Options of Institutional Arrangements

While community driven development emphasizes communities as the major player in the process, an important aspect of the approach is the building and strengthening of links with local governments, private sector and the non-government sector. There are various ways in which communities organize themselves to work with these other groups. The nature of the project, capacity of the community, and the environment in the country are some of the factors that determine and influence these relationships. While there are many variations regarding the exact roles of each stakeholder, three broad sets of arrangements have emerged.

In each diagram, flow of funds is represented by shaded arrows, with the primary 'partner' organizations shown as shaded. It is important to note that each of these arrangements can be more or less community driven. The extent to which communities have control over investment and management decisions is determined less by the model applied than by the division of roles between the partners. Partnership arrangements in which the key investment decisions (e.g., choices of level of services, contracting decisions) are primarily made by a support organization cannot be described as community driven. CDD requires community control of investment and management decisions.