shortterm funding can create a gap between expectations and the ability to deliver and prevent longerterm processes of empowerment within communities box the project provided usd million to over local development councils created to manage their community s development needs however tight deadlines to disburse project funds and bureaucratic rules meant that the councils were not able to develop into robust participatory structures and were reduced to acting as transmission mechanisms for bankcontrolled funds given the large variation in the characteristics between and within different fragile states it is essential that donors and programme managers conduct a thorough and finegrained analysis of the particular local or national context where they intend to implement a programme