Conceptual and methodological issues
Introduction
The recent attention given to capacity development in international policy discussions means that a renewed effort is required in order better to understand what capacity is, how it develops and what outside partners can do to support it. While much progress has been made to better understand capacity development, there remains considerable demand for further research and analysis to enhance the way the topic is conceptualized and practiced. Given its importance to development cooperation and development effectiveness, it is surprising how little attention has been given to ensuring that capacity development is provided with a robust conceptual and methodological underpinnings.
In this regard, it has been slow to develop a solid foundation of thinking and analysis to support activities and it is only recently that the academic community has begun to look at the topic seriously. It also remains the fact that the discussion on capacity development has been very much driven by northern development agencies, and that the shared understanding is not as broad as might be desirable.
This resource corner highlights some of the on-going debates and discussions on capacity development at a conceptual and methodological level. The focus is on the "how" and "why" of capacity development and change (management) and should as far as possible encourage thinking out to the box. Examples of issues covered include:
- the contribution of systems thinking to understanding capacity and its development
- monitoring and evaluation for capacity development
- results frameworks for capacity development
- ownership and what is really means
- context and its implications for ownership.
- leadership development in the context of developing countries taking charge
- culture and the implications for capacity development.
Editor’s choice
The Need for a Conceptual and Results-Oriented Framework in Capacity Development: Discussion of a New Approach, By Samuel Otoo, Natalia Agapitova, Jenny Gold, and Sharon Fisher, April 2009, Issue No. 31
Efforts to develop capacity are being hindered by disparate methodologies, insufficient focus on outcomes and indicators, and a lack of concrete results to show improved capacity. The authors examine the need for a new resource to guide, capture, and communicate capacity development efforts. They outline a results-driven and systematic framework—based on rigorous needs assessment, innovative change process logic, and participatory implementation—that is driven by local ownership, adaptive management, and measurable results. This resource could fill a critical gap in capacity development design and reporting, as well as fuel further discussion in the development community.
The Challenge of Capacity Development: Working Towards Good Practice
This paper, approved by the OECD/DAC Development Assistance Committee on 14 February 2006, provides a common framework and language to pursue capacity develpment more effectively in practice. It reflects comments and contributions received from DAC delegates on 21st September 2005 and from GOVNET members at the 7th GOVNET meeting on 20-21 October 2005.
Capacity, Change and Performance Synthesis Report
This research provides fresh perspectives on the topic of capacity and its development. It does so by highlighting endogenous perspectives: how capacity develops from within, rather than focusing on what outsiders do to induce it. The research also embraces ideas on capacity development drawn from literature outside the context of development cooperation. Although the research draws implications for international development cooperation, it does not specifically examine donor agency experiences in capacity development, or related issues of aid management and effectiveness. The final report, which this brief is based on, provides a comprehensive analysis of the findings and conclusions of the research programme.
This brief highlights key findings and conclusions of the final report and presents implications for external agencies engaged in capacity development in the context of international development cooperation. It contains a bibliography listing the publications produced in the context of this study.
UNDP Paper on Measuring Capacity [22/07/10]
This paper attempts to help development practitioners unbundle the question, "what is the measure of capacity?" The paper presents a framework for better defining, capturing and communicating capacity development results. The framework begins with the end in mind – national development goals.
Capacity Building in Africa An OED Evaluation of World Bank Support. World Bank, 2005
African countries need to improve the performance of their public sectors if they are going to achieve their goals of growth, poverty reduction, and the provision of better services for their citizens. Between 1995 and 2004, the Bank provided some $9 billion in lending and close to $900 million in grants and administrative budget to support public sector capacity building in Africa. This evaluation assesses Bank support for public sector capacity building in Africa over these past 10 years. It is based on six country studies, assessments of country strategies and operations across the Region, and review of the work of the World Bank Institute, the Institutional Development Fund, and the Bank-supported African Capacity Building Foundation.
Good Practice / Case Materials
The Rapid Results Approach (RRA) is a results-focused implementation and learning process aimed at jump-starting major change efforts and enhancing implementation capacity. This approach can complement and reinforce the traditional training-oriented, knowledge-transfer approach to capacity enhancement.
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.
Useful Web-sites and partners
Capacity development page at Wikipedia
This is a collaborative space which allows those interested in capacity development at theoretical and practical level to contribute to the knowledge base.
Study on Capacity, Change and Performance. 2008, European Centre for Development Policy Management (ECDPM)
ECDPM completed a five year research programme entitled “Capacity, Change and Performance". The research provides fresh perspectives on the topic of capacity and its development. It does so by highlighting endogenous perspectives: how capacity develops from within, rather than focusing on what outsiders do to induce it. The research also embraces ideas on capacity development drawn from literature outside the context of development cooperation. Key questions addressed by the study are: What does capacity look like? How does capacity develop endogenously? What is the driving force behind successful capacity development? Does better capacity necessarily lead to better performance? What can outsiders do to support capacity development? This website provides access to a range of documents produced during the course of this research programme.
IDRC recognizes that evaluation makes an essential contribution to learning and acquiring knowledge about effective approaches to research for development. This webpage provides access to publications, programmes, methodologies, tools and links related to IDRCs work on evaluation.
This page provides a listing of publications, case studies and evaluations related to the use of the rapid results approach.
Opinion pieces / discussion platforms
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.
