Community-Driven Development : Myths and Realities
Community-driven development is an approach to development that emphasizes community control over planning decisions and investment resources. Over the past decade, it has become a key operational strategy for many national governments, as well as...
| Main Authors: | , |
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| Format: | Working Paper |
| Language: | English |
| Published: |
World Bank, Washington, DC
2018
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| Subjects: | |
| Online Access: | http://documents.worldbank.org/curated/en/677351525887961626/Community-driven-development-myths-and-realities http://hdl.handle.net/10986/29841 |
| Summary: | Community-driven development is an
approach to development that emphasizes community control
over planning decisions and investment resources. Over the
past decade, it has become a key operational strategy for
many national governments, as well as for international aid
agencies, with the World Bank alone currently supporting
more than 190 active community-driven development projects
in 78 countries. Community-driven development programs have
proven to be particularly useful where government
institutions are weak or under stress. This paper examines
what the evidence shows about the utility of
community-driven development programs for helping
governments improve the lives and futures of the poor. The
paper also addresses recent critiques of the
community-driven development approach. The paper makes
three main arguments. First, community-driven development
offers governments a useful new tool for improving the lives
of the poor. The empirical evidence from evaluations
confirms that community-driven development programs provide
much needed productive economic infrastructure and services
at large scale, reasonable cost, and high quality. They also
provide villagers, especially the disadvantaged, with a
voice in how development funds are used to improve their
welfare. Second, community-driven development programs are
not a homogeneous category, and it is important to
acknowledge the differences between national, on-budget,
multi-year programs, and off-budget programs. And finally,
community-driven development works best and achieves the
greatest results when it is part of a broader development
strategy that includes reforms to governance, investments in
productivity, and integration with efforts to improve the
quality of public service delivery. |
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