Community participation in development projects has recently emerged as one of the
dominant approaches to poverty reduction strategies2. One of the increasingly popular
anti-poverty instruments to emerge in recent years which prides itself for embracing
the virtues of community participation has been Social Funds (SFs). In one most
recent review of this new anti-poverty instrument, community participation is singled
out as a major factor explaining the ‘success’ of SFs, and refutes the doubts about
their ability to reach the poor, both at the geographical and household levels
(Rawlings et al., 2001).
However, demand-driven mechanisms like SFs that rely on communities to define
investment priorities and implement them have been questioned regarding their ability
to represent the views of, and reach, the poor, particularly the poorest of the poor. As
such, despite their community participation rhetoric, SFs, like other similar demanddriven
programmes, might not work well in environments with disparities in power,
and may possibly be detrimental to poor communities. Further questions have also
been asked about how demand-driven SFs are in reality, both in terms of the
participatory aspects and outcomes of community consultations (Devereux, 2002).