Capacity development web sites

Nils Boesen  Various resources that Nils Boesen has developed for agencies such as EuropaAid, CIDA and Danida 

Capacity is Development

CapacityDevelopment.ning.com a World Bank supported site for a CD community of practice.

Capacity.org This website is the home of the Capacity.Org journal and also provides regular updates about the broader world of capacity development, primarily for practitioners. The issues covered are organised around resource corners that provide the latest research and policy news, practical toolkits and online resources, publications, and organisational initiatives under each topic. See http://www.capacity.org/en/resource_corners/learning and particularly http://www.capacity.org/en/journal/archives/organizational_learning

Articles of specific interest:

• Rethinking capacity building Alnoor Ebrahim, 2009  This thought piece in capacity.org discusses the reasons why 50 years of capacity building initiatives have failed, and argues for greater attention to be paid to developing analytical and adaptive capacity.

• The managing for impact approach There are increasing calls for new Monitoring and Evaluation (M&E) approaches that encourage learning and participation. The authors explain how the managing for impact approach places M&E at the centre of learning and management processes

• Capacity.Org Issue 36 Capacity Development for Water and Sanitation  This issue of Capacity.org looks at the capacities that need to be developed in order for the water and sanitation targets for 2015 to be achievable. The main focus is on capacity needs at the intermediate and local levels, but links between macro-level policy making and local-level implementation are also addressed.

• Capacity.Org Resource Corner on Fragile Environments  How can the international community support sustainable capacity development in fragile state contexts? Stabilising the governance infrastructure in post-conflict situations sometimes requires the outsourcing of nearly all government roles in the early stages of recovery. It is nonetheless critical for external interventions to support the transition to country-owned and country-led development by strengthening emerging capacity where it crystallises. This resource corner builds on Issue 32 of Capacity.Org journal to highlight the latest debates and emerging best practice in this area.

• Capacity.Org Issue 29 Monitoring and Evaluation  This issue of Capacity.org offers an overview of the different methods and techniques that add new dimensions to results-based M&E. Some allow, for example, the observation of changes over a longer period of time, and offer ways to make such changes more tangible. Other innovative forms of M&E can themselves contribute to capacity building. In this issue, practitioners who have developed such methods describe and explain how they have used them.

• Rethinking capacity building Capacity building projects are often seen as a means of providing NGOs with the tools they need to effectively deliver programmes or services, and of ensuring the ability of recipients to demonstrate accountability for the financial aid received. However, insights from over fifty years of experience suggest that conventional types of capacity building have often failed to bring about improvements in organisational effectiveness, performance, and accountability.

• The managing for impact approach There are increasing calls for new Monitoring and Evaluation (M&E) approaches that encourage learning and participation. The authors explain how the managing for impact approach places M&E at the centre of learning and management processes

• "Exploring the soft side of capacity development," Capacity.org, Issue 24 The international debate on capacity development has long recognised the importance of soft skills, such as the ability to engage in negotiation or dialogue, to create a feeling of trust, to network and partner, and to facilitate process or change management. A myriad of manuals have been produced containing tools for collaborative work that are designed to develop such skills. What these publications often fail to discuss, though, is what is needed to put these tools to work.

• Dilemmas and directions How can donors and their partners support sustainable capacity development in fragile states? This article addresses key issues and dilemmas that members of the international community confront in answering this question.

Capacity4Dev.eu a powerful knowledge management tool aimed at improving technical cooperation, launched BY EuropeAid as a central component of the Backbone Strategy for technical cooperation (TC) reform. This project is managed by DG Europeaid - Directorate for Quality and Impact - unit B1 on "Quality of Delivery Systems".

Don Clark an American consultant specialising in learning and performance, train-the-trainer, and designing eLearning and training processes and platforms. On his website he has made available an impressive range of writing, tools and techniques that he has developed and used in his work.

Development Gateway and http://zunia.org/ for development Communities

Development Practice a collaborative project of HIV AIDS organisations in South Africa, has made available online, as collective commons, a coordinated set of CD resources, including learning resources and facilitators guides, 

FAO CD portal includes internal programme on CD for FAO staff, CD concepts, CD approaches in programme management, and capacity assessment tools (FAO specific)

IDS – Participation, Power and Social Change Team The website of the Participation Power and Social Change team at IDS has the details and outputs of various projects. See the sections on Learning and Social Change, the Capacity Collective, Learning and Teaching for Transformation, and Facilitating Learning and Action for Social Change (FLASC).

The Impact Alliance The Impact Alliance is a global action and learning network committed to strengthening the capacity of individuals and organizations to generate deep impact within the communities they serve.  It provides space for sharing, learning and collaboration in order to define and develop standards of excellence that improve performance. The website has many resources about development, including capacity, from different sources worldwide.

INTRAC Praxis Learning Programme  The Praxis Learning Programme was designed to enable civil society organisations to become more effective by linking theory and practice and by developing and disseminating learning around organisational capacity building. The website has a large resource of papers and practice notes covering many aspects of capacity development practice.

OECD/DAC Conflict and Fragility: Publications and Documents A listing of articles on capacity development and fragile states 

The South South Opportunity A community of professionals dedicated to South-South Cooperation, Knowledge Exchange and Learning for development.

UNDP Capacity Development Group their primary website with access to all their publicly available resources.

Wikipedia This is a collaborative space which allows those interested in capacity development at theoretical and practical level to contribute to the knowledge base. 

World Bank Capacity Development Resource Centre  Offers many articles, toolkits, case studies and links to other useful sites.

Next section: Internal agency CD learning initiatives and resources