Social capital is critical for economic development, especially in settings where institutions are absent or weak (Cardenas & Carpenter, 2008). Social capital, defined as "the social networks and the norms of reciprocity and trustworthiness that arise from (individuals)" (Putnam, 2000), is a theoretical construct that cannot be measured directly in its entirety, but rather its various elementary components need to be assessed. Recent literature has focused on two main components: structural and cognitive. The structural component encompasses roles, rules, procedures, and social networks, while the cognitive component includes pro-social attitudes such as trust, truthfulness, trustworthiness, reciprocity, and willingness to contribute to public goods. These two components are interconnected and mutually reinforcing, making it difficult to disentangle them. (Krishna, 2007; Avdeenko and Gilligan, 2015; Pisani, 2017; Uphoff and Wijayaratna, 2000). Social capital is beneficial for economic and community development as it allows for information sharing, pooling of resources, reduction of transaction costs and facilitate informal contracts (Cameron et al., 2015; Heß et al., 2021; Peralta & Shupp, 2017). More generally, communities with high social capital are better suited for collective action which in turn positively affects their economic outcomes. The development community has increasingly turned to community-driven development (CDD), a bottom-up approach in which the targeted population becomes the primary driver of change. Such initiatives both rely on existing social capital and aim to enhance it (Avdeenko & Gilligan, 2015; Ban et al., 2020; Mansuri, 2004). The success of CDD is closely linked to pre-existing levels of trust, trustworthiness, as well as community interactions (Peralta & Shupp, 2017). Trust and trustworthiness are intrinsic values that depend on individual preferences, making it challenging for external actors to build social capital. However, develo