**4. Results**

#### **4.1 The community participation and sustainability**

For many decades it has been believed the participation of communities is positively contribute to the sustainability of the project which means the more participation of the community on resources such as budget, labor, materials and the like, the more chance of sustainability of the project [13]. There is no surprise that community patriation rate in term of money is low comparing participation rate in term of labor contribution. However, monetary community participation rate varies among the project types. This maybe due to the nature of the development project itself whether it require large amount of money to invest or not. **Figure 1** shows the participation rate of community on the budget by activities There are six activities of CDD project. On average the community participation on the budget is 8.58% where the community participates the highest percentage on agriculture and forestry activities because it is the main source of their income. In addition,

#### **Figure 1.**

*The participation rate of community on the budget by activities. Source: Monitoring and evaluation division, 2016 and 2019.*

community spend more on water and sanitation because it is very important for their livelihood. On the other hand, the community participate only 3.72% of total budget for the energy and mine sector since the investment on these activities were expensive. Communities tend to participate more on labor rather than budget since they have limit budget. On average 33.1% of community's member participate to work on the CDD project (See **Figure 2**). They work more on energy and mine activities to compensate the less participation on the budget.

One component of sustainability in this paper is whether the project is still functioning. Approximately 2,939 projects or 94% of total project is still functioning where 3.7% of total projects is partly damage but those are already maintenance by the PRF (See **Table 3**). There are 43 non-functioning projects. The main cause of damage are due to the natural disaster such as flood, storm and land slide. There are 4 projects have not implemented in Attapue province and those are fresh market project.

**Figure 2.**

*The participation rate of community on labor by activities. Source: Monitoring and evaluation division, 2016 and 2019.*


#### **Table 3.**

*Functioning of CDD project by province.*

*Assessing the Sustainability of Community-Driven Development Projects in Lao PDR DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.5772/intechopen.96406*

Functioning of the development project tends to vary among the provinces and the type of the projects due the differences of the geographical location and vulnerability of the project to natural disaster.

Huaphan province has the highest in term of number of projects and projects that are damaged and non-functioning, but it has low percentage of damage and non-functioning to total project. Xiengkhuang province has the highest rate of damage and non-functioning project. This is mainly due to the natural disaster such as flood and land slide.

Water and sanitation and public work and transport (PWT) sector have high percentage of non-functioning projects. This is maybe because these types of projects are easily affected by natural disaster especially during the rainy season. All of health project are functioning. Two projects in Savannakhet province to maintenance roads are in the process of requesting fund from PRF as it requires amount of fund. However, communities use village fund to repair the road and it is now commutable with fair condition.

### **4.2 The impact of community participation on the sustainability of CDD projects**

This study applies the Logit Model to examine whether the variation of covariates does matter for the durability of CDD projects. This analysis includes the amount of money contributed by PRF and community, the involvement of females in the selection of projects, the types of projects, the locations of projects by provinces. The estimated results are presented in **Table 4**. In this table, it reports estimated parameters and their standard errors in the first two columns. Since the direct interpretation of the Logit Model is not easy for understanding, this study exclusively focuses on the marginal effects of the Logit Model. This estimated result is shown in the two remaining columns.

**Table 5** shows the estimated results of the Logit Model. It is evidenced that the contribution of the community in the CDD projects does matter for the sustainability of projects. The share of money contributed by communities in the projects is positively and statistically significant at the 1 percent level. Holding other factors unchanged, a 1 percent increase in the share of the community's money in the total value of the project raises the likelihood that the project is still usable by, on


#### **Table 4.**

*Functioning of CDD project by project type.*


#### **Table 5.**

*The estimated results of the logit model.*

average, 22.5 percent. Corresponding to the in-cash and in-kind contributions, the participation rate of households in the community is positively related to the survival of the project. This correlation is statistically significant at the 1 percent level. A rise in the participation rate of households in the community by 1 percent is associated with a 9.2 percent increase in the probability that the CDD project is still functioning at least during the time of the survey.

