Community-Driven Recovery and Development Project (CDRD)

Community-driven recovery and development (CDRD) recognizes that communities are in control of their development and of their resources. CDRD treats poor people as assets and partners in the development process, building on their own institutions and resources.

Experience has shown that, given clear rules of the game, access to information, and appropriate support, communities can effectively organize to provide goods and services that meet their needs. Not only do communities have greater capacity than generally recognized, they also have the most to gain from making good use of resources targeted at poverty reduction. By directly relying on communities to drive development activities, CDRD has the potential to make poverty reduction efforts more responsive to demands, more inclusive, more sustainable, and more cost-effective than traditional community-based assistance projects. Support to CDRD usually includes strengthening and financing inclusive community groups, facilitating community access to information, and promoting an enabling environment through policy and institutional reform. CDRD does not present a straightjacket approach. Given the various local conditions, governance structures, capacities, and social, economic, political, and historical specificities of each target location, CDRD design must be tailor-made and designed to gradually and incrementally evolve from one model of CDRD to another over time.

In postconflict transitions, CDRD may be used to support the evolution of war-torn areas from conflict to reconstruction and resumption of delivery of basic social services and then to long-term development using demand-led, participatory approaches that increase empowerment and accountability through community ownership over making decisions and allocating resources.

CDRD generally consists of six pillars: (1) empowering communities, (2) empowering local governments, (3) realigning the center, (4) improving accountability, (5) building capacity, and (6) providing equal access to information, participation, and democratic decision making.