Community Infrastructure as a Platform for Development
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?
At Spark, communities come together to identify priorities, make decisions, and take action, supported by a seed grant and a trained Community-Based Facilitator. Over time, this process builds what we call social infrastructure: the relationships, leadership, skills, and practices that enable communities to organize around shared goals. Wherever possible, Spark also connects these structures directly to local government.
Evidence from Rwanda and other community-driven development programs suggests this infrastructure can persist and be repurposed long after an initial program ends. But development programs are rarely designed with this multi-purpose, longer-term potential in mind. Our work with the local government in Bulambuli District, Uganda, gave us a chance to explore what might be possible.
Testing a different approach in Bulambuli
A mixed-methods study led by Professor Bukuluki at Makerere University compared 730 households across 51 Spark villages with 793 households across 51 peer villages. Researchers looked at two opportunities to build on Spark’s existing community infrastructure: integrating government-led Water, Sanitation, and Hygiene (WASH) outreach and connecting communities with Uganda’s Parish Development Model (PDM), a national livelihoods initiative.
First, we saw that existing community meetings could make it easier for government to reach citizens. District Health Assistants used Spark village meetings to deliver WASH education and demonstrations. Across four of five measures studied, households in Spark villages were 8-17 percentage points more likely to adopt recommended WASH behaviors than comparison villages.
The partnership also changed how government interacted with communities. Before the initiative, health assistants rarely visited participating villages. Afterwards, they became a more regular presence. As District Health Officer Martin Naimu reflected, Spark’s model created a platform that helped communities participate more fully in government programs.
Second, we saw signs that community infrastructure could help people access other government opportunities. To access financing through Uganda’s PDM, households must organize into enterprise groups. Parish Chiefs reported that Spark’s community mobilization helped residents form these groups and transfer skills they had developed managing Spark projects to new enterprises.
These effects extended further. Many Spark-trained Community-Based Facilitators became PDM secretaries, Spark communities helped neighboring communities understand the program, and government officials reported that Spark villages were easier to mobilize and more organized in implementing PDM activities.
What this could mean for scale
The findings from Bulambuli point toward an exciting possibility: community-driven development may create value far beyond the initial program itself. Rather than building a new delivery system for every development challenge, existing community structures can potentially help governments and other partners reach people, share information, mobilize collective action, and connect communities with new opportunities.
As Spark continues building partnerships fit for scale, we want to explore this potential more deliberately: What else could be layered onto strong community infrastructure? And what becomes possible when we design development programs not only for the outcomes they deliver today, but for the capacity they leave behind?
Read more here.