COMMUNITY-BASED RECOVERY (CBR)
UNDP's Community-Based Recovery (CBR) Programme for Liberia assists the Government of Liberia by facilitating the resettlement and reintegration process of war affected Liberians in counties and communities affected greatly by years of civil crisis. This includes supporting peace-consolidation and grass-roots governance efforts at the community level. The operating principles of the Programme are field presence and community participation.
The Programme's interventions include:
• Support to local governance structures and ensuring community participation by establishing and strengthening District Development Committees (DCCs) in Liberia;
• Capacity-building for target communities in the planning and management of recovery activities;
• Support for the creation of sustainable livelihoods through training, farming and micro-enterprise development;
• Assistance with the provision of basic services through rehabilitation of infrastructure at the community level, including water and sanitation services, education, and health facilities.
District Development Communities (DDC)
The CBR Programme restores existing community-level governance structures by strengthening District Development Committees (DDCs). The DDCs serve as the hub for mobilizing community members to undertake various constructive activities themselves, in close collaboration with local authorities, UN Agencies, and civil society organizations. A total of 73 DDCs have been established and trained in the various methods of proposal writing, project identification, conflict sensitivity and negotiation. Support packages in the form of transportation, office furniture and stationeries have been distributed to all DDCs across the country. Each DDC comprised of 14 members including women, youths and the elderly.
The DDCs played an important role in the process of reintegrating war affected Liberians in communities. The CBR Programme is a complement to the post-conflict reintegration process by focusing on the special needs of vulnerable groups including returning refugees, war affected persons and the host communities. The Programme supports the sustainability of economic and social reintegration at the grassroots level.
The DDC project is being implemented largely through specialized civil society organizations, including community-based organizations and non-governmental organizations, following a collaborative and integrated resource-mobilization strategy at both the local and national levels. This is to ensure the full involvement of local communities in the resettlement and reintegration programme, reinforcing the effectiveness and durability of peace-building efforts.
Micro-Projects
As part of UNDP's CBR Programme activities, micro-projects provide assistance to small-scale community development projects with identifiable, low-cost, and short implementation periods. The initiative calls for a participatory approach, which allowed those who benefited from it - returning and receiving populations in the target communities - to formulate, select, and implement projects. The objectives is the restoration of basic social services including education, health, access roads, markets, bridges, water and sanitation, serving as an impetus for the return of the displaced to their communities of origin so that they could resume normal life. A total of 71 micro-projects have been completed successfully throughout the country.
Under the project, requests for assistance in the form of project proposals are submitted to UNDP by the targeted populations or through national or international non-governmental organizations. DDC develops and identifies the community projects and assistance is delivered through a network of national and international non-governmental and community-based organizations involved with the resettlement process.
Strengthening Civil Society
UNDP has launched a global initiative to strengthen partnerships with civil society organizations, the main objective of which is to define an operational framework and establish practical mechanisms for developing sustainable partnerships between UNDP and CSOs. UNDP also launch a small grant mechanism aimed at developing community-based organizations (CBO). The desired outputs include a mapping of relevant organizations, including national and international NGOs, CBOs and grassroots organizations.
The Ministry of Planning and Economic Affairs in conjunction with the National NGO Secretariat is establishing a National NGO database within the Planning Ministry. The database will be continually updated as the sector develops.
UNDP Liberia