It seems that the engagement of females in selecting the CDD project exerts a positive impact on the durable existence of projects, constructed during 2012 and 2016. However, the linkage between the participation of female villagers in the selection of the CDD project and the durability of the project is not statistically significant. Consistent with the preliminary result that the proportions of the CDD projects selected by females between usable and non-usable projects are not significant at the conventional levels. Many CDD projects are intentionally constructed to improve the living standard of households in poor villages. The proportion of functioning projects in those areas is relatively low. Due to the lack of resource allocated to construction, management, and maintenance, CDD projects located in the area with a high rateof poverty are less likely to be still usable. Like the dummy variable controlling for the engagement of females in the selection of the project, the poverty rate in the village is not statistically significant at the conventional

#### *Assessing the Sustainability of Community-Driven Development Projects in Lao PDR DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.5772/intechopen.96406*

levels. There is a minor difference between functioning and non-functioning projects across the types of CDD projects. According to the database of PRF, CDD projects are categorized into six types, water and sanitation projects, health infrastructure, transportation, education infrastructure, irrigation, and energy. The present study creates four dummy variables to control for water and sanitation, health infrastructure, transportation, and education projects. Other projects related to irrigation and energy are used as reference groups. The estimated result indicates that the probability that a transportation project, including road construction and maintenance, is currently usable is higher than irrigation and energy projects. On the contrary, the likelihood of being usable among water and sanitation, health, and education projects is relatively lower CDD projects in Ref. groups. Except for education-related projects, dummy variables for the types of CDD projects appears to be insignificant. Projects related to transportation are statistically significant at the 10 percent level. Ceteris paribus, the probability that transportation projects are still usable during the period of the survey is, on average, 2.6 percent higher than those projects in the reference groups.

The survival of CDD projects significantly varies across provinces in Laos. CDD projects are distributed across ten provinces. This research generates nine dummy variables to control if projects are located in Phongsaly, Huaphan, Luang Namtha, Luang Prabang, Oudomxay, Xiengkhuang, Savannakhet, Saravan, and Sekong provinces. CDD projects in Attapue province are treated as reference groups. **Table 5** shows that except for projects in Huaphan and Luang Namtha the likelihood that CDD projects in other provinces are significantly different from those in Attapue province. The estimate indicates that the parameters of province dummies appear to be positively and statistically significant at least at the 5 percent, except projects in Saravan which are significant at the 10 percent level. The probability that CDD projects are currently usable is found to be lower in Attapue compared to projects in other provinces. The estimate indicates a higher likelihood projects in Oudomxay than those in other provinces. Keeping other factors constant, the durability of CDD projects in Oudomxay province increases by around 9.2 percent compared to projects in Ref. province. The likelihood that projects in Attapue are currently usable is lower on average, 5.4 percent in comparison to Sekong, Xiengkhuang, and Luang Prabang, respectively.

In sum, the contribution of the community is a key factor determining the sustain ability of CDD projects. The participation of villagers in selecting and designing projects as well as their contributions in terms of money can increase the durable existence of CDD projects. The share of money contributed by PRF, the participation of females in the selection of projects, and the poverty rate do not significantly determine the persistence of projects. There is a small difference in the probability that CDD projects are usable across types of projects. This study finds that CDD projects in Attapue province are more likely to be not currently usable than those in other provinces.

## **5. Conclusion and policy implication**

#### **5.1 Concluding remark**

The CDD project have been discussed on which factors impacts to the sustainability of the project in many countries. One of the key factors for suitability of the project is participation of community in term of capital and labor. This study aims to investigate the impact of community participation on sustainability of CDD project in Lao PDR. By doing that, the data base of PRF on project assessment was used to analyze the impact of community participation on sustainability through

the logit regression. In addition, field survey of functioning and non-functioning project is to reveal the factors of sustainability of the CDD project.

Main result shows that community participation on labor and finance are the key factors for sustainability of CDD projects while the female and ethnic participation is not statistically impact to the functioning of the project. This is due to the aim of CDD project to prioritize female and ethnic to be involve in the project. The project that communities decides as a priority project tend to be more sustainable than those decide by project authorities, donor, and local and central government.

While the CMS project is quite success in many countries, the quality of CMS projects in Lao PDR is still questionable. The result of field survey also supports that community participation on maintenance fund and ability of maintenance group are the key factors for sustainable of the project.
