By Kevin Balm

ICA’s 40 years of experience working with urban and rural communities, community organizations, government agencies and business and corporate groups has resulted in the development of a curriculum on innovative social and leadership methods. The last year saw this trend continue with several extensions.
The Technology of Participation or ToP® continues to be an important ICA programmatic thrust. There are hundreds of ToP® facilitators and trainers around the world forging important collaborations and partnerships between many institutions and communities. Practitioners of ToP® are currently involved in discussions to standardize and promote the brand around the world.
In establishing the Global Institute for Facilitative Leadership, ICA brings together its program of courses emphasizing participatory leadership practice, knowledge and culture under one banner. These courses focus on competencies to enhance the understanding, capability and performance of leaders in harnessing the knowledge, ideas and energy of committed people. Participants who complete multiple learning modules and related competency-based assessment activities will receive the postgraduate award of Vocational Graduate Diploma of Facilitative Leadership.

With a renewed interest from many sectors in community development, an initiative is underway to put the best practices of ICA’s community development into a broad-based curriculum that can be used in any nation and in any local setting. ICA

Community Development approaches have been locally driven and are comprehensive in nature, covering economic, governance, social and cultural dimensions, with sustainability built in. The complete suite of tools, curriculum and best
practices will be accessible worldwide, and each ICA will adapt it for their own unique community programs.
ICA is contributing to the development of a Masters in Training and Development being offered as an interdisciplinary program that will produce graduates with the knowledge, skills and capacity for effective training and development in the private, governmental and NGO sectors for promoting sustainable human development. It is first being offered in Nepal and subsequently in other nations.
This past year saw the ICA community enter the technological world of virtual meeting facilitation. The 2010 General Assembly enabled as many national ICAs to participate virtually as were present physically in Talegaon, India. In addition, three virtual meetings were designed and held online for national ICAs in North, Central and South America; in Europe, Africa and the Middle East; and in Asia and the Pacific. It is anticipated that the 2011 General Assembly and the 2012 Global Conference in Nepal will utilize this technology.

Kevin Balm is a member of ICA Australia