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...

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Main Authors: Wong, Susan, Guggenheim, Scott
Format: Working Paper
Language:English
Published: World Bank, Washington, DC 2018
Subjects:
Online Access:http://documents.worldbank.org/curated/en/677351525887961626/Community-driven-development-myths-and-realities
http://hdl.handle.net/10986/29841
id okr-10986-29841
recordtype oai_dc
spelling okr-10986-298412022-09-19T12:16:49Z Community-Driven Development : Myths and Realities Wong, Susan Guggenheim, Scott CITIZEN ENGAGEMENT LOCAL GOVERNANCE COMMUNITY-DRIVEN DEVELOPMENT SERVICE DELIVERY RURAL INFRASTRUCTURE POVERTY REDUCTION 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. 2018-05-16T20:22:26Z 2018-05-16T20:22:26Z 2018-05 Working Paper http://documents.worldbank.org/curated/en/677351525887961626/Community-driven-development-myths-and-realities http://hdl.handle.net/10986/29841 English Policy Research Working Paper;No. 8435 CC BY 3.0 IGO http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/igo World Bank World Bank, Washington, DC Publications & Research Publications & Research :: Policy Research Working Paper
repository_type Digital Repository
institution_category Foreign Institution
institution Digital Repositories
building World Bank Open Knowledge Repository
collection World Bank
language English
topic CITIZEN ENGAGEMENT
LOCAL GOVERNANCE
COMMUNITY-DRIVEN DEVELOPMENT
SERVICE DELIVERY
RURAL INFRASTRUCTURE
POVERTY REDUCTION
spellingShingle CITIZEN ENGAGEMENT
LOCAL GOVERNANCE
COMMUNITY-DRIVEN DEVELOPMENT
SERVICE DELIVERY
RURAL INFRASTRUCTURE
POVERTY REDUCTION
Wong, Susan
Guggenheim, Scott
Community-Driven Development : Myths and Realities
relation Policy Research Working Paper;No. 8435
description 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.
format Working Paper
author Wong, Susan
Guggenheim, Scott
author_facet Wong, Susan
Guggenheim, Scott
author_sort Wong, Susan
title Community-Driven Development : Myths and Realities
title_short Community-Driven Development : Myths and Realities
title_full Community-Driven Development : Myths and Realities
title_fullStr Community-Driven Development : Myths and Realities
title_full_unstemmed Community-Driven Development : Myths and Realities
title_sort community-driven development : myths and realities
publisher World Bank, Washington, DC
publishDate 2018
url http://documents.worldbank.org/curated/en/677351525887961626/Community-driven-development-myths-and-realities
http://hdl.handle.net/10986/29841
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