Community and Local Development

Experience has shown that when given clear and transparent rules, access to information, and appropriate technical and financial support, communities can effectively organize to identify community priorities and address local development challenges by working in partnership with local governments and other institutions to build small-scale infrastructure, deliver basic services and enhance livelihoods opportunities.  

The World Bank recognizes that CLD approaches and actions are important elements of an effective poverty-reduction and sustainable development strategy.  

In many countries, CLD operations are the only mechanism available to reach remote and vulnerable groups in a timely, credible, and responsive manner. In addition, they have a strong track record in moving funds quickly and flexibly in response to natural disasters such as typhoons or earthquakes, as well as to other crises such as the COVID-19 pandemic. For instance, as a complement to household cash transfers, community-level (block) grants that are based on community emergency plans can be distributed to rural villages and urban neighborhoods since community groups often know best what the specific needs are in each community.   

The Bank has supported governments in designing, implementing, and evaluating CLD programs across a range of low to middle-income countries, including countries affected by fragility, conflict, and violence (FCV). The programs respond to a variety of urgent needs including access to clean water, rural roads, school and health clinic construction, nutrition programs for mothers and infants, and support for micro-enterprises.  These programs have consistently shown an ability to deliver an increase in access to quality infrastructure and services in a cost-effective manner, and in ways that enjoy broad community support and local legitimacy.

Last Updated: Apr 30, 2025

Over the past decades, many national governments have used CLD approaches as a way to combat poverty and reduce inequality. The approach of partnering with communities and local units of government, including putting resources under the direct control of community groups, has led to the efficient and inclusive delivery of basic services, and, when sustained over time, measurable reductions in poverty, particularly among the poorest populations and communities. 

As of June 2024, the World Bank supported 347 active CLD projects in 94 countries valued at US$ 52.7 billion. Of this approximately US$ 42.7 billion is Bank financing (70 percent of which is IDA or IDA/blend financing) with an additional US$10 billion provided by borrowers and other donors. CLD approaches remain particularly important in situations of FCV, where they can enable capacity-constrained governments to deliver at scale. As of end-June 2024, the global active CLD-FCV portfolio covered 27 of the 39 countries (69 percent) on the FY24 List of Fragile and Conflict-Affected Situations, as well as 13 other countries which were either on earlier harmonized lists of fragile situations when projects began or are countries where projects are targeted at the displaced or conflict zones. 

CLD programs have evolved over time to adapt to many different local contexts and needs, delivering tangible results on the ground in some of the most geographically remote and operationally hard-to-reach areas on the globe. 

Moving forward, the World Bank is leveraging the opportunities that CLD approaches and platforms offer, including delivering increased engagement in FCV situations, and deepening understanding and new approaches in the following key frontier areas: 

• Operating in situations of fragility, conflict, and violence (FCV). CLD programs have proved particularly effective in FCV situations. A 2016 review by the Bank’s Independent Evaluation Group (IEG) found CLD approaches to be among the most frequent operational approach in the World Bank Group’s FCV portfolio. This is linked, in part, to the ability of CLD programs to reach remote or insecure areas effectively and at scale, and their track record in delivering results quickly and in an inclusive manner. The importance of inclusive service provision to prevent conflict was highlighted in the recent U.N.-World Bank flagship study Pathways for Peace, and the World Bank has launched a global innovation and learning program to foster the contributions of CLD programs in conflict prevention. Countries that have drawn upon CLD approaches in the Africa region include, Cote d’Ivoire, Cameroon, Mali, Mozambique, and South Sudan).

• Supporting local economic development. Building on successful experiences of programs in South Asia as well as Latin America and the Caribbean regions, work is underway to expand the use of CLD approaches in supporting local economic development. This responds to high and growing demand, including in middle-income countries, and includes work to support market-oriented investments and value chain opportunities, as well as increasing community level access to finance, including through digital technologies.

