World Bank’s community development efforts ineffective, poorly monitored and unsustainable

The long-awaited evaluation by the Operations Evaluation Department (OED) on the effectiveness of World Bank support for community-based development (CBD) and community-driven development (CDD), which was postponed to allow for two rounds of debate at the board, was finally made public in October. It concludes that the link between CBD/CDD projects and social capital and community empowerment is weak, and that there is "mixed and limited evidence on the impacts of CBD/CDD projects in relation to empowerment and poverty reduction". It urges the Bank to exercise caution with future CBD/CDD projects.

This marks the first evaluation of the Bank's support for CBD and CDD, which reflects its attempt to "enhance community capacity by building social capital and fostering empowerment in communities". The Bank claims to have been supporting such participatory approaches for more than twenty-five years. The share of projects in the Bank's portfolio claiming a CBD/CDD component has grown from 2 per cent in 1989 to 25 per cent in 2003. Since the late 1990s the focus of such Bank-supported projects has shifted from CBD towards CDD projects, which are meant to allow more control and ownership to communities.

The report unearths inadequacies in the design of project monitoring and evaluation and a lack of systematic baseline data and appropriate indicators. It also revealed differing interpretations of key terms, notably 'empowerment', 'participation' and 'social capital' amongst the Bank, borrowing governments and communities. For instance, while the Bank envisions communities taking the lead in the design and implementation of a sub-project, the government sees itself "in charge" of project implementation and communities see their participation as a necessary requirement to attract limited donor resources.

Outcome ratings of Bank-supported CBD/CDD projects in the education transport, urban development and social protection sectors were generally better than those for non-CBD/CDD projects between 1994 and 2003. However, the rural development sector, with by far the largest CBD/CDD portfolio is a below-average performer, as are projects in the water supply, health and environment sectors. A number of CBD/CDD projects in conflict and post-conflict countries successfully met quantitative targets for infrastructure, but were less successful in achieving qualitative goals.

The report criticises the Bank's often misguided assumption of causality between fulfilling quantitative and qualitative goals. Increased access to infrastructure, for example is insufficient if complementary inputs such as doctors, teachers and medicines are lacking. Moreover, activities supported by the Bank's CBD/CDD projects have been difficult to sustain after the Bank's departure, due to a lack of needed resources from the government and communities to ensure their operation and maintenance.

Fiduciary and safeguard compliance in CBD/CDD projects is difficult to ensure as "it is easier to monitor resource use and comply with safeguards in investments such as large bridges or a power plant, than on small sub-projects being implemented by hundreds of remote communities in scattered locations". The report highlights the Bank's rather simplistic approach of trying to use a "single financial channel"- project financing to bring about fundamental and long-term changes in empowerment and social capital.

The Bank's support to initiate empowerment through CBD/CDD projects alone is often insufficient, and can even be counter-productive if the better-off sections of the community gain more than the less-well-off, as was the case in the Andhra Pradesh forestry project. It also finds that the views and priorities of the poorest are likely to remain excluded from collective decision-making processes.

Comments by the OED's advisory committee are less than flattering: Robert Chambers, of the Institute of Development Studies, concludes that "the Bank may not be able to become more participatory, but unless it does it cannot expect the CBD/CDD it funds to be cost effective in empowering and benefit poor people". Norman Uphoff, director of the Cornell International Institute for Food, Agriculture and Development, challenges the Bank's term "community driven", given that the terms of such projects "were all unilaterally decided by Bank staff".

In its response, management was encouraged by "the evidence that CDD and CBD operations have in aggregate higher development outcome ratings than non-CDD and non-CBD operations", but questioned "the relevance rigour and clarity of some aspects of the OED review". It explains away a number of significant divergences by blaming "the scope and methodology" of the OED review.

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Published: 21 November 2005 , last edited: 29 June 2006

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