Transformational Development
Championing local voices in development and research to drive sustainable solutions
Community-Driven Change
World Vision is committed to local ownership and community-led development as essential to addressing global poverty. We promote local leadership and locally-developed solutions that advance child well-being and drive sustained outcomes across the humanitarian–development–peace nexus, in all contexts. Our work is rooted in a long history of grassroots, participatory, and empowerment-driven approaches to development. A key example is our Citizen Voice and Action model, which prioritizes community-led social accountability.
Our Transformational Development approach reflects the deep, long-term engagement required for true local ownership. Grounded in six principles — partnership, community empowerment, inclusion, local adaptation, and addressing unequal power dynamics — it emphasizes inclusive, community-led processes that strengthen enabling environments and local systems to be both sustainable and responsive.
Guiding principles
Six principles underpin our Transformational Development work, informing our understanding of good practice in development, relief, and advocacy work, and driving our program quality standards. Learn more here.
Examples of this at work
- World Vision has worked closely with the Movement for Community-Led Development — a community of NGOs, donors, and individuals advancing dialogue, research, and practice on community-led development.
- World Vision is committed to placing communities at the center of their own development journey. In Bangladesh, for example, the USAID-funded Nobo Jatra Project used World Vision’s social accountability approach, Citizen Voice and Action (CVA), to empower communities to advocate for service delivery improvements from the local government. An evaluation of the approach found that CVA produced “remarkable” results, inspiring institutional actors to overcome inertia and improve performance.
- To promote greater inclusion in our research and learning, World Vision has also established Research Equity Principles, which aim to elevate the role of local actors in in our evaluation, research, and learning efforts. A study to understand barriers faced by WASH researchers in low- and middle-income countries (LMICs) informed the development of these principles, published in BMJ Global Health.
