Provision of basic services refers to improving poor people's access to and effective use of basic services including health care, education, water, and roads. The Bank supports government efforts to get resources down to the community level through a variety of institutional models. Implementation can be carried out by private or public actors, by central agencies, sectoral agencies, or decentralized authorities of local government, through stand-alone sector projects, or through multisectoral community-driven development projects. Sector policies and projects necessarily vary in the extent to which they adopt all four elements of empowerment. Although it is difficult to completely disentangle the four empowerment elements, three different strategies for providing effective services to poor people can be highlighted, based on the nature of the good or service to be provided and the institutional strategies possible in particular contexts. The first focuses on improving access to information, primarily by putting information about government performance in the public domain. The second makes use mainly of mechanisms for inclusion/participation. It includes private sector strategies that depend on designing access to basic services that poor people can afford, as well demand-side financing strategies, particularly in education and health. The third focuses on local organizational capacity and includes all four elements of empowerment, which act in synergy. Examples include a variety of multisectoral community-driven development projects, as well as single-sector projects such as those in rural water supply and sanitation. Provision of Basic Services —
Examples Classified by Major Empowerment Element
Information | Inclusion/participation | Local organizational capacity | Gyandoot information technology project, Madhya Pradesh, India | ID cards for women, Egypt | Irrigation Rehabilitation Project, Albania | Cellular telephones, Bangladesh | Female Secondary School Assistance Project, Bangladesh | Kecamatan Development Program, Indonesia | Program for Pollution Control, Evaluation, and Rating (PROPER), Indonesia | Education voucher program, Colombia | Social Development Fund, Romania | Water Districts Development Project, Manila, the Philippines | 
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| Public Expenditure Tracking Survey, Uganda |
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