an Eldis Resource
The Macedonia community development project: empowerment through targeting and institution building
A case study of community-driven development in Macedonia
Authors:
C. Mascarell
Publisher:
Social Protection and Labour, World Bank, 2007
According to the Voices of the Poor study, poor people demand a development process driven by their communities. They want NGOs and governments to be accountable to them. Community-driven development (CDD) is one approach to sustainable local development that empowers the poor.
CDD, it is argued, can make poverty reduction efforts more responsive to demand, enhance sustainability, and increase the efficiency and effectiveness of poverty reduction efforts.The sustainability of CDD depends on an enabling environment, often in the context of government decentralisation, usually requiring significant capacity building efforts to support the poor, communities, and local government. CDD has also been promoted as a means to develop the local capacity that decentralisation requires.
This paper illustrates how one CDD project in Macedonia has been able to meet these challenges by serving as a model project in the ECA Region for sustainable development at the local level and as a source of lessons for other projects in Macedonia and elsewhere.
