Why does Engage Globally support community-led development?

Since the Millennium Development Goals of 2000, we have seen remarkable achievements in raising life expectancies, addressing global health crises, and reducing poverty worldwide. However, sometimes international aid is not as effective as we might wish with projects designed based on the donors’ priorities and timeline rather than the local community’s needs.   
 
When I first visited Ghana, I saw some of these ‘donor-driven’ outcomes. A well-constructed library building that has been locked and empty, for four years, because no operational funds were provided. Another library with hundreds of donated books, all in German. Broken solar panels on schools, businesses, and wells that were damaged by wind, rains and dust. Without any repair funds or local training, the solar projects simply remain broken. Water purification projects that clog, break, or run dry.  Recycling bins and ‘how to recycle’ murals made by international volunteers in a region where there is no recycling. In some small villages, you can find many of these projects, all with donor dedication signs, and all in varied states of disrepair and decay. This has a variety of unintended psychological impacts on communities that must look at these broken efforts every day, while their real needs go unmet.
 
Engage Globally uses a different model of development, referred to as ‘community-led’. In this model, local communities and community leaders meet and discuss their priorities and design plans for meeting their sustainable development goals. Outside partners provide the resources to enable local communities to implement their plans. These resources are generally a combination of funding and some capacity building, training, or technical assistance.

​Local leadership and management of projects has many advantages including:

• Local Knowledge – Outsiders often do not understand important cultural, economic, and environmental contexts. Last year, we asked our partners if they could pilot a tree planting project to teach youth about environmental conservation. When we received photos, we saw that the students had carefully constructed fences around each tree. When we proposed the project, it had not occurred to us that the trees would need to be protected from roving goats. But, community members realized the trees could not survive without protection and trained everyone in fence design before planting.

• Sustainability – community members are invested in the success of projects and involved in every step and as a result they have the knowledge and capacity to maintain the projects, over time.
• Local employment – community-led projects hire local people and purchase local products, raising incomes and expanding economic opportunities. Below is a photo of a local shop constructing metal desks (of recycled metal) for our early childhood learning center. 

• Flexibility – sometimes projects don’t work. Community-led projects can be rapidly evaluated and adjusted to improve outcomes or, in some cases, to change direction. This is a sharp contrast from most international aid which is a designated sum of money to be used for a designated time period.
• Empowerment – local project implementers learn new skills, achieve significant results and in general are personally and collectively empowered by leading their communities. This has positive impacts on gender equity, community building, civic engagement, and hopeful outlooks. Rather than waiting for outsiders to address problems or fix broken projects, the community is empowered to take care of things themselves.

Though community-led development may be small scale and last a long time, at Engage Globally we believe that it is the most effective way to have long-term, sustainable and transformational development.