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This paper explores the available
literature on participatory approaches to development as an
input to the operations evaluation department (OED)
evaluation of World Bank-supported community-based
development (CBD) and community-driven development (CDD)
interventions. Participatory approaches to development have
gained substantial support in the international community
over the past quarter century, and have become increasingly
important in the work of the World Bank and other donors.
Undertaking this literature review has been a particularly
challenging exercise for two reasons. The Bank categories
CDD approaches in a three-fold typology, which encompasses
both community participation efforts and participatory
governance initiatives. This paper is primarily concerned
with regularized participatory spaces, in which community
members deliberate over the provision of services and the
allocation of resources, rather than transient spaces, which
entail one-off events or exercises aimed at generating
discussion on specific policy issues with no direct link to
decision making. This review was undertaken with a four-fold
objective. First, to simply bring to the ongoing CBD and CDD
evaluation information on the kind of evidence that is out
on participatory approaches to local development,
qualitative, quantitative, and anecdotal. Second, to draw on
the evidence in the literature to understand the different
kinds of participatory spaces that Bank's CBD and CDD
interventions have fostered at the local level. Third, to
explore the evidence in the literature on factors that has a
bearing on development effectiveness of CBD and CDD-type
interventions. Finally, to provide a means for testing the
findings emerging from other study components, particularly
case study countries and the portfolio review both of which
indicate several challenges that donor agencies face in
implementing participatory projects. This review proceeds in
six sections. Section one gives introduction; section two
examines the evidence in the literature on the extent to
which participation in decision-making has promoted
inclusiveness; section three explores factors that are
likely to facilitate or hinder participatory and collective
undertakings; section four assesses the development
effectiveness of participatory interventions; section five
explores key issues related to the institutional contexts of
CBD and CDD-type interventions; and finally section six
draws on the evidence in the literature to explore the main
challenges that donors and lenders are likely to encounter
in the promotion of the CDD approach.
