Capacity Building guide
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Capacity is the essential lubricant of international development, more important even than finance. The recently completed Capacity Building Decade in Africa was launched by a 2002 resolution which declared that "capacity building in our respective countries....will guarantee peace and security, and make it possible to attain high growth rates.” Such an ambitious agenda positions capacity building as one of the most challenging functions of global development.
updated July 2011
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What is Capacity Building?
The UN Development Programme (UNDP) has defined "capacity" as "the ability of individuals, institutions and societies to perform functions, solve problems, and set and achieve objectives in a sustainable manner." The terms "capacity building" or "capacity development" describe the task of establishing human and institutional capacity.
Examples particularly relevant to developing countries include training for community workers involved in areas such as water, agriculture, nutrition and health. Strengthening local government delivery with adequate staffing is a recurrent theme, as is the establishment of research and policymaking bodies.
The diversity of these interventions reflects the many contexts in which capacity building takes place. It is as relevant to the highest level of government as the most humble village. The tools of its trade range from women’s leadership courses to diagrams explaining water pump maintenance.
Individual organisations such as local community groups are crucial providers of capacity building programmes whilst themselves often lacking capacity to sustain their mission. Improving internal management structures, access to information and technology, and networking are integral to institutional capacity building.
Sharing knowledge for development is capacity building, from InWEnt.
Capacity is Development
Over recent years, capacity building has become inseparable from development strategies. UNDP’s 2010 global conference addressed the theme “capacity is development”, reflecting an interpretation of the organization’s core function.
The escalating profile of capacity building in international development is also reflected in the sequence of global crisis summits that took place through 2009 and 2010.
The Declaration following the 2009 World Summit on Food Security makes repeated reference to capacity building, including a commitment to “strengthen the capacity of farmers and the capacity of farmers’ organizations.” And “health workforce capacity building” is amongst the list of key elements of the Global Strategy for Women’s and Children’s Health launched at the 2010 Summit on the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs).
The Cancun climate change agreements drawn up in December 2010 dedicate an entire section to the importance of building the capacity of poor countries to adapt to global warming. The term “adaptive capacity” has entered the language of the fight against climate change.
The potential new climate funding mechanism known as Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and Forest Degradation (REDD) anticipates logistical difficulties in monitoring forest cover and respect for the rights of forest people. The slogan “getting ready for REDD” is the euphemism for the capacity building goals which define UN and World Bank pilot schemes.
Saleemul Huq explains how Bangladesh has taken a lead in building capacity in anticipation of climate change.
Government
A recurring frustration for international donors has been the lack of capacity of governments of developing countries to deliver the intended programmes.
For example, ending user fees for health and education is an attractive policy option for African governments, stimulated by aid and debt relief. In practice, waiving fees for primary education has been problematic as neither teacher numbers nor classroom facilities have been able to cope with the influx of new pupils.
Emergency response to conflicts or natural disasters invariably hits the buffers of local capacity. This largely accounts for the disappointing development returns achieved for donors in Afghanistan and in the slow process of recovery from the 2010 Haiti earthquake.
Aid can be the antithesis of capacity, the drift into aid dependency snuffing out the growth of government institutions. Adequate human resources adequately trained and rewarded are therefore the starting point for achieving the standards of good governance which are critical to successful development.
Capacity building programmes at government level will seek to achieve outcomes of sound policymaking backed by transparent institutions. The goals include high standards of law enforcement, tax collection and financial management, supported by reliable human development statistics.
These outcomes are challenging and the training is often provided by controversial western “consultants” financed through a category of aid known as “technical assistance”.
Global negotiations on issues such as trade and climate change often present the credentials of international democracy in poor light. Richer countries acquire disproportionate influence by taking advantage of their capacity to engage vast entourages of advisers.
Poorer countries have strengthened their voice at recent UN climate change talks, thanks in part to some determined efforts by donors to provide finance and training for negotiators.
Similar capacity building needs apply even more at local government levels which are notoriously bureaucratic and ineffective in developing countries. As decentralization has entered the mainstream of development models over recent years, there is a constant search for successful capacity building templates which can been replicated over multiple locations.
Sierra Leone rebuilt the capacity of its public services by appealing for support from the diaspora, from UNDP.
Civil Society
Limitations of local government create the space frequently occupied by community-based organizations (CBOs). The CBOs typically possess expert understanding of the needs of local people and are best placed to create the sense of community ownership and a feedback mechanism so important to development projects.
Unfortunately, no amount of this valuable expertise can protect these grassroots CBOs, or indeed national NGOs, from their own Achilles heel of incapacity to sustain themselves. Invariably they are dependent on donor project finance which by definition has a beginning and an end - the fickle availability and timing of such funds leaves small organizations highly vulnerable.
