Community-driven development boasts many islands of success, but these have not scaled up to cover entire countries. Binswanger and Aiyar examine the possible obstacles to scaling up, and possible solutions. They consider the theoretical case for community-driven development and case studies of success in both sectoral and multisectoral programs. Obstacles to scaling up include high economic and fiscal costs, adverse institutional barriers, problems associated with the co-production of outputs by different actors on the basis of subsidiarity, lack of adaptation to the local context using field-tested manuals, and lack of scaling-up logistics. The authors consider ways of reducing economic and fiscal costs, overcoming hostile institutional barriers, overcoming problems of co-production, adapting to the local context with field testing, and providing scaling-up logistics. Detailed annexes and checklists provide a guide to program design, diagnostics, and tools. This paper--a product of the Office of the Vice President, Africa Regional Office--is part of a larger effort in the region to improve understanding of community-driven development.

The poor and vulnerable populations suffer disproportionately from the adverse impacts of climate change and disasters, which result in loss of life, damage to household and community assets, disruption of livelihoods, and loss of income. Solutions that recognize localized risks and address them in the context of wider socioeconomic development are needed. This guidance note underscores the importance of scaling up resilience-building measures through community-driven development projects. It proposes a framework that recommends five key considerations that should be factored in the design and implementation of community-driven development projects to ensure that they deliver on scaling up of resilience-building measures.

'Local and Community Driven Development: Moving to Scale in Theory and Practice' provides development practitioners with the historical background and the tools required to successfully scale up local and community driven development (LCDD) to the regional and national levels. LCDD gives control of development decisions and resources to communities and local governments. It involves collaboration between communities, local governments, technical agencies, and the private sector. Since the 1980s, participatory approaches have received new impetus via participatory rural appraisal, the integration of participation in sector programs, decentralization efforts of developing countries, and greater space for civil society and the private sector. This book traces the emergence of the LCDD synthesis from these various strands. 'Local and Community Driven Development' provides the theoretical underpinnings for scaling up, guidance on how to adapt the approach to the specific institutional and political settings of different countries, diagnostic tools, and step-by-step instructions to diagnose the national context, adapt policies, and expand programs. It will be a useful guide for rural and urban development practitioners, public administrators, and policy makers who wrestle daily with the problems the book addresses.

Community-based adaptation (CBA) to climate change is based on local priorities, needs, knowledge and capacities. Early CBA initiatives were generally implemented by non-government organisations (NGOs), and operated primarily at the local level. Many used ‘bottom-up’ participatory processes to identify the climate change problem and appropriate responses. Small localised stand-alone initiatives are insufficient to address the scale of challenges climate change will bring, however. The causes of vulnerability - such as market or service access, or good governance - also often operate beyond the project level. Larger organisations and national governments have therefore started to implement broader CBA programmes, which provide opportunities to scale up responses and integrate CBA into higher levels of policy and planning. This book shows that it is possible for CBA to remain centred on local priorities, but not necessarily limited to work implemented at the local level. Some chapters address the issue of mainstreaming CBA into government policy and planning processes or into city or sectoral level plans (e.g. on agriculture). Others look at how gender and children’s issues should be mainstreamed into adaptation planning itself, and others describe how tools can be applied, and finance delivered for effective mainstreaming. This book was published as a special issue of Climate and Development.

As climate change adaptation rises up the international policy agenda, matched by increasing funds and frameworks for action, there are mounting questions over how to ensure the needs of vulnerable people on the ground are met. Community-based adaptation (CBA) is one growing proposal that argues for tailored support at the local level to enable vulnerable people to identify and implement appropriate community-based responses to climate change themselves. Community Based Adaptation to Climate Change: Scaling it up explores the challenges for meeting the scale of the adaptation challenge through CBA. It asks the fundamental questions: How can we draw replicable lessons to move from place-based projects towards more programmatic adaptation planning? How does CBA fit with larger scale adaptation policy and programmes? How are CBA interventions situated within the institutions that enable or undermine adaptive capacity? Combining the research and experience of prominent adaptation and development theorists and practitioners, this book presents cutting edge knowledge that moves the debate on CBA forward towards effective, appropriate, and ‘scaled-up’ adaptive action.

Taking successful development interventions to scale is critical if the world is to achieve the Millennium Development Goals and make essential gains in the fight for improved agricultural productivity, rural incomes, and nutrition. How to support scaling up in these three areas, however, is a major challenge. This collection of policy briefs is designed to contribute to a better understanding of the experience to date and the lessons for the future.