Publication:
Who Is at the Wheel When Communities Drive Development? Evidence from the Philippines

No Thumbnail Available
Published
2009
ISSN
0305750X
Date
2012-03-30
Editor(s)
Abstract
Community-driven development (CDD) approaches have become an important part of development operations. Using data from 1,200 households in 66 communities participating in a CDD project in the Philippines, we analyze how communities select their proposals and how resources are allocated across villages. Resources flow to the poorest and more politically active villages. Controlling for poverty, more unequal villages are more likely to receive funding. This surprising result is because in more unequal villages, the elected village leader is more likely to override community preferences, and to influence inter-village competition such that project resources flow to their villages.
Link to Data Set
Associated content
Report Series
Other publications in this report series
Journal
Journal Volume
Journal Issue
Citations

Related items

Showing items related by metadata.

  • Publication
    Do Community-Driven Development Projects Enhance Social Capital? Evidence from the Philippines
    (World Bank, Washington, DC, 2008-07) Labonne, Julien; Chase, Robert S.
    This paper explores the social capital impacts of a large-scale, community-driven development project in the Philippines in which communities competed for block grants for infrastructure investment. The analysis uses a unique data set of about 2,100 households collected before the project started (2003) and after one cycle of sub-project implementation (2006) in 66 treatment and 69 matched control communities. Participation in village assemblies, the frequency with which local officials meet with residents and trust towards strangers increased as a result of the project. However, there is a decline in group membership and participation in informal collective action activities. This may have been because households were time-constrained, so that in order to participate in project activities, they needed to temporarily reduce their participation in informal activities. An alternative explanation is that the project improved the efficiency of formal forms of social capital and thus households needed to rely less on informal forms. Finally, the results indicate that, in the short run, the project might have reduced the number of other investments.
  • Publication
    A Road to Trust
    (2010) Labonne, Julien; Chase, Robert S.
    We explore the relationship between transaction costs and generalized trust. Using panel data from 2100 households in 135 poor rural communities of the Philippines, we show that where costs of interactions are reduced there is an increase in generalized trust. These results have implications for the literature on the links between trust and growth. Indeed, rather than being an input to economic growth, trust might be a product of reduced costs of interactions which also favors growth. Specifically, we find that the individuals most likely to engage in exchange exhibit an increase in trust after road construction.
  • Publication
    Benefits to Local Communities from Community Conservancies in Namibia: An Assessment
    (2009) Bandyopadhyay, Sushenjit; Humavindu, Michael; Shyamsundar, Priya; Wang, Limin
    This article evaluates the benefits of community-based activities in wildlife conservancies in Namibia by asking three questions. Do community conservancies contribute to an increase in household welfare? Are such programmes pro-poor; that is, do they improve welfare more for poorer households than for the less poor? Does participation in conservancy increase household welfare more for participants than non-participants? This study bases the analyses on a 2002 survey covering seven conservancies and 1192 households. The results suggest that community conservancies have a positive impact on household welfare. The authors also conclude that this impact is poverty-neutral in some regions and pro-poor in others. Further, welfare benefits from conservancies appear to be fairly evenly distributed between participant and non-participant households.
  • Publication
    Evaluating the Impact of Community-Based Health Interventions : Evidence from Brazil's Family Health Program
    (2010) Rocha, Romero; Soares, Rodrigo R.
    This paper analyzes the direct and indirect impacts of Brazil's Family Health Program, using municipality level mortality data from the Brazilian Ministry of Health, and individual level data from the Brazilian household survey. We estimate the effects of the program on mortality and on household behavior related to child labor and schooling, employment of adults, and fertility. We find consistent effects of the program on reductions in mortality throughout the age distribution, but mainly at earlier ages. Municipalities in the poorest regions of the country benefit particularly from the program. For these regions, implementation of the program is also robustly associated with increased labor supply of adults, reduced fertility, and increased school enrollment. Evidence suggests that the Family Health Program is a highly cost-effective tool for improving health in poor areas.
  • Publication
    So You Want to Quit Smoking: Have You Tried a Mobile Phone?
    (2011) Labonne, Julien; Chase, Robert S.
    Using spatially coded data on mobile phone coverage and panel data from 2100 households in 135 communities of the Philippines, we estimate the impact of mobile phone ownership on tobacco consumption. Purchasing a mobile phone leads to a 17.1% decrease in tobacco consumption per adult over the age of 15.

Users also downloaded

Showing related downloaded files

No results found.