Making Decisions, Not Bricks: Collaborative Decision Making in Community-Led Development Projects

Abstract

Community Led Development (CLD) and Community Driven Development (CDD) have become mainstream development practices, thanks to policy recommendations from the World Bank and bold projects from many innovative non-governmental organizations (NGOs) operating in the global south. These programs seek to improve and leverage social capital to improve wellbeing. However, without collaborative and inclusive decision making with community members during designing, planning, and implementing, these projects become less effective and sustainable, and risk perpetuating past injustices that traditional aid models became known for. OneVillage Partners’ approach to CLD focuses on capacity building by inviting community members to actively lead all aspects of a project’s lifecycle. The project is owned by community members, resulting in engaged collaboration across the community, building on local strengths.

Keywords

• Community-led development
• partnerships
• community-driven development
• capacity building
• collaboration
• social capital