In recognising the need to extend the fundamental principles of organisation and negotiation outside the "formal" wage sector, to the informal and weakly organised rural and urban sectors the ILO's Employment-Intensive Investment Programme (EIIP) commissioned this study to provide insights to contracting, organisation and innovative forms of collective bargaining at community level in number of developing countries in Africa, Asia and Latin America. The overall evidence form the case studies is positive in terms of some of the immediate benefits that membership of a community contract group can bring to the poor. The study details the effects that involvement in contract work can have on broader community involvement, despite the many local factors which can influence of even deter this involvement