This paper reviewed the designs of a representative sample of 17 community-driven develop ment (CDD) programs implemented in fragile and conflict-affected situations (FCS) over the past decade and a half to distill lessons that can be informative for task teams working on CDD-FCS. With “reverse engineering,” project documentation, and task team interviews and focus group discussions with task team leaders (TTLs), this paper summarizes the main findings of the stock taking, provides design guidance in 10 areas, and outlines four overarching principles that are fundamental to CDD-FCS projects. On overall design, 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 would likely face in non-FCS settings. 3. Within the sample, there is little differentiation in design choices selected between “(post) conflict” and “fragile” situations. 4. Driven by several FCS specific criteria that influenced decision-making by project teams, we observed patterns in the choices made from the overall menu. In terms of preparatory diagnostics, most projects relied on informal analysis and very few under took formal social, political or conflict studies. Of the overall objectives, the dominant ones were improved service delivery, restoration, and governance, while other socio-economic goals, such as reducing conflict, peace building, increasing social cohesion, or creating livelihoods, were less common, but often mentioned as additional objectives. When it comes to institutional arrangements, the study sample from past CDD-FCS projects displays a much higher use of outsourcing to (semi) independent agencies, although such arrangements decline in subsequent projects. At the sub-national level, most projects opted for a hybrid or mix of roles assigned to local governments units (LGUs) and communities. Moreover, almost all projects in the sample incorporated “learning by doing,” gathered either from earlier pilots, project preparation, or phased implementation. Perhaps most surprisingly, all but two projects limited themselves to one grant cycle or block grant per community per project, even for follow-on projects. Finally, while all task teams attested to the importance of facilitators in FCS, project documentation shows little about their precise role. Executive Summary • ix Based on the stocktaking, this paper provides design guidance in 10 areas: 1. In terms of preparatory diagnostics, understanding the context through political economy and conflict analysis is crucial. This may well take the form of ongoing informal stakeholder consultations. Whether or not formal studies are feasible is determined by urgency of rapid progress, budget, availability of data, and need for political buy-in. 2. In terms of overall objectives, limiting the first phase to one objective and then setting in place building blocks for the development objectives in subsequent phases is crucial. 3. When choosing the agency to take charge of implementation at the national level, it is important to assess whether the agency has the capacity and power to protect and deliver the program—particularly if it is in the hands of a government agency—and assess whether the agency is neutral if it is outsourced. In the case of the latter, an exit strategy needs to be planned and considered as well. 4. For sub-national-level institutional arrangements, a hybrid of community and local govern ment units should be considered, with adequate capacity building and empowerment built into the design. 5. In FCS, past experience suggests that investing in some form of learning by doing is well worth while, but it should be a continuous endeavor—not a one-off exercise—through out the life of the project as it goes to scale. 6. The sixth recommendation concerns decisions about where to target benefits, which can be highly sensitive in FCS. Different factors should be weighed at different levels: the macro-level should be determined by political economy analysis that assesses whether proj ect benefits should be spread across the whole area or zoom in on particular regions. At the inter-community level, transparently communicating the criteria used and the rules of the game is of utmost importance. And at the intra-community level, targeting should be used sparingly, especially in the first phase. 7. Using a wide-ranging closed menu—an “in-between” arrangement of sorts—is likely the best choice for the first phase, which can move toward a full open menu over time. More over, when it comes to the number of grant cycles, task teams should plan to repeat (block) grants to cement participation and accountability. 8. The importance of gaining trust and obtaining buy-in from critical stakeholders at local and higher levels, when setting up the facilitation and community leadership arrangements, cannot be emphasized enough. 9. Both monitoring and evaluation (M&E) and governance require special attention in project design and they need to be much more robust in FCS, since governance and anti-corruption (GAC) risks are much higher in these contexts. 10. And finally, in order to influence social cohesion and peace building in FCS, task teams must have a much broader strategy of aligning with and influencing different stakeholder interests and incentives. x • Designing Community-Driven Development Operations in Fragile and Conflict Situations Apart from overall design guidance, the interviews undertaken as part of the stocktaking study also revealed some cross-cutting principles that task teams repeatedly mentioned: 1. Be responsive to context and, within this context, treat CDD as a tactic or a part of a toolkit of things that countries can do, rather than a strategy for development. 2. Thinking long-term is key, even if responding quickly is necessary in the short run. The theory of change should be to plan for the evolution of a CDD project into the govern ment’s participatory local-planning and/or service-delivery mechanism. 3. It is important to keep things simple across all design elements, and certainly when it comes to donor coordination. 4. Task teams recommended that designers “think scale.” In other words, the design team has to ensure that the design demonstrates the benefits of the approach at a scale that can attract attention and be showcased. This design stocktaking study should be seen as the first step in a deeper and longstanding effort to improve our understanding and guidance of designing CDD programs in FCS. Looking forward, much more work is clearly needed to help better guide our work on CDD in FCS and build upon its “science of delivery,” in the words of World Bank President Kim. There are four areas that deserve special attention: 1. We need to better understand fragility and CDD design. 2. We must gather much more evidence on how design choices play out in real life. 3. We also need to better develop our operational toolkit on peace building, social cohesion, and conflict resolution. 4. Finally, there is a clear case for greater “south-south” exchange, donor harmonization, inter nal World Bank harmonization and quality control, and external/internal alliance building around CDD in FCS

Designing Community-Driven Development Operations in Fragile and Conflict-Affected Situations: Lessons from a Stocktaking

Resource Key: I2G2TQAR

Document Type: Report

Creator:

Author:

  • Jacomina de Regt
  • Shruti Majumdar
  • Janmejay Singh

Creators Name: {mb_resource_zotero_creatorsname}

Place: Washington D.C.

