Community and Local Development

By empowering communities to define development priorities and participate directly in decision-making and implementation, CLD helps ensure that public investments are responsive, inclusive, and locally legitimate. The World Bank recognizes CLD as a core element of effective poverty reduction and sustainable development strategies across diverse country contexts.

CLD represents a significant and growing element of the World Bank’s operational portfolio:

Approximately 10 percent of active financing uses CLD approaches, nearly half of which support projects implemented in settings affected by fragility, conflict, and violence (FCV).

As of June 2025, the World Bank supported 341 active CLD projects in 95 countries, with a total value of US$48.7 billion, including US$40.1 billion in World Bank financing and US$8.6 billion from borrowers and donors.

In FCV contexts, the active CLD portfolio covered 26 of the 39 countries (66 percent) on the WBG FY24 List of Fragile and Conflict-Affected Situations, as well as 18 additional countries where projects target displaced populations or conflict-affected areas.

In many countries, CLD operations are the only mechanism available to reach remote and vulnerable groups in a timely, credible, and responsive manner. These projects have a strong track record of moving funds quickly and flexibly in response to natural disasters, such as typhoons or earthquakes, and other crises such as the COVID-19 pandemic. CLD approaches are also uniquely well-suited to provide support to communities in FCV settings, where government capacity is limited or absent, and where active conflict can make it difficult for state services and public infrastructure to reach populations. For example, block grants linked to community emergency plans can complement household cash transfers by allowing communities to respond rapidly and effectively to shocks, drawing on local knowledge of needs and feasible solutions.

Across low- and middle-income countries, from Liberia to Indonesia, and in countries acutely affected by FCV—including Sudan, Burkina Faso, Yemen, Myanmar, Haiti, and Ukraine—the World Bank supports authorities to design, implement, and evaluate CLD programs. These programs address a wide range of development needs, from water supply, roads, clinics, and schools, to nutrition, skills development, and support for firms and workers. CLD routinely delivers quality infrastructure and enhanced access to services while fostering broad community ownership, trust, and local legitimacy.

Since its origins in Indonesia in the late 1990s, CLD has evolved into a scalable development platform used by national governments across regions and income levels to reduce poverty, address inequality, and promote economic growth and job creation. By partnering with communities and local government—and giving communities meaningful control over fund allocation and management—CLD facilitates more efficient and inclusive service delivery. When sustained over time, this approach produces measurable reductions in poverty, particularly among the most vulnerable populations.  CLD approaches allow governments to deliver at scale despite limited capacity or enable communities to lead their own development where state systems are absent or ineffective. As a result, CLD plays a critical role in ensuring continuity of development support in fragile and conflict-affected environments.

CLD projects provide critical, scaled support to World Bank Group corporate priorities: 60 percent support jobs and livelihoods, two-thirds address gender gaps, and 90 percent support climate resilience. Among CLD projects benefiting forcibly displaced populations, 70 percent help them secure jobs or livelihoods and increase incomes.  As of June 2025, CLD projects reached 2.8 million people in FCV settings worldwide with gender equality and economic opportunity initiatives, strengthened climate resilience for 21.2 million people, and delivered services and livelihoods for 4.2 million displaced people and host community members.

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:

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

Combating the impacts of climate change on vulnerable populations: As climate change accelerates, millions of vulnerable people face escalating challenges—including more frequent and extreme weather events, worsening health outcomes, threats to food and water security, unstable livelihoods, and rising displacement 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.

To advance these priorities, the World Bank is investing in 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.

• Spark Microgrants
• The Movement for Community-Led Development