child schooling, childrens health, community based development, Community Driven Development, Gender and Development, literacy rates, Pakistan, school enrolment, village improvement, womens empowerment, Rural Poverty Reduction Strategies, South Asia
The Effectiveness of Community-Based Development in Poverty Reduction

To assess the targeting performance of community-based development activities and deduce the impact of such activities on poverty reduction, the authors implemented a survey of a non-governmental organization (NGO) in northwestern Pakistan. Descriptive analyses of village, CO, and household level data shows that the NGO was able to target poorer villages. Villages with COs are characterized by lower adult literacy rates, lower availability of basic amenities, and higher susceptibility to natural disasters. With regard to household-level welfare indicators—such as consumption, women’s empowerment, children’s school enrollment, and the weight-for-age of infants—it was found that the consumption levels of CO member households tended to be lower than that of households in non-CO villages. However, the difference between CO member households and non-member households in CO villages was insignificant, possibly owing to the mixing of the selection effect (i.e., poorer households are served by the NGO) and the causal effect of interventions on poverty reduction. On women’s empowerment and child schooling, CO member households tend to perform better than other households, suggesting the favorable impact of the interventions and/or the self-selection of such households vis-à-vis program participation.

Link: http://www.ier.hit-u.ac.jp/primced/documents/No13-dp_up_Pdf_2011_20120206_000.pdf
Added by View user profileSonia Hossain on August 27, 2012