Whose flag counts – Dominique Hounkonnou
Contribution to the Bonn 2008 Accra HLF preparatory workshop on Capacity Development
Paradigmatic Shifts in CD for an Effective State and Engaged Society – BT Constantinos
Contribution to the Bonn 2008 Accra HLF preparatory workshop on Capacity Development
Other knowledge resources
Asian Development Bank (ADB). Effectiveness of ADB Capacity Development Assistance: How to Get Institutions Right. 2008.
This Special Evaluation Study (SES) has adopted a combination of the ADB and OECD-DAC frameworks to assess CD performance, including four CD levels—individual, organizational, network of organizations, and the enabling environment. Within this framework, the SES has adopted DANIDA’s resultsoriented approach to assess the effectiveness of CD interventions in achieving CD outputs and outcomes at the first three CD levels. The fourth CD level (the enabling environment) is treated by this SES as contextual/external factors affecting changes in CD outputs and outcomes in the first three levels. The SES introduces results matrixes by sector to trace the results chains of ADB’s CD inputs and outputs, linked to contributions to CD outcomes at each of the three CD levels and to overall sector outcomes
Asian Development Bank (ADB). Capacity Development in South Asia. 2007
The study examines selected capacity development (CD) interventions by the Asian Development Bank (ADB) in South Asia. It is the first study of CD specifically across South Asian countries. The focus is on the impact of CD interventions on the capacity of key executing agencies (EAs) in selected sectors to perform their functions satisfactorily. The objective is to identify ways of making future CD interventions in the subregion more demand-driven, effective, and efficient. The study builds on reviews of ADB’s operations relevant to CD and on recent work by the Capacity Development Working Group (CDWG).
Norwegian Agency for Development Assistance. Synthesis Study on Best Practices and Innovative Approaches to Capacity Development in Low-Income African Countries. Norad (2008)
This study focuses on the delivery of public goods and services in five sectors: health, education, water, sanitation, and electricity.
UNDP Defining and Measuring Capacity Development Results - one page summary [27/07/10]
A one-page summary of UNDP's Paper on Measuring Capacity. The summary also includes a list of resources available for planning and programming for capacity development, and measuring and communicating the results of such investments and interventions.
Ownership, Leadership and Transformation (Full Text)
This volume, the third book in the series, explores the operational implications, from the standpoint of capacity development, for dealing with longstanding development dilemmas. It aims to provide additional impetus to the current drive for harmonization of donor practices as convergence around country priorities, processes and systems. It also addresses head on some of the most problematic issues related to incentives, such as compensation schemes, project implementation units, brain drain and corruption.
Building Effective States, Forging Engaged Societies. Report of the World Bank Task Force on Capacity development in Africa.2005.
This report of the Task Force on Capacity Development in Africa analyzes four decades of capacity development experience in Africa and offers key messages for African countries and their international partners that should underpin a renewed effort to develop, use, and retain capacity for development in Sub Saharan Africa. It also presents specific recommendations of how the World Bank, as a leading development agency in the region, should step up its analytical, financial, and operational contribution tocapacity development as part of a coordinated international effort under the Paris Declaration on Aid Effectiveness.
Assessing the Effectiveness of Assistance in Capacity Development
Feedback is the dynamic process of presenting and disseminating information to improve performance. Feedback mechanisms are increasingly being recognized as key elements of learning before, during, and after. Assessments by executing agencies of the effectiveness of assistance in capacity development are prominent among these.
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
This paper analyses the relation between local ownership in a selection of Swedish aid projects and the manner in which aid is provided. It addresses analytical problems of defining ownership for organizations and methodological problems in the empirical investigation. Key findings of the study are firstly that local ownership cannot be created by other parties, but can be enhanced and facilitated.
Human capital development in the fields of community development, workforce development and social enterprise is extremely challenging, costly, and difficult to measure and evaluate its effect on the issues it seeks to address. As a result, it has been largely unsupported, with attention instead being focused on organizational development and program and service-delivery models.
"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.
The Ingredients of Capacity Enhancement: Three Case Studies in Telecommunications
This WBI paper looks at capacity enhancemenent (CE) at the institutional (or policy) level. It uses an analytical framework to investigate three main elements (or ingredients) of capacity enhancement—a country's resources and capabilities, its institutional environment, and the existing incentive structures and pressures. The framework is applied to three country cases in the telecommunication sector trying to isolate factors for success and failure.
Hirschmanian Themes of Social Learning and Change
Many development strategies assume (or desperately hope) that a country already has the capacity to plan and implement institutional reform or that such reform can be pushed through with the external pressures of aid and conditionalities. In a decentralized reform strategy, developmental change is induced not by government fiat but by releasing and channeling local energies in smaller projects that will in due course spread through links, learning, imitation, and benchmarking. A "Christmas tree" of conditionalities hung on an adjustment loan is generally ineffective in getting a country to develop "ownership" of reform or in generating sustainable change. Development agencies need to work toward client governments' genuine commitment to policy reform rather than believe that they can "buy" such commitment with aid money. But how does a country get from here to there?
Recent research on capacity development confirms that capacity development is a far more complex and intractable challenge than is often thought. This brief -- written primarily for decision-makers and managers that support capacity development processes -- indicates alternatives to technocratic approach to capacity development, and implications these innovative approaches have for practice.