These fault lines in the current mainstream structure for development projects may create openings for the new breed of social entrepreneur whose ideas of capacity building are likely to be more attuned to success of an organisation than success of an individual project.
Capacity building programmes for civil society therefore focus on sustainability and effectiveness as the key outcomes. Tools will include strategic engagement of volunteers, training in organizational management, use of online peer group networking, building alliances, and improvement of advocacy, fundraising and donor relationship skills.
Community Development
Regardless of the capacity status of government and civil society, their role is a means to the end that really matters - that of building capacity for individuals to realise their potential for better lives. Unfortunately, top-down perceptions of what constitutes "better lives" do not always coincide with real needs.
Benefits given, rather than asked for, at the wrong time, to the wrong people on the wrong skill-sets will prolong rather than alleviate poverty environments. A key dimension of capacity building for communities is therefore the "needs assessment", identifying interventions that will trigger the most positive response and impact.
This is not to say that there is no place for educating communities in needs which are known to improve prospects for the well-being of their families. For example, sanitation programmes are unlikely to succeed without appropriate hygiene education.
Literacy remains one of the most potent capacity tools, becoming even more relevant for livelihoods in rapidly expanding urban populations. In rural areas, educational capacity building has been particularly well served by the tool of community radio, especially in Africa.
The motive for effective results also lies behind the tailoring of capacity building projects for women and, to a lesser extent, young people, as these groups are known to be key agents for poverty reduction and economic endeavour.
Sexual and reproductive health programmes create capacity for significant improvement in the welfare of women and children. As well as the obvious health benefits, improving access to safe water saves collection time, creating capacity for women to work and for girls to go to school.
Many countries have been forced to scale up their disaster risk management in response to the threat of climate change. The shelters and cyclone early warning systems constructed in the deltas of Bangladesh provide an example of community capacity building in this context.
Partnerships
Given the difficulties experienced at each of these levels of capacity building, it is no surprise to find that institutional donors encourage formal project alliances. Capacity shortcomings can be overcome more effectively through parties working together, sometimes with private sector involvement.
These programmes can involve quite complex combinations of government, business and civil society. There are also numerous national and international NGO networks which pool resources and purport to share knowledge and best practice.
Reluctance to work in partnership can result in a failure to identify and respond to priority capacity needs. The preference of some international private foundations to focus on eradication of a specific disease, rather than partnering governments in the provision of general health facilities, is an example.
A consequence is that good progress on MDG targets for HIV and AIDS coexists with significant failure to reduce child and maternal mortality rates.
One form of partnership in capacity building projects has stirred up global controversy - public-private partnerships in which municipal government engages the private sector to build capacity for public services, ranging from health to energy.
Multilateral institutions which encourage this path argue that private corporations have access to capital and expertise to deliver value for money and efficiency. Opponents point to the irreconcilable conflict between business aims to maximise return on capital and the duty of government to provide essential services to all, rich or poor.
There is evidence that private utility projects have created capacity for middle class areas at the expense of the poor. As a result, arrangements involving the private sector in public service delivery in developing countries are now more likely to feature partnership than privatisation.
Sanjay Pradhan, Vice President of the World Bank Institute, stresses the importance of partnerships in the future of capacity development in Africa, from TheCDG2009FILMS.
Technology
Information and communications technologies (ICTs) have become an integral component of capacity building at all levels. The concept of e-governance can encourage citizen participation in the decision-making process and make government more accountable, transparent and effective.
For NGOs, strategic use of the internet can strengthen campaigning and fundraising, for example through the use of global online volunteers. In both Africa and Asia the concept of village knowledge centres is inspired by the prospect of building local capacity through online research and networking.
Distance learning and e-learning tools have also increased their outreach within developing countries. The provision of local language content in these initiatives becomes a vital component to complete the circle of capacity building.
New mobile phone technologies threaten to eclipse even this catalogue of achievements. In particular they can overcome the shortcomings of poor landline coverage and low bandwidth.
Already there are successful and sustainable models for provision of recruitment, health and agriculture information by phone in sub-Saharan Africa. Given the enthusiasm of Africans for phone technology, such programmes provide a rare example of beneficiaries requiring little in the way of capacity building support to learn how to use the development tool.
Foreign Aid Dilemmas
Recognition of capacity building as the key tool for international development has inevitably attracted a greater share of foreign aid for that purpose, at the expense of traditional programmes providing direct support to individuals.
This creates dilemmas for the major institutional donors. In our era of economic austerity, donors are under pressure from their stakeholders (taxpayers and private givers) to account for and maximise the number of beneficiaries per dollar of funding. Capacity building programmes do not lend themselves to measurement by results.
Further difficulties emerge from international negotiations to improve the effectiveness of foreign aid. The 2005 Paris Declaration, together with its review, the 2008 Accra Agenda for Action, represents a determined attempt to rebalance the relationship between donors and recipient governments.
