Community engagement and decentralisation: Institutional, capacity building and fiscal dimensions
Researchers
Community Driven Development (CDD) projects have seen a major expansion around the world in the last decade, with many governments adopting the CDD principles and designs as a preferred method for service delivery in challenging settings. The World Bank alone is currently involved in 190 CDD projects in 78 countries.
Under the previous Thein Sein government, Myanmar launched its version of a CDD project known as the National Community Driven Development Project (NCDDP) in 2013. According to the World Bank, the Government of Myanmar (GoM) and development partners are considering scaling up the NCDDP, which will have three dimensions:
- project expansion to additional townships;
- increasing the number of grant cycles; and
- enlarging the size of block grant investment.
As the NCDDP scales up, it is crucial to consider key lessons from the project over the past five years. A review of these lessons will be more effective if situated, first, in a broader context (i.e. how other countries have implemented CDD projects). Second, it is equally important if NCDDP is situated in the national context of planning, budgeting and service delivery in Myanmar. Finally, situating the NCDDP alongside the other special projects being implemented by the GoM and development partners beyond the NCDDP will encourage mutual learning, coordination and resource pooling.
This project aims to situate the NCDDP in the three broader contexts mentioned. It draws upon a literature review of CDD projects and their impact evaluations, project documents of select CDD projects and a review of Myanmar’s national planning and budgeting process and special projects. It compares the NCDDP to other CDD projects, with a focus on the Kecamatan Development Program (KDP) in Indonesia and the Kepit-Bisig Laban sa Kahirapan-Comprehensive and Integrated Delivery of Social Services (Kalahi-CIDSS) in the Philippines, as these two are examples of long-running and well-known CDD projects.