Capacity Building

Definition

Definition

Capacity Building and Knowledge Management, integral to today's e-centric world.

Planned development of (or increase in) knowledge, output rate, management, skills, and other capabilities of an organization through acquisition, incentives, technology, and/or training.

Capacity Building in health is “the development of sustainable skills, organisational structures, resources and commitment to health improvement in health and other sectors, to prolong and multiply health gains many times over”. (Source)

This encompasses not only providing skills and awareness, but also creating channels, by means of partnerships, policy and leadership, through which this learning can be transferred into sustainable action. The UN Development Programme thus describes Capacity Building as the process of establishing both human and institutional capacity.(Source)

Rationale

Capacity Building is an important instrument in tackling social health inequities by enhancing the capacity of organisations at national, regional and local levels to address the social determinants of the health inequalities. The objective of capacity building is to develop competency among involved health professionals, and to install institutional measures, such as funding and policy, that are conducive to such efforts.

WHO Europe thus mentions broad-ranging capacity building initiatives, including organisational, partnership and leadership development and resources allocation, as fundamental for ensuring sustainable and equity-promoting capacity in systems at organisational and individual levels (Source). Given these potentials, the tool has become an inherent part of strategies of many municipal and local health services (Source).

Components of Capacity BuildingThe EU-funded “DETERMINE Consortium for action on the socioeconomic determinants of health” (link to website), brought together a wide range of stakeholders to define priority areas necessary for developing the capacity to effectively address social health inequalities. (Source). As the figure below illustrates, the Consortium identified six areas, which include:

1. Awareness raising and advocacy by collecting evidence on the given social health determinants, and formulating suitable advocacy strategies.

2. Developing the information and evidence base in order to understand and analyse the dynamics of the social health inequities, and to share this knowledge across the organisations involved.

3. Organisational development refers to an assessment of the capacities within the respective organisations with respect to tackling health inequities in order to identify the resources and structural changes required to effectively approach this challenge.

4. Skills development, which entails creating and providing knowledge and training on the social determinants of health to professionals within the respective organisations.

5. Partnership development and leadership, which is the process of examining how different organisations within the health sector, as well as externally, can collaborate and promote leadership on health inequities;

6. Policy development entails conducting policy assessments in the area of social health inequalities, and exploring how such aspects could be implemented into policy. (Source)

Six priority areas of Capacity Building & Awareness Raising (DETERMINE project)

Source: DETERMINE project, Menu for Capacity Building & Awareness Raising Action

What is community capacity building?

Community capacity building is one of three strands of community learning and development in Scotland. It describes a particular way of working with and supporting communities - to build skills and experience, increase opportunities, and enhance involvement in the decisions that affect them.

This can involve developing confidence, skills, structures and knowledge, to increase the opportunities communities have to make a real difference to the services, activities and changes that take place in their area.

Definitions of community capacity building

The Scottish Government's short definition of community capacity building is:

measures that strengthen the collective ability of a community

WALT glossary

A more detailed definition is given in the Scottish Government's Working and Learning Together statement:

...enabling individuals, groups and communities to develop the confidence, understanding and skills required to influence decision making and service delivery. This could include enabling communities to provide and manage services to meet community needs.

WALT

Our working definition of community capacity building is:

Development work that strengthens the ability of community organisations and groups to build their structures, systems, people and skills so they are better able to define and achieve their objectives and engage in consultation and planning, manage community projects and take part in partnerships and community enterprises. It includes aspects of training, organisational and personal development and resource building, organised and planned in a self-conscious manner, reflecting the principles of empowerment and equality.

Skinner, 1997

This definition was also endorsed by Community Learning and Development Managers Scotland in their PDf file: position statement on community capacity building in 2010.

What is a community?

A community is any group of people who feel a connection or a sense of belonging. It could be people living in a local neighbourhood, a town, or a block of flats. Or it could be people who share similar characteristics - like people of a similar age, gender or sexual orientation. Or it could be an interest group, like a lone parents group.

This useful online glossary includes a good definition of community.

The values set out in the PDF file: National Occupational Standards for Community Development can also inform community capacity building.

Underlying principles

Community capacity building is underpinned by the principles outlined in the Scottish Government's Working and Learning Together statement for all community learning and development work:

Empowerment - increasing the ability of individuals and groups to influence issues that affect them and their communities

Participation - supporting people to take part in decision making Inclusion, equality of opportunity and anti-discrimination - recognising that some people

may need additional support to overcome the barriers they face Self-determination - driven by the principle that communities themselves drive capacity

building activity, and people are supported to make their own choices Partnership - recognising that many agencies can contribute to CLD.

All community learning and development activity should be driven by community need and demand, and developed jointly with, rather than for, the community:

A common defining feature is that programmes and activities are developed in dialogue with communities and participants.

WALT

Community capacity building is also importantly underpinned by:

Equality - taking an inclusive approach to community capacity building activities will strengthen and enhance everyone's experience, not just those from equalities groups

Collective ability - focusing not simply on building individual capacity, but that of the community as a whole. This means lots of activity to build and strengthen ways for people to come together in their communities.