The Declaration states that “capacity development is the responsibility of developing countries, with donors playing a supportive role.” Progress will be reported at a major conference on aid effectiveness in Busan, South Korea in November 2011. Evidence suggests that donors have been nervous of accepting the political and economic risks of ceding too much control over aid funds for capacity building.
African governments are unquestionably more confident in asserting the right to manage their own affairs, decoupled from aid conditions. They have also expressed concern that capacity building is of no value in isolation. Closer alignment with results for community development could restore the structure of accountability preferred by the donors.
If you like this site, please make a voluntary micropayment to help OneWorld publish its educational Guides (credit/debit card or PayPal).
The UN Development Programme (UNDP) has defined "capacity" as "the ability of individuals, institutions and societies to perform functions, solve problems, and set and achieve objectives in a sustainable manner." The terms "capacity building" or "capacity development" describe the task of establishing human and institutional capacity.
|
| INTRAC training © International NGO Training and Research Centre |
The diversity of these interventions reflects the many contexts in which capacity building takes place. It is as relevant to the highest level of government as the most humble village. The tools of its trade range from women’s leadership courses to diagrams explaining water pump maintenance.
Individual organisations such as local community groups are crucial providers of capacity building programmes whilst themselves often lacking capacity to sustain their mission. Improving internal management structures, access to information and technology, and networking are integral to institutional capacity building.
Sharing knowledge for development is capacity building, from InWEnt.
Capacity is Development
Over recent years, capacity building has become inseparable from development strategies. UNDP’s 2010 global conference addressed the theme “capacity is development”, reflecting an interpretation of the organization’s core function.
The escalating profile of capacity building in international development is also reflected in the sequence of global crisis summits that took place through 2009 and 2010.
|
| Farmers in Haiti © Grassroots International |
The Cancun climate change agreements drawn up in December 2010 dedicate an entire section to the importance of building the capacity of poor countries to adapt to global warming. The term “adaptive capacity” has entered the language of the fight against climate change.
The potential new climate funding mechanism known as Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and Forest Degradation (REDD) anticipates logistical difficulties in monitoring forest cover and respect for the rights of forest people. The slogan “getting ready for REDD” is the euphemism for the capacity building goals which define UN and World Bank pilot schemes.
Saleemul Huq explains how Bangladesh has taken a lead in building capacity in anticipation of climate change.
Government
A recurring frustration for international donors has been the lack of capacity of governments of developing countries to deliver the intended programmes.
|
| Nthombimbi Primary School, Zambia © United Nations Children's Fund |
Emergency response to conflicts or natural disasters invariably hits the buffers of local capacity. This largely accounts for the disappointing development returns achieved for donors in Afghanistan and in the slow process of recovery from the 2010 Haiti earthquake.
Aid can be the antithesis of capacity, the drift into aid dependency snuffing out the growth of government institutions. Adequate human resources adequately trained and rewarded are therefore the starting point for achieving the standards of good governance which are critical to successful development.
Capacity building programmes at government level will seek to achieve outcomes of sound policymaking backed by transparent institutions. The goals include high standards of law enforcement, tax collection and financial management, supported by reliable human development statistics.
These outcomes are challenging and the training is often provided by controversial western “consultants” financed through a category of aid known as “technical assistance”.
Global negotiations on issues such as trade and climate change often present the credentials of international democracy in poor light. Richer countries acquire disproportionate influence by taking advantage of their capacity to engage vast entourages of advisers.
Poorer countries have strengthened their voice at recent UN climate change talks, thanks in part to some determined efforts by donors to provide finance and training for negotiators.
Similar capacity building needs apply even more at local government levels which are notoriously bureaucratic and ineffective in developing countries. As decentralization has entered the mainstream of development models over recent years, there is a constant search for successful capacity building templates which can been replicated over multiple locations.
Sierra Leone rebuilt the capacity of its public services by appealing for support from the diaspora, from UNDP.
Civil Society
Limitations of local government create the space frequently occupied by community-based organizations (CBOs). The CBOs typically possess expert understanding of the needs of local people and are best placed to create the sense of community ownership and a feedback mechanism so important to development projects.
|
| Learning about living in Nigeria |
These fault lines in the current mainstream structure for development projects may create openings for the new breed of social entrepreneur whose ideas of capacity building are likely to be more attuned to success of an organisation than success of an individual project.
Capacity building programmes for civil society therefore focus on sustainability and effectiveness as the key outcomes. Tools will include strategic engagement of volunteers, training in organizational management, use of online peer group networking, building alliances, and improvement of advocacy, fundraising and donor relationship skills.
