Initial Conditions Matter: Social Capital and Participatory Development

Abstract

Billions of dollars have been spent on participatory development programs in the developing world. These programs give community members an active decision-making role. Given the emphasis on community involvement, one might expect that the effectiveness of this approach would depend on communities' pre existing social capital stocks. Using data from a large randomized eld experiment of Community-Led Total Sanitation in Indonesia, we nd that villages with high initial social capital built toilets and reduced open defecation, resulting in substantial health benets. In villages with low initial stocks of social capital, the approach was counterproductive|fewer toilets were built than in control communities and social capital suered.