The Social Impact of Social Funds in Jamaica : A Mixed-Methods Analysis of Participation, Targeting, and Collective Action in Community-Driven Development
The authors develop an evaluation method that combines qualitative evidence with quantitative survey data analyzed with propensity score methods on matched samples to study the impact of a participatory community-driven social fund on preference ta...
| Main Authors: | , |
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| Format: | Policy Research Working Paper |
| Language: | English en_US |
| Published: |
World Bank, Washington, DC
2014
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| Subjects: | |
| Online Access: | http://documents.worldbank.org/curated/en/2003/02/2156911/social-impact-social-funds-jamaica-mixed-methods-analysis-participation-targeting-collective-action-community-driven-development http://hdl.handle.net/10986/19146 |
| Summary: | The authors develop an evaluation method
that combines qualitative evidence with quantitative survey
data analyzed with propensity score methods on matched
samples to study the impact of a participatory
community-driven social fund on preference targeting,
collective action, and community decision-making. The data
come from a case study of five pairs of communities in
Jamaica where one community in the pair has received funds
from the Jamaica social investment fund (JSIF) while the
other has not-but has been picked to match the funded
community in its social and economic characteristics. The
qualitative data reveal that the social fund process is
elite-driven and decision-making tends to be dominated by a
small group of motivated individuals. But by the end of the
project there was broad-based satisfaction with the outcome.
The quantitative data from 500 households mirror these
findings by showing that ex-ante the social fund does not
address the expressed needs of the majority of individuals
in the majority of communities. By the end of the
construction process, however, 80 percent of the community
expressed satisfaction with the outcome. An analysis of the
determinants of participation shows that better educated and
better networked individuals dominate the process.
Propensity score analysis reveals that the JSIF has had a
causal impact on improvements in trust and the capacity for
collective action, but these gains are greater for elites
within the community. Both JSIF and non-JSIF communities are
more likely now to make decisions that affect their lives
which indicates a broad-based effort to promote
participatory development in the country, but JSIF
communities do not show higher levels of community-driven
decisions than non-JSIF communities. The authors shed light
on the complex ways in which community-driven development
works inside communities-a process that is deeply imbedded
within Jamaica's sociocultural and political context. |
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