Local knowledge and local institutions in community-driven development: an analysis of baseline project preferences in the KALAHI-CIDSS program
Date
2016-06
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Abstract
Community-Driven Development (CDD) is a development approach that decentralizes
decision-making and resource management at the grassroots level. In theory, doing so will make
projects more responsive to the needs of communities compared to top-down interventions as it
utilizes local knowledge. Hence, this paper attempts to shed light on local knowledge by
identifying individual-varying and community-varying factors that influence project preferences
using a multinomial logistic regression.
Next, the possibility of elite capture and the effectiveness of local institutions in
articulating community preferences are also examined. These are important queries because elite
capture and ineffective institutions make it difficult to achieve CDD objectives of community
empowerment and inclusive participation. This is done by comparing preferences between and
within the household and barangay level data, while accounting for differences in gender,
education and wealth. A probit model is also employed to identify factors making the match of
household and barangay captain (representing local political elites) preferences more or less
likely.
In sum, local knowledge was proven to be responsive to the demands of communities as
project preferences move in accordance with the needs of respondents. The possibility of elite
capture was also established given the wide divergence in project preferences between
community members (households) and local political elites (barangay captains). The same can be
said with project choices according to differences in gender, educational attainment and wealth.
Finally, the probit model also suggests that male and more educated barangay captains are less
likely to reflect the preferences of their constituents. This not only reinforces the possibility of
elite capture in KALAHI-CIDSS but also stresses the need to implement mechanisms to improve
the capacity of local leaders and local institutions in aggregating and articulating community
preferences.
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Keywords
KALAHI_CIDSS