Community-Driven Development

Chapter Nine from the Poverty Reduction Strategy Papers (PRSP) Sourcebook seeks to introduce policymakers to the benefits and relevance of Community Driven Development (CDD) by providing useful guidelines for designing CDD programmes.

9.1 Introduction

"Community-driven development (CDD) gives control of decisions and resources to community groups.
CDD treats poor people as assets and partners in the development process, building on their institutions
and resources. Support to CDD usually includes strengthening and financing inclusive community
groups, facilitating community access to information, and promoting an enabling environment through
policy and institutional reform. Experience demonstrates that by directly relying on poor people to drive development activities, CDD has the potential to make poverty reduction efforts more responsive to
demands, more inclusive, more sustainable, and more cost-effective than traditional centrally led
programs. CDD fills a critical gap in poverty reduction efforts, achieving immediate and lasting results at
the grassroots level and complementing market economy and government-run programs. With these
powerful attributes, CDD can play an important role in strategies to reduce poverty.

This chapter examines why and how governments can support CDD, synthesizing lessons learned
from accumulated experience. The chapter is based on extensive consultations with lead practitioners—
both within and without the World Bank—as well as a literature review and an analysis of 12 large and
successful community-driven programs covering a variety of sectors and regions.

The chapter aims to introduce policymakers to the benefits and relevance of CDD by providing
useful guidelines for designing CDD programs. It commences by asking the question “What is CDD?”
then defines the concept of CDD, outlines its key components, and describes contexts in which CDD
approaches might be relevant. Section 9.3 focuses on the advantages of using CDD approaches for
sustained poverty reduction, touching briefly on the risks inherent in adopting CDD strategies (these
risks, and mitigation measures therefor, are dealt with in more detail in section 9.7: “Principles for
Sustainability and Effectiveness”).

Governments have a range of institutional options for supporting CDD. Although communities will
always drive the process, they may receive support from a variety of actors, including local or municipal
government, the private sector, civil society, and central government. Section 9.4 examines three broad
sets of arrangements for CDD: partnerships between community-based organizations (CBOs) and local or
municipal governments, partnerships between CBOs and private support organizations such as
nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) or the private sector; and direct partnerships between CBOs and
central government or a central fund. This section discusses key design principles specific to each of the
arrangements, as well as considerations for selecting the right arrangements in different country contexts.
Section 9.5 outlines the benefits of multisector and single-sector approaches to CDD to guide practitioners
in their selection between these alternatives.

Although there is growing evidence that CDD offers an effective means of improving the efficiency
of public financing, even in optimistic scenarios, the financing requirements to improve poor people’s
access to basic services far outstrip the availability of public funds. It is thus important to leverage local
and private financing sources in implementing CDD. The uses of community contributions, credit
financing of community contributions, and private commercial investment are discussed in section 9.6.

The chapter concludes, in section 9.7, with a discussion of key principles for the effectiveness and
sustainability of CDD, including design guidelines, tips, and tools for implementation."

To obtain a copy of the full PRSP Sourcebook (for a fee) by email, please contact prsp@worldbank.org