Limits to empowerment: case of control and citizen engagement in community driven development in Sri Lanka

Empowered communities are expected to be better performers engaged in local development processes. Power to people is a political slogan emerging from manifestos of major political parties. Community centered development continues to be a declared strategy for bringing about change to places and to people for inclusive growth. Post war Sri Lanka has to face the challenge in making decisions on limits to empowerment balancing control and engagement of citizens in local development amidst conflicting and overlapping interests of stakeholders that affect the country’s progress. Paradigm model of grounded theory is used to examine the lessons learned from the application of the community driven development strategy in seven districts in Sri Lanka. Series of events are analyzed and data used to validate evidence on outcomes to deepen understanding of the community driven development theme and the concerns of limits to empowering communities to inform policy making for local development.

DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.4038/sljda.v4i0.7118

Sri Lanka Journal of Development Administration, Vol. 4, pp. 111-127, 2014