Does CDD Work in ECA?

CDD has tended to polarize the discussion between proponents and opponents of this approach. The diversity of the views on CDD, as well as the intensity of expression on all sides of this debate makes a review of the existing evidence both necessary and timely. In this context, the Bank's Development Economics (DEC) network has undertaken an extensive review of the evidence from more than 135 CDD projects, seeking to present a balanced perspective on this development mechanism in the study "Evaluating Community Driven Development: A Review of the Evidence".

Vijayendra Rao and Ghazala Mansuri, two DEC economists, gave a presentation on the main findings of the DEC review . As an overarching conclusion, DEC's review cautions against rapid scaling up of CDD and argues that poorly executed CDD that does not take time to pay attention to the local context can be wasteful or even harmful, but CDD done right has the potential for transformative change.

Their presentation was followed by Alexandre Marc, Sector Manager ECA Social Development, who discussed the findings as it related to ECA. He noted few evaluations in ECA currently exist as the CDD experience is still very recent, a decade or less. He discussed some projects where CDD had been implemented in the region, mostly in water use and irrigation initiatives. Among Marc's conclusions were in order for CDD to be successful in ECA, better recognition was necessary on the importance of the informality of relationships, and to take advantage of the decentralization trend.

Watch Video

 Download DEC study (224k pdf)

 DEC presentation (46k ppt)

 ECA Context presentation (68k ppt)