Community Based Contracting: Gauging Capacity and Mapping Value

Week D¹*

1. Assai, Sydney, NSW, Australia

In a major study of different methods of school development, undertaken as part of the planning for the Millennium Development Goals (MDG), the World Bank ascertained that conventional, centralised forms of contracting are incapable of delivering the requisite quantity of school construction. Only one method has proved viable: community based contracting (CBC), which puts control and responsibility in the hands of the school community.

The author has played a key role in two World Bank-funded CBC projects: the East Timor Emergency School Readiness Project (ESRP), which delivered the reconstruction of 650 schools in 8 months, and the Lao PDR Second Education Development Project, currently being mobilised to deliver 400 schools in the 19 poorest districts in Lao PDR. Both projects use community based contracting.

Successful design and implementation of CBC requires an understanding of the project as a value chain, with each stakeholder (World Bank, Ministry, Province, District, village, suppliers and local professionals) playing a role in a pipeline that shunts money and know-how onto the school site. Successful development of this pipeline requires (a) mapping of the value chain (b) knowing how to gauge the capacity of each stakeholder (c) identification of bottlenecks and analysis of flows (d) understanding that each stakeholder — not just the ‘needy’ — has needs which have to be met, and (e) flexible management during implementation.
This paper explores some of these design and management principles, through analysis of the East Timor ESRP and the Lao PDR SEDP.