Social and economic impacts of Tuungane: final report on the effects of a community-driven reconstruction programme in the Democratic Republic of Congo

In recent years, community-driven reconstruction (CDR) programmes have aimed to promote local development in post-conflict settings. Despite their growing popularity, there is little rigorous evidence to indicate their effectiveness. To help plug this evidence gap, this impact evaluation study by Macartan Humphreys, Raul Sanchez de la Sierra and Peter van der Windt assesses the impact of Tuungane, a CDR programme in the Democratic Republic of Congo.

The findings suggest a need to reassess the effectiveness of the CDR model and focus on more fundamental questions. The International Rescue Committee, the implementing agency, has subsequently launched a programme of research to further investigate the implicit and explicit theoretical assumptions of CDR programming and intends to apply this learning to future programme and evaluation design.