OPERATIONS MANUAL for Phase II January 2009 – July 2010
Introduction
1.1 What Is 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 de-velopment 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 re-sources targeted at poverty reduction. By directly relying on communities to drive development ac-tivities, 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 specifici-ties of each target location, CDRD design must be tailor-made and designed to gradually and incre-mentally evolve from one model of CDRD to another over time.