly to engage in `bottom-up' development, is built on a `deficit' model of communities which fails to engage properly with their own skills, knowledge and interests, and helps to obscure structural reasons for poverty and inequality.
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