Community Mobilization Sector Approach

Mercy Corps helps people in the world’s toughest places turn the crises of natural disaster, poverty and conflict into opportunities for progress. Driven by local needs and market conditions, our programs provide communities with the tools and support they need to transform their own lives. Our worldwide team of 3,700 professionals is improving the lives of 14.5 million people in more than 40 countries. In recognition that
community mobilization is integral to the success of lasting recovery and development program impacts, Mercy Corps currently operates upwards of 50 projects with major community mobilization components in over 30 countries worth approximately $300 million dollars.

Communities in which Mercy Corps works have often been disempowered for decades due to chronic poverty, bad governance, protracted conflict or instability. In other contexts, communities have recently experienced a major shock that overturned social and economic systems and people find themselves in an unfamiliar new reality. Involving community members in a way that promotes their ownership over decisionmaking and builds the knowledge and skills to carry out those decisions is a complex task. Yet Mercy Corps’ experience leads us to believe that it is an essential component of supporting rapid recovery and lasting change. Empowering people to be their own agents of change is the underlying goal of ‘community mobilization.’

Mercy Corps believes that a community-led initiative is one that originates from and is managed by community members. Mercy Corps, as the catalyst, is wholly accountable to that community in order to achieve their vision. Community mobilization is the process of building community capacity to self-identify priorities, resources, needs and solutions in such a way as to promote representative participation, good governance, accountability and peaceful change.