CDD Strategy for Europe and Central Asia

In December 1999, the regional Vice Presidents of the World Bank presented to Mr. Wolfensohn, the situation and prospects for CDD in their respective regions. There was a clear consensus that community-driven development approaches were important to improve development effectiveness, and that projects with community-driven development components had in many cases, higher ratings than other projects. It was also recognized that a greater emphasis on CDD should be placed on poverty reduction and good governance -- two central priorities for the World Bank. Following this meeting, a working group on CDD was set up, and each region was asked to identify steps to scale up community-driven development.

This strategy suggests an approach to scaling up CDD in ECA, taking into account the specificity of the region, in particular, the historical legacy of the command economy resulting in many fragile democratic systems and weak institutions. The approach suggested in this strategy is based on three pillars:

• to integrate CDD in institutional reform of the State and the strategy for decentralization;

• to scale up and develop new sectoral operations with CDD as one of the main objectives; and

• to organize mechanisms in the region to learn more effectively from the experience of CDD and to provide expertise and support to country teams.

In addition, four pilot countries and a pilot sub-region have been identified for CDD: Romania, Russia, Armenia, Albania and Central Asia.(see below) In these countries CDD issues will be taken up in the dialog on state reforms and more careful attention will be given to experimentation and impact monitoring. A plan for scaling up CDD will be prepared for each of these countries and external resources will be mobilized in support of these activities.