How successful have community-driven development programmes (CDD) in conflict-affected and post-conflict areas of the East Asia and Pacific region been? This paper briefly reviews the World Bank’s experience, exploring which mechanisms worked and what factors affected performance. It finds that CDD projects have has positive impacts on welfare in a range of conflict environments, but they must be part of larger-scale interventions to affect longer-term impacts beyond the local-level.
Drawing on comparative evidence from large-scale CDD projects across the region that have been at the forefront of this kind of programming, the paper seeks to identify factors that explain variation in outcomes and project performance. This paper provides a framework for assessing the impacts of CDD projects in post-conflict and conflict-affected areas. It tries to unpack the potential causal channels of impact, intended or otherwise.
Key findings:
- CDD projects can be an effective mechanism for dealing with local drivers of poverty in areas affected by violent conflict.
- There is little evidence on improved maintenance, however trends suggest those projects with stronger community contributions are more likely to be maintained than others.
- CDD is only part of a strategy for development in (post-) conflict areas. Transforming the economies of conflict-affected and post-conflict areas requires investment in larger-scale infrastructure and policy responses to promote growth.
- Longer-term and successful projects can have indirect conflict impacts, affecting social relations and behaviour in ways that may make communities more robust to dealing with local problems, potentially preventing future conflict escalation. However there is little evidence that CDD affects aggregate levels and impacts of violent conflict, whether it is localised violence or larger-scale violent unrest.
- There is also evidence that, unlike other development interventions, CDD may be less likely to lead to violent conflict over resources. Key here is the performance of complaints systems and local facilitators.
- Training, complaint units and monitoring and supervision are the elements of CDD operations that consistently tend to receive the least attention.
- When designed well CDD can have local-level institutional effects. In some cases, such as in Indonesia, CDD approaches have had some effect on national politics but generally, these linkages between citizens and governments take much longer, and are only are only likely if accompanied by broader reform.
- It is unclear how small-scale projects (such as the Thailand pilot) will seriously impact upon the main drivers of conflict.
