*A Framework for Facilitating Holistic Interventions for Building Community Resilience… DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.5772/intechopen.102977*

pictures. The conceptual and the real situations are compared to come up with realistic interventions. This process should ideally be facilitated at the village level with the participation of all key stakeholders through community-wide dialogue. This process can be replicated in other countries with similar socio-cultural conditions, particularly southern African countries such as Malawi, Mozambique, and Zambia. From action research experience, such a process can be challenging as village-wide dialogue has

a number of challenging factors including breaking the 'conspiracy of silence' where community members won't share knowledge and information as some perceive their tacit knowledge as inferior to technical expertise knowledge; gender and cultural dynamics where in some cases, certain community members' contributions are regarded as inferior; de-politicking community dialogue; and detangling NGO specific forums. The latter normally stems from NGOs competing for space and developing their own forums. The comparison of the conceptual model to the rich text pictures should be done activity by activity in a tabular format. The table will have several columns. These columns might include the following headings: activity; status (indicating if the activity is already being implemented); current challenges and coping mechanisms; measures of performance; recommendations; and comments. The facilitators should draw as much as possible from participatory planning tools such as community based planning (CBP).

### **7.5 Implementation of sustainable development**

The implementation process should be action research-oriented informed by contemporary extension approaches. According to Özçatalbaş [50], such an extension approach should utilize proven, accurate information based on research findings to improve welfare. This process will allow the delivery of information and knowledge to target groups for socioeconomic development. Rather than a pure development practitioner/ community member dichotomy, it should be based on a knowledge co-creation agenda. Such knowledge transfer should ideally be based on technology transfer within the current context of the fourth industrial revolution (4IR). Zimbabwean community members have been through numerous shocks; including droughts, and economic transitions among others. Extension and technology transfer through action research ensure that the implementation of the designed social activity systems engages a learning agenda. Experience shows that engaging Zimbabwean communities in action research have a key challenge in facilitating learning. There is a general belief by communities that rural development practitioners are more knowledgeable that communities and communities should learn from them. This poses a challenge for facilitators in changing this mindset to allow a knowledge-sharing agenda. In such instances, a tool such as appreciative inquiry, for example, was found to be effective in Chimanimani District during action research. The approach deviates from the traditional assumptions that community systems have inherent flaws that need to be fixed through problem solving and interventions. Rather than treating communities as problems, it focuses was placed on identifying positive capacities within communities which are the facilitators utilise to drive dialogue.
