Who Should Be at the Top of Bottom-Up Development? : A Case Study of the National Rural Livelihoods Mission in Rajasthan, India

Joshi, Shareen ; Rao, Vijayendra

World Bank, Washington, DC

关键词: community-driven development;    decentralization;    self-help groups;    microfinance;    civil society;   

DOI  :  10.1596/1813-9450-7996
RP-ID  :  WPS7996

学科分类：社会科学、人文和艺术（综合）

来源: World Bank Open Knowledge Repository

【 摘 要 】

It is widely acknowledged that top-downsupport is essential for bottom-up participatory projects tobe effectively implemented at scale. However, which level ofgovernment, national or sub-national, should be given theresponsibility to implement such projects is an openquestion, with wide variations in practice. This paperanalyzes qualitative and quantitative data from a naturalexperiment in the state of Rajasthan in India, where a largenational flagship project that mobilized women intoself-help groups for micro-credit and created a women'snetwork for other development activities was implemented intwo different ways. Some sub-regions were given to the stategovernment of Rajasthan to manage, while the Government ofIndia centrally managed other sub-regions. The study findsthat the nature of top-down management had a large bearingon the nature and quality of local-level facilitation.Centrally and locally managed facilitators formed severalgroups with similar financial performance. But centrallymanaged facilitators formed groups that were less likely toengage in collective action, be politically active, andengage with other civil society organizations. These resultsraise important questions on how responsibilities forparticipatory development projects should be devolved, andhow the nature of management affects the sustainability ofbottom-up interventions.