Community Driven Development in Sierra Leone
Inefficient management and provision of centrally administered social services can significantly impact the lives of the poor, making it more difficult for them to access quality health and education services. It has been suggested that increased community participation in the planning and delivery of local services may help improve their quality, by taking advantage of greater local expertise and better incentives to effectively monitor service providers. This approach has the potential to be particularly effective in areas where service provision by a central government has been poor, but little is known about the actual effects of programs which promote community-based development.
Following a decade of civil war, the Government of Sierra Leone has implemented a number of reforms aimed at giving communities, and vulnerable groups within them, a greater voice in local decision-making. The government's approach of decentralization and community-driven development is intended both to reform governance through improved provision of public services, increased transparency and accountability, and rebuilt trust and community participation. Researchers are evaluating one particular community empowerment intervention in order to measure how well these goals are met.
In particular, this study asks whether a community-driven development facilitation program, the GoBifo Project, increases the inclusiveness of community decision-making. The GoBifo Project has been implemented in 120 randomly selected villages, providing services which facilitate and encourage the planning of village development projects, followed by funding to implement the planned projects. This ongoing government reform project provides the setting for researchers to evaluate how community-driven development impacts political and social outcomes. Pre- and post-facilitation survey data will be compared to data from 120 comparable but untreated villages in order to determine the impact of the project on outcomes such as participation in and inclusiveness of local decision-making, which could indicate positive impacts from increased community participation.
Evaluation ongoing.
