ABSTRACT
This chapter introduces a range of common development approaches and methods that development practitioners use in their work. It discusses how different approaches and methods are underpinned by different ideas about how social and economic change happens. Development approaches and methods are the ways that development practitioners work: how they 'do' development. Local economic development (LED), for instance, is a development approach: it defines the kind of change that is sought and the scope of the initiative. Development policy makers are simply those people in government and development organizations who make strategic decisions about development. Governments and development organizations need to decide what development outcomes they are aiming to achieve and how to achieve them. Community economic development approaches seek to increase collective economic action and create collective economic benefit, for instance, through establishing community-run enterprises.
