Designing community-driven development operations in fragile and conflict-affected situations : lessons from a stocktaking (English)

Fragile and conflict or post-conflict situations (FCS) present the most profound challenges to development in the world today. In both fragile and conflict-affected situations, poverty levels are usually high and welfare outcomes low. The stability and... See More + Fragile and conflict or post-conflict situations (FCS) present the most profound challenges to development in the world today. In both fragile and conflict-affected situations, poverty levels are usually high and welfare outcomes low. The stability and social cohesion necessary for development is frequently lacking. Community-driven development (CDD) programs have long been viewed as relevant development interventions in FCS. This paper summarizes a stocktaking of the designs of a representative sample of CDD in FCS projects in an effort to fill the knowledge gap. By looking at the designs of a representative sample of CDD programs that have operated in FCS over the past decade and a half, the stocktaking study aims to provide in-depth and user-friendly operational guidance to CDD task teams working in difficult contexts. The stocktaking adopts a "reverse engineering" strategy to help unpack the design choices that CDD teams face and uses a combination of literature review and interviews to provide some preliminary guidance and insights in design choices. The stocktaking reaches four conclusions: (1) there is a lot of variation in the menu of design choices across the CDD projects in the sample; (2) the menu of design choices seems similar to what teams will likely face in non-FCS settings; (3) within the sample, there is little differentiation in design choices selected between post- conflict and fragile situations; and (4) driven by several FCS specific criteria that influenced decision-making by project teams, patterns in the choices made from the overall menu were observed. The paper is structured as follows: section one gives introduction; section two gives a brief description of the methodology of the study and describe the sample used for analysis; section three provides summary of main findings from the stocktaking, analyzing some of the trends. Section four looks at the results of the stocktaking and the reverse engineering to elaborate on the choices in the ten areas of design covered. Section five illustrates some key principles that task teams should bear in mind when designing projects. Section six provides some ideas for future research work and action on CDD in FCS. Finally, section seven summarizes the design guidance revealed from stocktaking exercise, and offers some concluding thoughts.  See Less -