Community Development
Regardless of the capacity status of government and civil society, their role is a means to the end that really matters - that of building capacity for individuals to realise their potential for better lives. Unfortunately, top-down perceptions of what constitutes "better lives" do not always coincide with real needs.
|
| Bhutanese villagers mapping resources © Piet van der Poel |
This is not to say that there is no place for educating communities in needs which are known to improve prospects for the well-being of their families. For example, sanitation programmes are unlikely to succeed without appropriate hygiene education.
Literacy remains one of the most potent capacity tools, becoming even more relevant for livelihoods in rapidly expanding urban populations. In rural areas, educational capacity building has been particularly well served by the tool of community radio, especially in Africa.
The motive for effective results also lies behind the tailoring of capacity building projects for women and, to a lesser extent, young people, as these groups are known to be key agents for poverty reduction and economic endeavour.
Sexual and reproductive health programmes create capacity for significant improvement in the welfare of women and children. As well as the obvious health benefits, improving access to safe water saves collection time, creating capacity for women to work and for girls to go to school.
Many countries have been forced to scale up their disaster risk management in response to the threat of climate change. The shelters and cyclone early warning systems constructed in the deltas of Bangladesh provide an example of community capacity building in this context.
Partnerships
Given the difficulties experienced at each of these levels of capacity building, it is no surprise to find that institutional donors encourage formal project alliances. Capacity shortcomings can be overcome more effectively through parties working together, sometimes with private sector involvement.
|
| Bolivians protesting against water privatisation © Julie Plasencia / AP / The UNESCO Courier |
Reluctance to work in partnership can result in a failure to identify and respond to priority capacity needs. The preference of some international private foundations to focus on eradication of a specific disease, rather than partnering governments in the provision of general health facilities, is an example.
A consequence is that good progress on MDG targets for HIV and AIDS coexists with significant failure to reduce child and maternal mortality rates.
One form of partnership in capacity building projects has stirred up global controversy - public-private partnerships in which municipal government engages the private sector to build capacity for public services, ranging from health to energy.
Multilateral institutions which encourage this path argue that private corporations have access to capital and expertise to deliver value for money and efficiency. Opponents point to the irreconcilable conflict between business aims to maximise return on capital and the duty of government to provide essential services to all, rich or poor.
There is evidence that private utility projects have created capacity for middle class areas at the expense of the poor. As a result, arrangements involving the private sector in public service delivery in developing countries are now more likely to feature partnership than privatisation.
Sanjay Pradhan, Vice President of the World Bank Institute, stresses the importance of partnerships in the future of capacity development in Africa, from TheCDG2009FILMS.
Technology
Information and communications technologies (ICTs) have become an integral component of capacity building at all levels. The concept of e-governance can encourage citizen participation in the decision-making process and make government more accountable, transparent and effective.
|
| Learning about Living training in Bauchi, Nigeria © Adam Groves |
Distance learning and e-learning tools have also increased their outreach within developing countries. The provision of local language content in these initiatives becomes a vital component to complete the circle of capacity building.
New mobile phone technologies threaten to eclipse even this catalogue of achievements. In particular they can overcome the shortcomings of poor landline coverage and low bandwidth.
Already there are successful and sustainable models for provision of recruitment, health and agriculture information by phone in sub-Saharan Africa. Given the enthusiasm of Africans for phone technology, such programmes provide a rare example of beneficiaries requiring little in the way of capacity building support to learn how to use the development tool.
Foreign Aid Dilemmas
Recognition of capacity building as the key tool for international development has inevitably attracted a greater share of foreign aid for that purpose, at the expense of traditional programmes providing direct support to individuals.
This creates dilemmas for the major institutional donors. In our era of economic austerity, donors are under pressure from their stakeholders (taxpayers and private givers) to account for and maximise the number of beneficiaries per dollar of funding. Capacity building programmes do not lend themselves to measurement by results.
Further difficulties emerge from international negotiations to improve the effectiveness of foreign aid. The 2005 Paris Declaration, together with its review, the 2008 Accra Agenda for Action, represents a determined attempt to rebalance the relationship between donors and recipient governments.
The Declaration states that “capacity development is the responsibility of developing countries, with donors playing a supportive role.” Progress will be reported at a major conference on aid effectiveness in Busan, South Korea in November 2011. Evidence suggests that donors have been nervous of accepting the political and economic risks of ceding too much control over aid funds for capacity building.
African governments are unquestionably more confident in asserting the right to manage their own affairs, decoupled from aid conditions. They have also expressed concern that capacity building is of no value in isolation. Closer alignment with results for community development could restore the structure of accountability preferred by the donors.
If you like this site, please make a voluntary micropayment to help OneWorld publish its educational Guides (credit/debit card or PayPal).
| £1 | US$2 | EUR2 | AU$2 | CA$2 | NZ$3 | SG$3 | PHP50 |
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