Assessing the Sustainability of Community-Driven Development Projects in Lao PDR

The Community-Driven Development (CDD) approach has been applied to more than 5,000 subprojects in 2,000 villages in the Lao PDR. CDD has the potential to make poverty reduction efforts more responsive to the need, more inclusive, more sustainable, and more cost-effective than traditional, centrally led programs. Many CDD projects could not survive due to financial support since many CDD projects could not sustain costs. The overall objective of this research is to assess the sustainability of CDD projects in Lao PDR with the specific objectives to investigate whether the degree of community contribution does matter for the current existence of CDD projects and to assess whether the community’s contribution could enhance the current performance of CDD projects. Logit regression is the main model to analyze the impact of the community’s contribution to the sustainability of CDD projects in Lao PDR. The result suggests that community participation in labor and finance are key factors for the sustainability of CDD projects.