When Should a CDD Approach be Used?

2.5 When Should a CDD Approach be Used?

32. The case for using a CDD approach seems quite compelling, but many of the arguments offered would apply to community participation in general. 34 When and why should one then move to a more intensive form of community participation? Essentially, the answer is that a CDD approach is warranted in situations of local institutional failure, be it market institutions, public services, or local governments.

These failures can be of two types 35 (Figure 3):

(i) failures of omission, when local institutions are simply absent or nonexistent, as may be the case with local credit markets, management bodies for common property resources, or in post- conflict and post-disaster situations; and

(ii) failures of commission, when existing local institutions are nonfunctional either due to lack of capacity, or in more negative situations on account of corruption, elite capture, or lack of accountability.

33. Thus, the vacuum created by the absence or nonperformance of local institutions is the key mandate for a CDD approach to local development. Such vacuum of local institutions is most clearly seen after a conflict or natural disaster, and it is no surprise that the first applications of the CDD approach

were seen in a post-conflict setting. 36 The CDD approach is particularly beneficial in these contexts because it allows for micro-level recovery, building of social cohesion, and a rapid and efficient use of

31 For more on a rights-based approach to development, see http://www.unhchr.ch/development/approaches 32 The Declaration on the Right to Development states that "the right to development is an inalienable human right by virtue of

which every human person and all peoples are entitled to participate in, contribute to, and enjoy economic, social, cultural and political development, in which all human rights and fundamental freedoms can be fully realized." See Declaration on the Right to Development, 1986. Available: www.ohchr.org.

33 Stiglitz (2002), p.168. 34 Most proponents of CDD would argue that the benefits of community participation are only fully achieved when one goes

all the way to a CDD approach rather than relying on less-empowering CBD methods. 35 Following the nomenclature of Krueger (1990).

36 Examples for the World Bank include the Angola Social Action Project launched in 1995 and the Community Reintegration and Development Project in Rwanda in 1997. The first World Bank Social Fund was also launched in a post-crisis situation

in Bolivia in response to the severe unemployment and poverty caused by the economic adjustment crisis in 1987.

emergency resources. 37 Since then the approach has been mainstreamed into numerous other sectors and country contexts. 38

34. As a corollary, where local institutions are representative, responsive, accountable, and on the whole well-performing, there is little need for

Figure 3: A CDD Approach is Warranted by Local

a CDD intervention. It also follows that CDD

Institution Failure

operations should be interim strategies (for 5–10 years) that once scaled-up are meant to

be integrated into a broader system of decentralized local government or sustainable local market/commercial relationships. It is now recognized more

Local Institutions

Local Institutions Non-

clearly by both governments and donors that Functional

Absent

- Markets absent

- Corruption

CDD operations should increasingly link

- Public services

- Lack of capacity

with local governments and eventually

absent

- Lack of

operate through formal institutions. Thus,

- Post-conflict

accountability

new-generation CDD projects are

- Post-disaster

- Exclusion

emphasizing much stronger links to formal

- Nascent

- Non-responsive

institutions as part of a local development

decentralization

local government

framework. 39

35. Further, the World Bank 40 also

emphasizes that CDD approaches are best

Resulting Application Contexts:

used for goods and services that are small in

- Rural/urban community infrastructure – rural roads,

scale, not complex, and that require local

rural electrification, irrigation, water supply, urban

cooperation for their effective provision (e.g.,

neighborhood infrastructure, education, health

common-pool goods, public goods, and civil

- Common property resource management – forestry,

goods). Further, as noted by the World Bank coastal resources, water supply OED (2005), the success of the CDD

- Micro-enterprise development/cooperatives

approach is also more likely when it builds

- Local governance/decentralization support

on existing collective action initiatives, and

- Other goods/ services that are small scale, not complex,

and require local cooperation

has political champions to support it at the local level.