Iraq – Consultative Services Delivery Initiative (CSDI)

Developing the Local Capacity of Iraqi Communities

Through the Consultative Service Delivery Initiative (CSDI), a 12-month, $1 million project funded under the World Bank Post-Conflict Fund (PCF), ACDI/VOCA develops the capacity of Iraqi communities to make informed decisions on resource allocation and service delivery.

The CSDI program has two main objectives

• to further knowledge about supporting sustainable, consultative decision-making on resource allocation and service delivery within Iraq while directly providing tangible improvements in service delivery in the process
• to inaugurate a long-term, ultimately sustainable process of consultative development in Iraq, ensuring the country’s substantial resource base is being utilized fairly and transparently, with accountability to citizens

ACDI/VOCA implements this initiative as a “learning by doing” opportunity with eight community action groups. These groups were selected through their participation in the Iraq Community Action Program I (ICAP I) and Iraq Community Action Program II (CAP II). They have demonstrated a range of experience and capacity in community development trainings, community project planning, community project implementation and ongoing interaction with local and regional governments.

Under the community project cycle of CSDI, ACDI/VOCA monitors community interactions with government figures and gathers “lessons learned” on each community group’s experience. We look at communities’ relationships with government figures and how successfully they elicit government contributions, both financial and otherwise. This program element aims to support good governance and strengthen citizen participation and choice in local decision making.

Already, the program has benefitted from the active participation of both community and government representatives, who have responded positively. One community action group member said, "ACDI/VOCA gives us a vision on how to write a proposal and more experience on implementing projects, which makes us more independent and qualifies us to be a member of any NGO in the future. It also gives us an opportunity to choose our own projects for our community instead of waiting for some other organization or NGO to implement them according to their own choices and not according to the basic or most important priorities of the district."

ACDI/VOCA’s activities include

• providing grants (averaging $40,000) to local communities to co-implement community-identified and community-prioritized projects aimed at public infrastructure, community assets and community services improvement
• assisting with the establishment and activities of community action groups designed to liaise with Iraq’s subnational government
• conducting an independent, ongoing evaluation of project activities, including an examination of the influence of informal institutions, capacities of local and regional governance, interaction between government and citizens, extent of program efficiency, process of community mobilization, and impact of insecurity on the socioeconomic changes taking place in program communities.

For more information contact Lindsey Jones at ljones@acdivoca.org.

Updated: 5/08

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