Building assets - capacity building is not about focusing on what is wrong with a community. It is about taking existing strengths and giving these the opportunities and support they need to develop.

Key aspects

Community capacity building focuses on supporting community groups and organisations to improve the quality of life for their communities. It can look and feel different, and be approached in many different ways. However, there are some core activities at the heart of the approach, which include:

Strengthening skills to develop confident, skilled, active and influential communities, by:

supporting people to decide how and why they want to build community capacity - taking responsibility for identifying existing strengths, skills and resources, and meeting their own needs

personal development and training - to build on and develop individual and group skills and confidence

supporting people to become involved in their community and wider society in a fuller way

Strengthening structures to build effective and inclusive community organisations, by:

building structures - such as community groups and organisations, and routes to involvement in decision making

linking structures - supporting people to take part in structures that allow them to influence activity, and work jointly with others

supporting people to establish joint structures to manage or influence local services, activities and resources

Providing practical support, by:

making sure that communities have the practical help and support that they need to strengthen their skills and structures.

Find out more

You can download the PDF file: "What is community capacity building paper from the Churches Community Work Alliance website.

Tensions in community capacity building

There are some common underlying principles to community capacity building. However, this doesn't mean that there is always a common view or common understanding about exactly what community capacity building is, how it should be done, and what its purpose is.

There are differences in values and views that mean that often different organisations and individuals have different approaches to community capacity building. Just some of the tensions and variations in approach include:

Language - the words and phrases people use to describe community capacity building can vary. People can mean different things by them. For example, terms like 'community engagement', 'empowerment', 'participation', 'social capital' and 'community development' can be interpreted by different people in different ways.

Assessing skills - capacity building is about strengthening and building on the skills that communities already have. Sometimes, people take a deficit-based approach to capacity building, focusing on what is lacking in a community, and how to fix it. This does not sit well with others who are committed to an asset based approach, focusing on enhancing skills and building on existing strengths. Find out more from the PDF file: You Can Do Guide to Asset-Based Community Development.

Planning activity - sometimes community capacity building activity is led by what an organisation needs, rather than a community. At the heart of community capacity building  is the focus on community-led activity. But an organisation working in the field of community capacity building needs to start somewhere. In planning activity - even a strengths or needs assessment - the organisation's own priorities will almost always come into play. Simply being aware of this, and working to ensure that community priorities come first, will help.

Links to national outcomes - the Scottish Government is very clear about the contribution that community capacity building can make to national outcomes. With community planning partnerships now producing Single Outcome Agreements linked to national outcomes, these national priorities become important at a local level. So, many organisations working in community capacity building will need to demonstrate how their work links to these national outcomes. Most of the time, it will be relatively easy to make these links. But there can be a tension between working to national outcomes, and allowing capacity building to develop on communities' own terms. PDf file: Delivering Change sets out the outcomes that community capacity learning and development can contribute to, specifically identifying community capacity building outcomes.

Conflicting priorities - Sometimes, what a community wants can conflict with what your organisation wants. This can put staff involved in community capacity building in a difficult position. If, for example, your organisation has taken a decision to close a community facility, it can put you in a difficult position if the community you work with wants support to influence this decision. This means it is important that your organisation is clear about the support it can provide to communities, and what role you as an

individual staff member can play. This should be made clear to the communities you support, so that people know the level and type of support to expect.

Responding to increased power and influence - much community capacity building work is about supporting communities to have more power and influence. Some organisations can be very resistant to communities having an equal say or leading in decision making. There can be tensions between a commitment to build community capacity on one hand, and a difficulty with the organisation working with communities that have increased their capacity. Elected members can sometimes feel that their power base is being challenged. There can also be conflicts and tensions between different community representative structures.

The Scottish Community Mediation Centre provides training on community mediation and constructive conflict resolution. Many practical guides and briefing papers are available online.

This guidance cannot resolve the tensions within community capacity building. It is natural for people to have different views about how best to approach capacity building activity, and there is no one right way to approach work with communities. We have tried to highlight some of these tensions and challenges throughout the guidance. Being aware of these tensions - and working to address these locally - is an important part of work to build community capacity. Dealing with challenging behaviour is part of building your own capacity in this area of work.

Working to professional standards can help you to find your way through some of these tensions. The updated Community Learning and Development Competences provide an overview of what makes a competent worker in the field of community learning and development, including community capacity building.

The 2008 report published on the Scottish Government's website - Delivering Outcomes in CLD: Current Issues for Outcomes Focused Practice in Community Capacity Building provides a useful overview of some of the challenges and tensions within the field.

Capacity Building & Knowledge Management

Capacity Building and Knowledge Management, integral to today's e-centric world, constitute one of NISG's four main operational areas. The National e-Governance Plan (NeGP), aimed at improving delivery of public services by creating a citizen-centric and business-centric environment, can be better implemented if focused efforts are made to build capacities and manage knowledge at all levels of government.

