TY - BOOK ID - 134648510 TI - Community-Driven Development : Myths and Realities AU - Wong, Susan. AU - Guggenheim, Scott. PY - 2018 PB - Washington, D.C. : The World Bank, DB - UniCat KW - Access of Poor to Social Services KW - Citizen Engagement KW - Communities and Human Settlements KW - Community Development and Empowerment KW - Community Driven Development KW - Community-Driven Development KW - Disability KW - Economic Assistance KW - Education KW - Educational Sciences KW - Health Care Services Industry KW - Hydrology KW - Impact Evaluations KW - Industry KW - Inequality KW - Local Governance KW - Macroeconomics and Economic Growth KW - Poverty Reduction KW - Public Service Delivery KW - Rural Infrastructure KW - Services and Transfers to Poor KW - Social Development KW - Social Protections and Labor KW - Water Resources UR - https://www.unicat.be/uniCat?func=search&query=sysid:134648510 AB - Community-driven development is an approach to development that emphasizes community control over planning decisions and investment resources. Over the past decade, it has become a key operational strategy for many national governments, as well as for international aid agencies, with the World Bank alone currently supporting more than 190 active community-driven development projects in 78 countries. Community-driven development programs have proven to be particularly useful where government institutions are weak or under stress. This paper examines what the evidence shows about the utility of community-driven development programs for helping governments improve the lives and futures of the poor. The paper also addresses recent critiques of the community-driven development approach. The paper makes three main arguments. First, community-driven development offers governments a useful new tool for improving the lives of the poor. The empirical evidence from evaluations confirms that community-driven development programs provide much needed productive economic infrastructure and services at large scale, reasonable cost, and high quality. They also provide villagers, especially the disadvantaged, with a voice in how development funds are used to improve their welfare. Second, community-driven development programs are not a homogeneous category, and it is important to acknowledge the differences between national, on-budget, multi-year programs, and off-budget programs. And finally, community-driven development works best and achieves the greatest results when it is part of a broader development strategy that includes reforms to governance, investments in productivity, and integration with efforts to improve the quality of public service delivery. ER -