Richard Ford

Dick Ford received his Ph.D. from the University of Denver in 1966 and joined the Clark history department in 1968. His research interests include community-based participation, resource management and sustainable development in the changing African context. In collaboration with Barbara Thomas-Slayter and Charity Kabutha in Kenya, Dick developed the Participatory Rural Appraisal (PRA) method, adapted from rapid rural appraisal methods. He is the director of the Center for Community-Based Development, the field research and training arm of the International Development and Social Change program.

Ford and Barbara Thomas-Slayter successfully applied to the Fulbright Program for funds to bring Rokhaya Nguer to IDCE as a visiting specialist under the Direct Access to the Muslim World program in Fall 2007. Ford also visited a number of countries, including Senegal, to finalize research and publications for the three-year Fulbright University Exchange Program. Read more about Ford's accomplishments in Senegal. He visited Romania to conduct two training programs in community-based assessments for a youth association and a group of Unitarian ministers in Transylvania.

Ford published “Somali Pastoralists in Lewiston, Maine: Searching with Participatory Tools for a New Life,” in Somalia: Diaspora and State Reconstitution In The Horn Of Africa with editors Abdulkadir Osman Farah, Mammo Muchie and Joakim Gundel at Adonis & Abbey Publishers in 2007. He also published “Sub-Saharan Africa: Muslim Women’s Agriculture in East Africa,” in Encyclopedia of Women and Islamic Cultures, Vol. 4, Economics, Education, Mobility, and Space, Suad Joseph (ed.), Brill: Leiden and Boston, 2007.

This past year, Ford received a grant of $25,000 from the Ocean Reef Foundation for his proposal “Growing Hope” in which he plans to conduct an experimental training and research program in the Dawa region of Upper Manya District in Eastern Ghana. Working in cooperation with the Ghana Organization for Volunteer Assistance and the Center for Youth in International Development Programs, the grant will focus on income generation programs for youth in an AIDS-afflicted region of Ghana.

Ford’s field work continues in The Philippines, Ghana, Romania, and India. In the late spring of 2007, Ford visited The Philippines to monitor work underway there. Several advances include two urban slum community women’s groups taking initiative in income generation and water management programs. On Negros Island, one community has made major progress in expanding a water supply that was serving a community of about 100 households to tap a larger source and expand to serve a total of 6 communities. It is expected that the planning and implementation may take upwards of two years, but that the results will benefit a much larger number of communities and enable them to learn skills of local planning that may serve them in subsequent projects, once the water installation is complete. Over the summer, Ford spent ten days in Ghana to finalize the proposal and confirm the plans to implement “Growing Hope.” This past fall, Ford was in the Transylvania region of Romania, working with several community groups that have undertaken community-based projects in water, health, housing, flood disaster recovery, environmental projects, and related community priority efforts. Just this past February, he was in the Khasi Hills of northeastern India visiting communities that were planning assessments as well as making detailed plans for a community planning exercise in the village of Puriang (Meghalaya state).

Selected Publications

In 2007, Richard Ford published “Sub-Saharan Africa: Muslim Women’s Agriculture in East Africa,” in Encyclopedia of Women and Islamic Cultures, Vol. 4, Economics, Education, Mobility, and Space (Suad Joseph (ed.), Brill: Leiden and Boston, 2007).

He co-published Rebuilding After the Nyikó Valley Flood: Participatory Tools for Community Rehabilitation in Transylvania (IDCE, Clark University; Unitarian Universalist Church of Romania, Unitarian Universalist Partner Church Council, 2006 - also available in Hungarian).

He also co-wrote “Méthode d’Analyse Participative des Politiques de Réduction de la Pauvreté Senegal,” published jointly by ISE/Senegal and IDCE/Clark in 2006.

Mato Bato — Solving a Water Problem on Negros Island through Community Action: A PAPPA Community-Based Assessment of Nagbinlod Barangay Santa Catalina Municipality Negros, The Philippines, co-authored with Nihal Anton Attanayake, Myra Vivaris-Waddington, and Rebecca Quimada Sienes(IDCE, Clark University; Unitarian Universalist Church of the Philippines, 2004).

“Participatory Tools for Peace Building: New Models for African Governance,” co-authored with Adan Abokor, in War Destroys, Peace Nurtures: Somali Reconciliation and Development (Africa World Press, 2004).

War Destroys, Peace Nurtures: Somali Reconciliation and Development, with Hussein M. Adam and Edna Adan Ismail (eds.) The Red Sea Press, Lawrenceville, New Jersey, 2004.

Villagers Building Communities: How Za’ari Used PAPPA Self-Managed Community-Based Tools to Strengthen Infrastructure, handbook withSaeed Bancie Abubakari (ID/MA ’04) and Moses Tampuri, IDCE, GOVA, and Oxfam/Ghana, 2003.

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