Community social infrastructure implementation initiatives have long faced difficulties related to cumbersome processes and high costs of construction. To overcome its obstacles and achieve its goals, the World Bank has opted for the DCC (Community-Led Development) approach. An innovative method that empowers communities by focusing on do-and-do.

Félicienne HOUESSOU

Community-led development is the implementation approach used by the ACCESS project in its Intervention Communities since January 2019.  This approach is a particular local development approach that empowers and gives priority to scratching to the beneficiary Communities. Through this approach, the Target Municipalities delegate part of their competences to the Community for the construction of socio-community infrastructures. Following the DCC approach, hundreds of socio-economic infrastructures have been erected in various localities in Benin.

The municipality of Bohicon is a tangible example of the interest in this approach. According to the mayor of Bohicon, Rufino d'Almeida, this mechanism has allowed the crossroads city of Bohicon to have new sheds, classrooms, maternity wards. Through the DCC approach, " the municipalities were even put in competition and the municipality that built the infrastructure on time received a bonus of 22 million CFA francs," says the mayor. Thanks to the DCC, Bohicon not only built the infrastructure planned for the ACCESS project on time, but also benefited from several additional infrastructures.

" With the timely completion of our hangar in Sodohomè, we received a first bonus. We learned that we could go to 2 bonuses, which we also got with the construction of a kindergarten , "confirms Mayor Rufino d'Almeida. He continues : " I immediately allocated the 44 million CFA francs to the construction of a classroom module in Kpassagon and another in Gnidjazoun. These two infrastructures were received a few days ago."

A Tchoukou Daho in Avrankou commune, the extreme poor households benefiting from the ACCESS project were able to successfully  build about seven kilometers of rural roads using rudimentary tools against social cash transfers. This same community has also benefited from a module of three classrooms and a school canteen erected following the Community-Led Development approach.

A Houèzoumé, a rather poor area of the city of Porto-Novo, the public primary school has benefited from a refectory equipped with ecological stoves for the cooking needs of meals for children. The specialist in grassroots management training, Ousmane Togou, in a documentary produced by the ACCESS project, points out that this approach makes it possible to go to the beneficiaries, to allow them to learn how to conduct a development process, to put into practice what they have learned while following up through monitoring and communication.