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Paper short abstract

Why do ostensibly similar NGO resilience-building interventions produce sustainable participatory structures in some post-conflict communities but generate weaker, less participatory committees that often collapse in others? We show how leadership style and social cohesion explain the variations.

Paper long abstract

Building resilience has become a central focus of interventions in (post-)conflict settings. Many NGO resilience-building programmes operate at the nexus of humanitarian relief, development, and security, and a core feature of these interventions is the creation of sustainable participatory structures through community-based committees. Yet ostensibly similar interventions produce divergent outcomes: in some communities, committees are inclusive and persist beyond NGO involvement, whereas in others they are exclusive and collapse soon after NGO exit. Drawing on in-depth fieldwork and a systematic comparison of four communities in Borno State, northeastern Nigeria, this article argues that the participation and sustainability of NGO resilience committees depend on the interaction between local leadership style and social cohesion, operating through the mechanisms of leadership brokerage and collective embeddedness. In high-capacity communities with consultative leaders and strong cohesion, committees endure by building on established consultative practices and shared norms that foster collective ownership. By contrast, in low-capacity communities with autocratic leaders and weak cohesion, committees face elite resistance and lack community support, making them less participatory and ultimately vulnerable to collapse. Intermediate cases produce mixed outcomes: cohesion can sustain committees under autocratic leaders albeit with limited inclusivity, while consultative leaders in fragmented communities can facilitate temporary participation that fades once NGOs withdraw. The study advances debates on resilience-building and community-driven development and offers important implications for designing more sustainable participatory interventions.