Social funds and large-scale community driven development (CDD) programmes are a popular policy instrument in post-conflict situations. This is partly because of claims that they can generate transformative impacts, such as creating more peaceful societies at the local level and promoting trust in government. Drawing on a rigorous literature review, this practice note assesses the performance of 13 programmes against three sets of impact indicators: (i) incomes, enterprise and access to services; (ii) social cohesion, stability and violence; and (iii) state-society relations. It finds that the available evidence regarding ‘transformative effects’ is mixed. The evidence is limited by a low number of rigorous evaluations across diverse contexts, and by insufficient attention to causal mechanisms.
Social funds and CDD programmes typically involve financing demand-driven community-led projects in poor communities. Financed projects are diverse: while many focus on improving the quality or provision of social infrastructure, such as schools and health centres, others involve transferring largely unconditional cash grants directly to recipients in order to catalyse economic productivity.
Many of the impacts of social funds and CDD programmes in conflict-affected situations are encouragingly positive. Participation in these interventions can lead to substantial and sustained increases in economic wellbeing at the individual and household level. It can also improve access to basic services, such as education, with plenty of evidence of increases in enrolment across contexts. The authors also find that participation in social funds and CDD programmes can sometimes lead to improvements in various measures of local-level stability, social cohesion and state-society relations. However, the evidence in this area is mixed and far less convincing than when the effects on more basic measures of material wellbeing are considered.
The studies reviewed do not provide a complete understanding of how and why changes are occurring. This is because:
- There is a need for more recognition of the importance of programmatic and contextual dynamics: context is not simply a potential confounding factor, but a core part of any explanation of impact.
- the relatively small number of rigorous studies, their spread across highly variable contexts, and the diverse nature of many CDD programmes makes drawing generalisable conclusions about effectiveness in conflict-affected situations difficult.
- while understanding of social funds and CDD programmes would benefit greatly from more high quality, timely and longer-term evaluations, it is also important to be able to adequately theorise and explain the mechanisms that lead to change (and to identify whether these look qualitatively different in places affected by conflict).
