conflict, and violent environments where CDD projects operate, issues of security, rule of law, and justice are oftentimes higher-level concerns for communities that may eclipse immediate service delivery needs. These issues are beyond the scope of CDD and other interventions (World Bank 2011).

Lastly, it may take years if not decades to change social norms and build trust in some societies and project evaluation periods of three to five years may not be sufficient time to detect these changes (Woolcock 2019). Social change itself may be highly non-linear and non-uniform, following widely variable impact trajectories over time, space, and scales of operation – implying that empirical impact evaluation claims from all types of complex interventions need to benchmark against a corresponding theory of change articulating what it is realistic to expect by when. As such, relatively small-scale, short-term, intracommunity interventions may be fated to yield modest positive (but most likely “mixed”) results in social domains such as norms, networks, and trust. That said, the attainment of _any_ positive development outcomes in FCV contexts such as Afghanistan, Sierra Leone and Sudan are surely a commendable achievement; moreover, if we take seriously the ethical imperative to regard participation as a right, then perhaps it is more helpful to regard prevailing forms of social norms and networks as a potentially vital mediator, rather than an expansive goal, of ‘induced’ development projects.

# _Vertical trust and the social contract_

Research that looks specifically at CDD’s effects on the citizen-state relationship shows that CDD projects can improve citizens’ confidence in the government. An analysis of the Afghanistan _NSP_ , one of the largest CDD projects in the world, finds that CDD strengthens legitimacy in the state because it delivers development projects that are responsive to community needs (Parks et al. 2019, Olken 2010). More specifically, the study finds that CDD projects that are responsive to community needs increase public confidence in local and district government and increase the likelihood that villagers are willing to use government courts to resolve disputes.<sup>37</sup> Respondents living in CDD districts in Afghanistan have also reported slightly better perceptions of the national government’s performance than those living in nonCDD districts (The Asia Foundation 2018). In the Philippines, trust towards local officials increased by 11 percentage points in villages that received funding from the _KALAHI-CIDSS_ CDD project (Labonne and Chase 2008). However, households in these villages also requested fewer services from the local government and see fewer non- _KALAHI-CIDSS_ projects implemented in their village, suggesting that the CDD project may substitute for other local investments.<sup>38</sup> Another study of _KALAHI-CIDSS_ finds that it improved knowledge and awareness of local officials and governing bodies and that development funds (including non- _KALAHI-CIDSS_ funds) were more closely aligned with preferences of residents (Beatty et al. 2018). Yet the number of CDD projects measuring impacts on the social contract is still limited.

# _Conflict and violence_

CDD, at least in its earlier years, was sometimes seen as a mechanism for bolstering local conflict mediation skills and addressing some of the drivers of localized conflicts (Barron et al 2011). There has been relatively little research on whether it can have such impacts. Studies in Afghanistan, Sierra Leone, 37 These results are especially strong when the baseline relationship between citizens and the state is low. As citizens develop more confidence in the state, the strength of this effect diminishes.

38 A review of IFAD’s CDD projects finds that, “CDD projects contributed to governments’ decentralization efforts where they were embedded in established and sustainable local government structures. CDD projects operating outside government structures had little to no direct impact on local governance” (IFAD 2020, pp viii). The report also found mixed evidence on the sustainability of rural institutions that were created or strengthened through CDD.

19