The Community Action Boards -JAC-, like a civil non-profit organizations that voluntarily participate in a joint effort in the pursuit of a common goal, have been the driving force of development of villages, districts and neighborhoods in recent decades; not in vain in Colombia according to the Ministry of Interior, there are about 45,000 Boards. In line with this, the objective of this study was routed in to know the role of Community Action Boards in the local development, selected the JAC of the neighborhood of “Evaristo Sourdis” and “La Union” and “San Carlos” (Sabanalarga-Atlantic), which has a special features as its location, its processes and its proximity to the recent development of the petroleum industry in the municipality. The methodology used was the Case Study that allowed us to investigate a phenomenon in its real context, through interviews, observation and document analysis; techniques that threw us data to characterize the JAC, besides to know their organizational processes, their actions respect to the development and its relationship with the new actors of the territory, in this case the recent petroleum industry in the municipality. The results demonstrate that the JAC as a social organizations efectily have a impact on the local development processes independently of the other existing actors in their territories, because their main objective is to improve the conditions of its neighborhoods. Keywords : Development, Local development, community action boards , community. ; Las Juntas de Acción Comunal, como organizaciones civiles sin ánimo de lucro que voluntariamente participan en un esfuerzo conjunto en la búsqueda de un objetivo en común, han sido el motor de desarrollo de veredas, corregimientos y barrios en las últimas décadas; no en vano en Colombia de acuerdo al Ministerio del Interior existen alrededor de 45.000 Juntas. En línea con esto, el objetivo del presente estudio se direccionó en conocer el papel de las Juntas de acción Comunal en el desarrollo local, seleccionándose las ...