Community-led selection of villages

Since 2022, Action Against Hunger has been implementing a community-led project in Louga, Senegal, which is aspiring to reach the highest level of community engagement on the Community Engagement Continuum (IAP2, 2024). Communities are involved in every stage of the project, from problem analysis to intervention design, monitoring, and evaluation. The approach challenges conventional NGO programming by positioning communities as decision-makers rather than beneficiaries of externally designed interventions. Action Against Hunger acts solely as a facilitator, while communities retain complete ownership of the activities, the pace of implementation, the definition of success, as well as interactions with local authorities. The conventional project management tools, such as log frames and performance indicators are not used. The project’s outcomes and impact are assessed through participatory monitoring and evaluation processes.

Phase 1: engaging with stakeholders

During the first phase of the project, which ran from 2022 to 2025, Action Against Hunger selected the participating villages through a stakeholder consultation. The choice of the Louga region was justified by one of the highest prevalence of acute malnutrition in Senegal as well as years of fruitful collaboration between Action Against Hunger, health authorities and communities across its departments.

The four participating villages were selected based on stakeholders’ recommendations, fitting two key criteria – a total population size of 700- 1000 residents and nutritional insecurity, primarily demonstrated via higher numbers of children screened and treated for acute malnutrition. Action Against Hunger then approached community leaders, described the project outline and principles and sought their consent to participate. Unlike other phases of the project, this selection process was NGO-driven, and communities did not have a say in determining selection criteria, putting forward potential candidates and/or selection of successful candidates.

The objective of the second phase was therefore not simply to select new villages. It was to rethink the process, in which communities themselves could influence the criteria, assess candidates and help determine the outcome.

Phase 2: building on dynamics and relationships

The second phase of the project was launched in February 2026 in the same region as Action Against Hunger sought to build on the dynamics and relationships built during the first phase. The four “original” villages were shifted to “Tier 2” and envisaged to mentor newly selected, “Tier 1” villages during their journey of designing and implementing projects. To facilitate this experience sharing, the new villages needed to be within a reasonable radius from the original villages. The latter were therefore requested to share an invitation to participate in the project launch with up to five neighbouring villages, which would be interested to participate in the second phase of the project.

During the assembly, community representatives from the four original villages and the interested neighbouring villages were officially informed about the new project phase. The original villages were invited to either express interest to continue collaborating with Action Against Hunger or to withdraw. The pillars of the selection process of the new villages, designed by Action Against Hunger, were then explained to all participants, giving them a possibility to comment, to suggest changes and/or improvements, and to agree on a way forward. The objective was to ensure that the process is inclusive, participatory and transparent, while shifting the decision-making power on the Community Engagement Continuum as high as operationally feasible.

The approved selection process consisted of these key steps:

1. Community representatives from prospective villages were requested to fill a 2-page community profile with basic information about their demography, livelihoods, community resources, key priorities and participation in other projects.
2. They were then invited for a discussion with the selection committee, which was composed of three members – a community leader and a community focal point from the village participating in Phase 1 and a community mobiliser (Action Against Hunger staff). In some instances, the selection committee also included a head nurse from the nearest health facility. The discussion was guided by an interview guide seeking to understand prospective villages’ motivation, values, community dynamics and approach to conflict resolution. Community leaders from prospective villages were interviewed separately and once all interviews were complete, the selection committee deliberated on most suitable candidates for the project integration.
3. Community mobilisers (Action Against Hunger staff) triangulated the responses from interviews and community profiles during the village visits and consolidated all inputs and recommendations in an Excel spreadsheet, which were reviewed by Technical and Project Leads. In case of information gaps or inconsistencies, community mobilisers were encouraged to liaise with other members of the selection committee to complete or clarify.
4. Once a consensus on the prospective villages’ candidacy was reached, the selection committee organised a meeting with respective community leaders and announced their decision. The rationale for selection was transparently shared to facilitate acceptance of the process outcome, despite not all villages selected to integrate the project.
5. As a last step, with the help of community leaders from the newly selected villages, community mobilisers organised a plenary meeting to share the outcome of the selection process with the wider community, giving all participants a possibility to learn about the core project principles and confirm their integration in the project. This meeting also included a selection of the focal point to act as a bridge between the organisation the community during the upcoming project phases.

The reality of the selection process

At the launch of the project in February 2026, the duration of the selection process was estimated at 6 weeks. In reality, it lasted up to 13 weeks. The most significant delays were observed due to a consultative nature of the process, which was dependent on the availability of key stakeholders. It is also worthwhile to note that the timing of the selection process partially overlapped with the month of Ramadan, during which community gatherings can be deprioritised.

At the same time, as the selection committee juggled between steps 1-3, they extended the invitation to participate in the selection process to additional communities in order to ensure that the villages best suiting the selection criteria were considered. This essentially protracted the process by a few weeks until all information was gathered, consolidated and best candidates were identified and agreed on. Although the extended timeline could be viewed as a delay from a conventional project management perspective, it reflected a deliberate prioritisation of consultation and collective decision-making over speed. The additional time invested in the process was consistent with the project’s objective of transferring decision-making power to communities and ensuring that key choices were broadly owned by stakeholders.

Despite the delay, the process was largely considered as better adapted to the nature of the project. It sent a clear message to communities that the project approach differs from other initiatives, with which they might have been interacting with. Considering that the project rests on community ownership, it was important for that distinction to be understood and that communities demonstrate a significant level of motivation to integrate the project. The aim was not to passively choose new villages but to allow villages to step forward and “apply” for their spot in the project.

The role of the selection committee

The composition of the selection committee also played an important role as the community leaders were given an equal seat at the decision-making table along with local authorities and Action Against Hunger representatives. This also meant that the outcome was perceived as fair as it was peer-led and informed by local realities. Community leaders and focal points accepted their roles with confidence, signalling their readiness to step into a mentorship role, which they were entrusted with.

While the community-led selection process was widely celebrated by local authorities, the interactions highlighted the need for natural adjustment as municipal, district and/or regional instances had to adapt to a more supportive, rather than a decision-making role. Local authorities have historically been the primary stakeholders in NGO interventions while this project brought decision-making closer to communities. This sparked important conversations about how to align community-led initiatives with municipal oversight, each contributing to shared development goals.

Conclusion

Overall, the village selection process for the second phase of Boolo Xeex Xibon project represented an important move from an NGO-led approach toward a more genuine, community-led model. Although it required more time than initially planned, the additional investment strengthened transparency, accountability and community ownership. The experience also showed that transferring decision-making power to communities is not only a procedural change, but a relational one.

It requires organisations, authorities and communities to redefine relationships, expectations and ways of working together. In this sense, the selection process became more than an entry point into the project; it became an early demonstration of the project’s core principle that communities should define, lead and sustain the initiatives that concern them.

It also highlighted an enduring question for organisations seeking to promote community leadership: to what extent are they prepared to accept the operational trade-offs, uncertainty and redistribution of decision-making authority that meaningful community ownership entails?