• Combatting the impacts of climate change on vulnerable populations. As the climate continues to change, millions of vulnerable people face greater challenges in terms of extreme events, health effects, food and water security, livelihood security, and migration. The World Bank supports CLD approaches and devolved climate finance that empower communities to drive a climate agenda in support of their development goals and promote greater transparency and accountability on climate finance for local stakeholders.

The World Bank is taking up these opportunities through targeted analytical work, technical assistance to flagship programs around the world, quality assurance support through information and knowledge exchange, and by supporting staff skills development.

Last Updated: Apr 30, 2025

In recent years, World Bank support for CLD has increasingly focused on creating national platforms to enhance service delivery and address poverty. Many programs that began as stand-alone operations have gradually expanded to much wider, often national, coverage that have become part of formal decentralization strategies and have addressed multi-sectoral issues.

Indonesia: Launched in 2018 and building on the successful structures created under previous CLD programs, the Investing in Nutrition and Early Years project is a flagship initiative by the government of Indonesia to prevent childhood stunting and invest in human capital.  This cross-sectoral effort supports the implementation of the government’s National Strategy to Accelerate Stunting Prevention. Launched by the Indonesian Vice President in August 2017, the strategy commits 23 ministries, 514 regional governments, and 75,000 villages to converge priority interventions across health, water and sanitation, early childhood education, social protection, and agriculture and food security sectors for households with pregnant mothers and children under age two.

Guinea: The Guinea Support to Local Governance Project was launched in March 2019 to improve local government capacity in managing their public financial resources in a transparent and participatory manner, and in mitigating local conflicts. The project leverage mining revenue to finance local development opportunities and improve service delivery in lagging rural areas. Phase 2 of project was approved in October 2023 and introduced tools and incentives to encourage communes to allocate resources towards optimizing climate resilience and adaptation. Over $77 million USD in mining tax revenue transferred to all Guinean communes outside of Conakry since 2019, has financed 1,500 sub-projects in health, education, water and sanitation, etc., directly impacting an estimated 4 million beneficiaries. Project Spotlight: English | French 

Philippines: The KC National Community Driven Development Project (KC-NCDDP) was launched in February 2014 and provided US$779 million in funding in support of the Philippine government's primary community empowerment and poverty alleviation programs. KC-NCDDP aimed to empower poor communities and has delivered impressive results in remote and poor areas, including Indigenous communities. It has financed 54,843 subprojects, benefiting 17.4 million households. These subprojects, which include basic access facilities, (e.g., village roads), social services, environmental protection, and community utilities, have improved the lives of about 1.5 million Indigenous households. Since 2014, the project has mobilized over 2.45 million community volunteers, 63% of whom are women. The project significantly improved access to essential infrastructure and services, achieving an average 68% increase across all sub-project types.

The $630 million Development Response to Displacement Impacts Project (DRDIP) in the Horn of Africa (HoA) was launched in 2016 to improve access to basic social services (health, education, water), enhance environmental management and expand access to economic opportunities for host communities and refugees in Djibouti, Ethiopia, Kenya and Uganda. The HoA plays host to over 20 million forcibly displaced people, including five million refugees and asylum-seekers. Many are located in areas that are themselves suffering from serious development deficits. Through a grant to the Intergovernmental Authority on Development (IGAD), DRDIP supported the formulation of progressive refugee policies in the Horn of Africa. The project supported implementation of these policies on the ground by addressing the impacts of the refugee presence on basic service provision and the environment. Activities also supported livelihood and income generation to maximize the opportunity the long-term refugee presence offers for economic development in the hosting areas. Key project results include: (a) provided 6.4 million people with improved access to basic services through over 3,800 infrastructure investments (schools, health facilities, water systems, roads, etc.); (b) supported the restoration of over 66,000 hectares of land; (c) increased income for more than 250,000 people through training and access to finance for farmers and small businesses; (d) created over 8.4 million workdays of employment through labor-intensive public works and construction; and (e) provided access to renewable energy sources for 230,000 people.

Last Updated: Apr 30, 2025