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Abstract
CARE began PROSPECT (Program of Support for Poverty Elimination and
Community Transformation) in 1998. PROSPECT aims to reduce poverty in peri-urban
areas of Lusaka. It employs a community-based approach to carry out three types of
activities: social empowerment (institution building at the local level), personal
empowerment (microfinance), and infrastructure improvement (mostly water supply
schemes).
PROSPECT has attempted to carry out these activities largely through its support
of area-based organizations (ABOs) that now form part of city government. The zone
development committees (ZDCs) and residents' development committees (RDCs) are the
basic components of the ABO structure. These are community-level representations of
municipal government; they are the community's mechanisms for expressing its voice
and driving development.
PROSPECT is itself an extension of an earlier project, PUSH II (Peri-Urban Self-
Help Project). PUSH II and PROSPECT are fundamentally about developing
community-based and community-driven development (CDD) mechanisms and
strengthening community capacities to identify and respond to community needs. The
paper examines the scaling-up experience of PUSH II and PROSPECT, looking
especially at the mechanisms of CDD, the ABOs.