IFAD's engagement in community-driven development

IFAD's Western and Central Africa Division began to support community-driven development (CDD) projects about seven years ago. In 2004, a review was conducted of five IFAD-supported CDD projects in Cape Verde, Ghana, Mali, Mauritania and Senegal. Following the review, IFAD organized a two-day workshop to develop a better understanding of CDD approaches based on experience to date, and to develop a common vision. It also sought to identify areas for partnership, innovation and research, and to scale up best practices to increase the impact of CDD projects on rural poverty reduction.

In preparation for the March 2006 workshop in Ghana, IFAD held a series of electronic conferences to enhance learning and information exchange, and to identify the themes to be discussed in the workshop. In addition, a number of documents have been produced:

• Lessons of experience and IFAD's approach to CDD in WCA. This paper identifies the lessons learned and issues to be addressed regarding CDD, based on experience of IFAD projects that used a CDD approach.

• CDD decision tools. Based on an in-depth discussion of CDD policy and cross-cutting issues, the paper provides guidance to project design decisions and considerations, and region-specific issues related to CDD approaches.

In 2005, IFAD was asked by a group of donor partners including the Agence Française de Développement (AFD), the African Development Bank (AfDB), the European Union (EU), the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO), the UN Capital Development Fund (UNCDF) and the World Bank to set up, together with UNCDF, a platform for learning and sharing knowledge on CDD. The preliminary architecture of the platform will be discussed during the workshop.

Emerging issues

The global emphasis on achieving the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs), in particular the target to halve the proportion of people living in extreme poverty by the year 2015, has underscored the importance of delivering services that satisfy the actual needs of the poor rural people and the communities in which they live. However, rural poor people and the local organizations that represent them, often lack the capacity to develop and articulate their needs in ways that are meaningful for the institutions that must respond. CDD approaches may be able to contribute both to building the capacity of rural communities to articulate their needs and to supporting a clearer and more constructive dialogue between the various actors, thus explicitly targeting improved local governance.

Some critical questions

• Are decentralization and community development separate processes? Is there a trade-off between supporting either one or the other?

• Is the current legal environment appropriate for supporting the development of the community-based organizations involved in CDD projects?

• Do successful income-generating activities facilitate community empowerment, or does community empowerment facilitate successful income-generating activities? Does CDD lead to coherent private sector development and what are the conditions for this?

• Critics of CDD point to frequent cases of the local elite capturing the benefits. Is it a risk worth taking?

• Do poor farmers have the time for and interest in participating in community-level activities such as village committees?

A key concern is how to make community-driven development empowering, rather than rhetorical. A number of issues have emerged from IFAD's projects, reviews and workshops, as follows:

CDD principles

What kinds of relationships exist or should exist between local governments and the type of community-based organizations involved in CDD projects? CDD should be complementary to approaches that strengthen local government units, serving as a step towards a more democratic local environment and more transparency and accountability in local social decision-making processes. The role of CDD may be to accompany the transfer of decision-making authority to local democratic organizations, taking into account varying contexts and socio-cultural and economic settings. Thus, there may be a trade-off between supporting activities aimed at immediate and tangible impact and more process-oriented activities aimed at the longer-term sustainability of institutional and participatory arrangements.

Changing organizational cultures at all levels

CDD aims to build long-term processes for sustainable poverty reduction. It also aims to change the culture of dependency and to avoid quick technical fixes. CDD focuses on strengthening the capacity of rural communities to play a greater role in their own development. CDD may be a way to correct failures by governments, markets and civil society, or a self-help approach to accelerate access, particularly by communities in remote areas, to public goods and services. The need for heavy up-front investment in capacity building means that project implementation and monitoring and evaluation tend to be more expensive in CDD projects. Short- and long-term quantitative and qualitative results must be identified for local-level monitoring arrangements that fully involve community-based organizations.

Diversity of approaches: there is not one size that fits all

Cape Verde Rural Poverty Alleviation Programme (PLPR) is a CDD project that reaches poor people through community development associations and strong partnership arrangements at the regional level between central government, municipalities, NGOs and the private sector (Regional Partners Commissions - CRPs).  CRPs are responsible for setting the priorities and managing the funds.

Mali Sahelian Areas Development Fund Programme (FODESA) is a CDD project that empowers farmer organizations and entrusts them with project management responsibilities including the management of funds.

Mauritania Oasis Sustainable Development Programme (PDDO) is a CDD programme aimed at reaching the poor by supporting oasis development associations to define oasis development plans. A community investment fund will provide financing for the (mostly) community infrastructure needs prioritized in the development plans.

Ghana Northern Region Poverty-Reduction Programme (NORPREP) bridges the gap in decision-making processes between the village and the district levels through community-based participatory planning and composite budgeting.

Local institutions
CDD may not be the most appropriate option if the policy and institutional environment is unsupportive. However, CDD approaches may contribute to improving the institutional environment. In CDD, local institutions such as village development committees are not seen simply as channels for implementing project activities at local level. Very often, the development of local institutions is the actual objective, and this must be clearly stated.

Source: IFAD