On 15 December 2009, Plan China, Bai Shui County government, the Poverty-Alleviation Office of State Council in Bai Shui County, community representatives and the programme facilitators gathered to conduct a joint review of the Plan China’s Community-Driven Development (CDD) Programme. In the meeting, it was officially announced that Plan China’s CDD working group would phase out its involvement from Bai Shui County by the end of 2009, which signified a successful conclusion of Bai Shui CDD Programme.

Over the past three and a half years of the programme implementation, the ‘Community-Driven Development’ concept has stricken a chord among governmental organizations, non-governmental organizations, communities and other sectors, and gradually gained recognition from the villagers who have also started to practice this concept by themselves. In the meantime, due to the CDD programme, a majority of the villagers have been mobilized to take initiatives in community development; this made full advantage of the programme resources and integrated a large amount of the agriculture resources allocated by the government. As a result, each programme village has witnessed tremendous improvement in its road construction, water and electricity supply system, environmental sanitation, general outlook and other infrastructure. Moreover, sustainable development systems of self-organization, self-management and self-development have also been established in the communities. In the words of the villagers, “the CDD Programme is a kind of programme in which we, as common people, can have a final say.”

Over the past three years, Bai Shui County government and Plan China’s CDD working group have been working in close collaboration. Both sides had a clear division of labor and responsibilities and complemented each other’s advantages, forming a win-win cooperation model. The excellent work by Plan China’s CDD working group has received considerable recognition from the Bai Shui County government, and the outstanding achievements in this project was also highly appreciated by officials of World Bank as well as the CDD experts aboard. In the future, the successful model of Bai Shui CDD Programme will be widely adopted and extended to other programme areas across the country.