Community-Driven Development in Conflict-Affected Contexts: Revisiting Concepts, Functions and Fundamentals

Abstract

Community-Driven Development (CDD) is a popular aid delivery strategy in conflict-affected contexts. While the strategy remains appealing, the growing body of evidence suggests that CDD does not systematically deliver on all the desired outcomes. This may potentially be explained by the lack of clarity around the objectives and theoretical underpinnings of CDD interventions. This paper proposes ways to clarify the objectives, outcomes, theories of change and core processes of the CDD strategy in an effort to improve the design and evaluation of CDD interventions. We suggest schemas for prioritizing the function and outcomes of a given intervention, provide examples of reduced form theories of change and identify a set of ‘core processes.’ We hope these suggestions will assist practitioners in making the theoretical motivations, assumptions and trade-offs of their design choices that much more explicit and in so doing, improve our ability to deliver better interventions to conflict-affected populations. This paper forms part of a wider conceptual project supported by UK Department for International Development (DFID)’s Research and Evidence Division.