Institution: World Bank

Date: 2013

Language:

This paper reviewed the designs of a representative sample of 17 community-driven develop ment (CDD) programs implemented in fragile and conflict-affected situations (FCS) over the past decade and a half to distill lessons that can be informative for task teams working on CDD-FCS. With “reverse engineering,” project documentation, and task team interviews and focus group discussions with task team leaders (TTLs), this paper summarizes the main findings of the stock taking, provides design guidance in 10 areas, and outlines four overarching principles that are fundamental to CDD-FCS projects. On overall design, 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 would likely face in non-FCS settings. 3. Within the sample, there is little differentiation in design choices selected between “(post) conflict” and “fragile” situations. 4. Driven by several FCS specific criteria that influenced decision-making by project teams, we observed patterns in the choices made from the overall menu. In terms of preparatory diagnostics, most projects relied on informal analysis and very few under took formal social, political or conflict studies. Of the overall objectives, the dominant ones were improved service delivery, restoration, and governance, while other socio-economic goals, such as reducing conflict, peace building, increasing social cohesion, or creating livelihoods, were less common, but often mentioned as additional objectives. When it comes to institutional arrangements, the study sample from past CDD-FCS projects displays a much higher use of outsourcing to (semi) independent agencies, although such arrangements decline in subsequent projects. At the sub-national level, most projects opted for a hybrid or mix of roles assigned to local governments units (LGUs) and communities. Moreover, almost all projects in the sample incorporated “learning by doing,” gathered either from earlier pilots, project preparation, or phased implementation. Perhaps most surprisingly, all but two projects limited themselves to one grant cycle or block grant per community per project, even for follow-on projects. Finally, while all task teams attested to the importance of facilitators in FCS, project documentation shows little about their precise role. Executive Summary • ix Based on the stocktaking, this paper provides design guidance in 10 areas: 1. In terms of preparatory diagnostics, understanding the context through political economy and conflict analysis is crucial. This may well take the form of ongoing informal stakeholder consultations. Whether or not formal studies are feasible is determined by urgency of rapid progress, budget, availability of data, and need for political buy-in. 2. In terms of overall objectives, limiting the first phase to one objective and then setting in place building blocks for the development objectives in subsequent phases is crucial. 3. When choosing the agency to take charge of implementation at the national level, it is important to assess whether the agency has the capacity and power to protect and deliver the program—particularly if it is in the hands of a government agency—and assess whether the agency is neutral if it is outsourced. In the case of the latter, an exit strategy needs to be planned and considered as well. 4. For sub-national-level institutional arrangements, a hybrid of community and local govern ment units should be considered, with adequate capacity building and empowerment built into the design. 5. In FCS, past experience suggests that investing in some form of learning by doing is well worth while, but it should be a continuous endeavor—not a one-off exercise—through out the life of the project as it goes to scale. 6. The sixth recommendation concerns decisions about where to target benefits, which can be highly sensitive in FCS. Different factors should be weighed at different levels: the macro-level should be determined by political economy analysis that assesses whether proj ect benefits should be spread across the whole area or zoom in on particular regions. At the inter-community level, transparently communicating the criteria used and the rules of the game is of utmost importance. And at the intra-community level, targeting should be used sparingly, especially in the first phase. 7. Using a wide-ranging closed menu—an “in-between” arrangement of sorts—is likely the best choice for the first phase, which can move toward a full open menu over time. More over, when it comes to the number of grant cycles, task teams should plan to repeat (block) grants to cement participation and accountability. 8. The importance of gaining trust and obtaining buy-in from critical stakeholders at local and higher levels, when setting up the facilitation and community leadership arrangements, cannot be emphasized enough. 9. Both monitoring and evaluation (M&E) and governance require special attention in project design and they need to be much more robust in FCS, since governance and anti-corruption (GAC) risks are much higher in these contexts. 10. And finally, in order to influence social cohesion and peace building in FCS, task teams must have a much broader strategy of aligning with and influencing different stakeholder interests and incentives. x • Designing Community-Driven Development Operations in Fragile and Conflict Situations Apart from overall design guidance, the interviews undertaken as part of the stocktaking study also revealed some cross-cutting principles that task teams repeatedly mentioned: 1. Be responsive to context and, within this context, treat CDD as a tactic or a part of a toolkit of things that countries can do, rather than a strategy for development. 2. Thinking long-term is key, even if responding quickly is necessary in the short run. The theory of change should be to plan for the evolution of a CDD project into the govern ment’s participatory local-planning and/or service-delivery mechanism. 3. It is important to keep things simple across all design elements, and certainly when it comes to donor coordination. 4. Task teams recommended that designers “think scale.” In other words, the design team has to ensure that the design demonstrates the benefits of the approach at a scale that can attract attention and be showcased. This design stocktaking study should be seen as the first step in a deeper and longstanding effort to improve our understanding and guidance of designing CDD programs in FCS. Looking forward, much more work is clearly needed to help better guide our work on CDD in FCS and build upon its “science of delivery,” in the words of World Bank President Kim. There are four areas that deserve special attention: 1. We need to better understand fragility and CDD design. 2. We must gather much more evidence on how design choices play out in real life. 3. We also need to better develop our operational toolkit on peace building, social cohesion, and conflict resolution. 4. Finally, there is a clear case for greater “south-south” exchange, donor harmonization, inter nal World Bank harmonization and quality control, and external/internal alliance building around CDD in FCS

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