In November 2009 R4C, with its partners NCVO, was contracted by the Community Development Foundation’s National Empowerment Partnership to assess the impact the current recession is having on community empowerment and cohesion.

At times of an economic downturn, does this heighten community tension and expose division, or does it stimulate and encourage unity through adversity; that can then be the catalyst to build resilience?

The first phase of the work was a literature review and a small number of carefully selected key informant interviews. This then enabled us to target the second phase of the work; research with seven local authority areas, aiming to find out what the reality on the ground really is.

The learning from this work will be used by CDF to inform and support regional delivery of the empowerment and cohesion agendas.  

For more information about this work please contact Irene Evison