Most development programs are designed to solve a specific problem. A health program improves health. A livelihoods program increases incomes. But what if the infrastructure built through one program could help many others work better?

Community-driven development programs combine village grants with facilitation, but there is little evidence on how much facilitation is actually needed. To help answer this question, Spark launched an RCT comparing its standard model to a lean facilitation approach, informed by a pilot that identified the minimum support needed while keeping communities in the lead.

CDD provides village-level grants and facilitation that support communities in choosing and implementing the projects they consider local priorities, including basic health and education services, local infrastructure, income-generating activities, or other community priorities. This brief synthesizes findings from a range of rigorous evaluations to describe what we know about the multidimensional impacts of CDD on governance and collective action.

Community-driven development (CDD) reliably delivers locally prioritized public infrastructure and services, often at a lower cost and with less leakage than traditional government-managed projects, and it has proven particularly effective in challenging contexts affected by institutional fragility, conflict, and violence.