implement community-based projects (Bardhan, 2002). Implementing complex projects in lowcapacity environments requires the establishment of effective support and management information systems. The large cost of setting up such systems makes central management more feasible than decentralized management. Central management can also help break through cultural norms, such as extreme patriarchy, that are not conducive to development objectives, by translating lessons from one part of the country to another.

This question of which level of government should manage community level projects hinges largely on who is best suited to managing the complex task of facilitation. Facilitators are arguably the most important agents of government in community development projects for they are responsible for promoting participation as well as for implementing day-to-day management at the community level: mobilizing citizens, informing them about the working of the program, and facilitating the process of local implementation (Mansuri and Rao, 2012; Perry et al., 2014).<sup>2</sup> Since facilitators are almost always low-level salaried bureaucrats accountable to higher levels of government, their deployment and management can be the key to an effective communitydevelopment intervention (Barron, Woolcock and Diprose, 2011; Baiocci, Heller and Silva, 2011). Yet, the vast literature on decentralization and devolution is relatively silent on the relationship between facilitators and governments.

This paper examines these issues by focusing on the case of the Indian National Rural Livelihoods Mission (NRLM). This program builds networks of women’s self-help groups in rural areas with the twin objectives of alleviating poverty and empowering women. The large $5 billion program was funded directly by the center with support from the World Bank. For the most part state governments implemented it, but management of some blocks (administrative areas below the district level) was with the center.<sup>3</sup> In the state of Rajasthan, a natural experiment in the implementation of the program provides an opportunity to understand how centrally managed community development projects compare in their quality of implementation with projects managed at the state level. We compare “Resource Blocks” which are directly managed by the center, with “Intensive Blocks” which are managed by the Rajasthan state government. We examine the contrast, both in terms of processes and outcomes. We focus on comparing how central and state management affects the work of local facilitators, their attributes, activities and performance across the two types of management strategies, by using qualitative, survey and administrative data collected from villages in the different blocks.

> 2 Mansuri and Rao (2012) review the literature on facilitation, documenting its central role in community driven projects. Perry et al. (2014) review the history of community health care worker programs in low-, medium- and high-income countries. They argue that in the past three decades, community health workers have played a critical role in helping health systems achieve their potential, regardless of a country's level of development. 3The program has been modified considerably over the last five years and now gives states considerable leeway in how it is managed.

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