Aims

Central Community Development Journal (CCDJ) is an international, peer-reviewed, open-access journal dedicated to advancing rigorous scholarship on community development processes, institutions, and outcomes. The journal provides a platform for analytically grounded research that examines how communities organise, govern, and sustain development initiatives within diverse social, economic, and institutional environments.

The journal is concerned not merely with documenting community activities, but with understanding the structural, institutional, and relational conditions under which community-based interventions generate durable social and economic change. CCDJ welcomes research that investigates how local actors, civil society organisations, public institutions, and private stakeholders interact in shaping development trajectories at the community level.

CCDJ encourages interdisciplinary contributions that integrate perspectives from community development studies, development economics, public administration, sociology, social policy, organisational studies, education, health promotion, environmental governance, and related fields where the analytical focus remains anchored in community processes and local institutional dynamics.

The journal publishes conceptual analyses, empirical investigations, comparative studies, and implementation-oriented research, provided that submissions demonstrate theoretical coherence, methodological transparency, and a clear contribution to the understanding or improvement of community development practice or policy. Descriptive accounts lacking analytical framing or evidence of outcomes are not considered.

By fostering dialogue between empirical inquiry and wider development debates, CCDJ contributes to international scholarship in community development and brings greater attention to research grounded in diverse institutional settings.

CCDJ is published quarterly by Acadlore and follows a structured peer-review process designed to ensure consistency, transparency, and scholarly integrity.

Key features of CCDJ include:

• Focus on institutional, organisational, and participatory dimensions of community development rather than isolated project descriptions

• Emphasis on accountability, governance arrangements, and sustainability of community interventions

• Integration of empirical evidence with conceptual or policy implications

• Inclusion of action and implementation research where analytical depth and transferable insight are clearly demonstrated

• Encouragement of comparative and cross-context analysis

• Commitment to methodological rigour, ethical research engagement, and robustness of conclusions

Scope

CCDJ welcomes original research articles, theoretical contributions, systematic reviews, comparative analyses, and high-quality empirical studies in areas including, but not limited to, the following:

Community Processes, Participation, and Collective Action

• Community engagement and participatory governance

• Collective action, leadership, and local organising

• Social capital, trust, and institutional cohesion

• Multi-stakeholder coordination and partnership arrangements

• Accountability and transparency mechanisms at the community level

Community-Based Local Economic Development and Livelihood Systems

• Community-embedded MSME development and local enterprise ecosystems

• Livelihood diversification, income stability, and household welfare

• Cooperative models, social enterprises, and collective economic institutions

• Digital capability-building and community market participation

• Inclusive local growth and distributional outcomes within communities

• Institutional frameworks supporting community entrepreneurship

Public Policy Implementation and Local Institutional Capacity

• Implementation of community development policies and programmes

• Decentralisation, local governance, and administrative performance

• Community-based service delivery and institutional strengthening

• Civil society organisations, cooperatives, and grassroots institutions

• Financial inclusion and community-level economic governance

Social Inclusion, Human Development, and Well-being

• Gender empowerment, youth participation, and marginalised groups

• Community health, nutrition, and prevention initiatives

• Education models and local capacity development

• Social protection mechanisms and welfare provision

• Measurement and evaluation of multi-dimensional community well-being

Disaster Recovery, Resilience, and Risk Governance

• Post-disaster livelihood restoration and reconstruction

• Community resilience planning and adaptive capacity

• Crisis response and recovery in social and economic systems

• Risk governance and long-term sustainability

• Evaluation of recovery and resilience programmes

Tourism, Culture, and Place-Based Development

• Community-based tourism governance

• Cultural heritage and identity in local development

• Distributional and socio-economic effects of tourism

• Tourism recovery, investment, and sustainability

• Socio-environmental implications of place-based development

Digital Transformation and Community Capacity

• Digital inclusion and technology adoption in community settings

• Community-level digital governance and service delivery

• Platform-mediated livelihoods and local economic participation

• Skills development and organisational learning in digital contexts

• Evaluation of digital community programmes

Environmental Sustainability and Community Resource Governance

• Community-based natural resource management

• Sustainable agriculture and rural development practices

• Climate adaptation and local environmental governance

• Behavioural change and environmental participation

• Integrated socio-environmental development strategies

Comparative and International Perspectives

• Cross-national analyses of community development models

• Institutional diversity and contextual variation in community interventions

• Development practice in emerging and developing economies

• International policy learning and programme transferability

• Comparative performance and outcomes of local development initiatives

Methods, Evidence, and Evaluation

• Action research and community-based participatory research

• Programme evaluation and impact assessment

• Qualitative, quantitative, and mixed-methods approaches

• Comparative case analysis and process tracing

• Measurement frameworks for community capacity and sustainability

Ethics, Power, and Accountability

• Ethical dimensions of community research and engagement

• Power relations and representation in participatory processes

• Accountability and governance in development interventions

• Management of unintended consequences and distributional effects

• Institutionalisation and responsible scaling of community initiatives