Outcomes of the Electronic Conference

Community-driven development (CDD)


REGIONAL WORKSHOP

14-17 March 2006

New Coco Beach Resort - Accra, Ghana


Outcomes of the Electronic Conference

7 Main themes

• Definition

• Principles

• CDD Menu

• Institutions and CDD

• Targeting

• Monitoring and Evaluation in CDD

• Local Tax System


Definition

• Aim:– Building long term processes for sustainable poverty

reduction– Enabling the community to participate in their own

development

• Definition still not clear

• Unanswered questionsIs it a way to correct government or market failure?

Is it a self-help approach to accelerate access to public goods and services?


Principles

CDD should

– Be complementary with local government – Accompany the decision making transfer to local democratic

organizations

Unanswered questions

• What to do when the policy and institutional environment is unsupportive?• How to meet community preferences for concrete and early results?• Is there a trade-off between impact and longer-term sustainability of

institutional and participatory processes?


Institutional Matters

• Need for a supportive institutional environment, transparent and accountable

• Questions:– Which kind of relationship should exist between CDD and local

government? – What kind of process should be used:

• long decentralisation processes• short processes as NGO led

• Response:• A coalition of countervailing powers may be desirable to

have more equity, more sustainability and more transparency.


Menu

• Many questions, Few answers

• Which components, activities are project led or demand driven?

• We agreed that– Menu can not be fully open– The content of the Menu varies in different situation– There can not be blueprint for the Menu

• Remaining questionHow to make sure that communities are not be penalized for their

illiteracy/semi-literacy or their poverty?


Targeting

• Main issues emerging from the discussion– Is it the role of CDD to target the poorest?– Targeting needs to be done in ways that differ from

conventional projects

• Question remainingHow to get community commitment without setting unaffordable

contributions that would militate against poorer communities?


Monitoring, Evaluation and Supervision in CDD

• Main Issues

– More important at local level for CDD

– More expensive than for other projects

– Still difficult to link to short term qualitative identifiable results


Local Tax System

• Fiscal Decentralization as a mean to confer financial autonomy to communities

• Problems– Capacity to raise taxes at lower level– Lack of confidence of citizens in the good use of the money

• Need for more transparency

• Unanswered question– How to implement fiscal decentralization?– How to make transfer of public resources more equitable within a

country?



REGIONAL WORKSHOP

14-17 March 2006

New Coco Beach Resort - Accra, Ghana

Documents

Outcomes of the Electronic Conference