ABSTRACT
This chapter examines the effectiveness of the community-driven reconstruction (CDR) approach in terms of stimulating local communities' participation in public goods provision, with a particular focus on the mobilisation of voluntary manual labour for public works. It provides some background information on the context in which the Tushiriki programme was implemented. The chapter overviews the conflict in eastern Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC), explains the main components of the Tushiriki programme, and then focuses on the logic behind it. It shows that the outcomes of the Tushiriki programme, which sought to contribute to socio-economic recovery in the fragile and conflict-affected setting of eastern DRC, were in many ways determined by the programme's political and social embeddedness. The chapter also focuses on a general lesson for the future of CDR projects in conflict-affected regions with a well-known history of forced labour recruitment. It focuses on one such programme called Tushiriki, a Swahili expression meaning 'let's all be involved together'.