About CBKM at NISG

The Department of Information technology, Government of India has entrusted NISG with the task to design and conduct training programs for different audiences group at the State and Central levels. Many States are launching e-Government projects, thus NISG is involved in Capacity Building for effective implementation of the NeGP.Currently, CBKM team at NISG is involved in promoting e-Governance standards in the country through designing and conducting various training programmes to enable the leaders in the e-Governance domain share their knowledge and spearhead a new set of e-Governance champions in the country, every now and then.CBKM’s expertise in the core areas of Capacity Building for the political, administrative, institutional and project levels which includes establishing - institutional framework, engaging personnel with required skill sets and experience with the required up gradation of the skills through training.In addition to that CBKM imparts short term trainings spanning one to five days on e-Governance and related areas for the political level and senior level Policy makers, HOD's of Central Government and State Governments.

Various customized training programs are also designed and conducted in the areas on e-Procurement, BPR, Leadership & Change Management, Knowledge Management etc.

Major training programs under CBKM

                     

Chief Information Officer

The Department of Electronics & Information Technology (DeitY) has entrusted NISG with the task of design and conduct the training program titled – “Chief Information Officers’ Training”, exclusively for such officers who are at the implementation level of the e-Gov projects.  NISG designed and conducted two such batches of specialized training under Chief Information Officers (CIO’s) Training Programme during November – December 2011. The CIO training is aimed to inculcate a deeper understanding of factors that result in failure or success and sustainability of e- Governance projects. The target group comprises the officers who are expected to play a lead role in e-Gov initiatives, right from conceptualizing to implementation and roll-out of a project. The overall goal was to accelerate implementation of e-Governance initiatives in India at all levels of Governments i.e. Central/State/UT(s).After undergoing this training program, an official is expected to have all the skills necessary to implement an e-governance project from conceptualization to complete rollout stage.

Three broad categories under CIO

e-Governance Leadership Programme (eGLP) : 2 batchesA two week module for Senior level officials from Central and State Government at the level of Jt Secretary (Central Government) and Principal Secretary/Secretary (State Governments).  The eGLP participation is open to all the MMP Departments across the Central and States/UTs.

e-Governance Champions Programme (eGCP): 4 batchesA four week module for Officers involved in project design and implementation (Central & State Governments). The eGCP trainings are aimed for specific identified sectors / MMPs-CCTNS, Immigration, MOIA, Passports, e-Districts, Education, Health, Municipalities, Women & Family Welfare etc.

e-Governance Executive Programme (eGEP): 2 batchesA six week module (split in two phases with a gap of two months) for Officers involved in project implementation (Central & State Governments).  These training are open to all departments.

Other training programmes under CBKM

Below given text of each training programme should come as link with heading of each training programme:

Leadership MeetTo address the orientation needs of the top Political and Policy Level and the State e-Governance Mission Team (SeMT) at the State/UT level, Department of Information Technology, Ministry of Communications & Information Technology, Government of India has proposed to provide training under the Capacity Building Scheme. NISG responsible for implementing and facilitating the training programs organizes three days Political and Policy level orientation / training named as "LEADERSHIP MEET" in all States/UTs.  Click here to view the calendar

State e-Governance Mission Team (SeMT)SeMT is a dedicated body at the State level consisting of full-time experts to provide an overall direction, standardization and consistency through program management of e-Governance initiatives under way in the State Government.

NISG conducted six batches of orientation trainings for newly joined members of SeMT in May 2011 covering 228 SeMT members along with 27 NeGD central team members. The focus of orientation was to familiarize the participants to NeGP, e-Governance ecosystem, important processes & aspects of e-Governance projects and experience sharing of e-Governance projects. Based on the feedback and key observations NISG conducted 3 domain specific workshops on change management, technology management and RFP.

Executive Post Graduate Program in e-Governance (EPGP_EG)NISG conceptualized a one-year full-time residential Program in e-Governance for Executives. This program is expected to build required manpower that can assume leadership roles in private and government organizations in conceptualizing, designing and implementing e-Governance Projects.NISG has collaborated with two of the business school viz, T.A.Pai Management Institute (TAPMI), Manipal and Indian Institute of Management (IIM) Indore to conduct the above courses.

Capacity Building

Around the world, international industries and investors face stakeholder pressure to increase investment in host country work forces while continually improving the quality of environmental, health, safety and social (EHSS) performance. Striking this delicate balance will challenge companies to improve how they invest in, guide, support and help develop the capacity of in-country consultants, rather than relying on imported international teams. Acorn International was founded to offer a service model based on guided partnerships that ensure world-class assurance and maximized local content in EHSS consulting services. Capacity building is a critical element of our business model.

What is Capacity Building?Capacity is the ability of people, organizations and society as a whole to manage their affairs successfully. Capacity development is the process whereby people, organizations and institutions (society) as a whole unleash, strengthen, create, adapt and maintain capacity over time. Capacity building is often understood to mean a purposeful, external intervention to strengthen capacity over time.

For the extractives industry, capacity building can focus on internal and external stakeholders, and can encompass any or all of the following:

Capacity Building Position PaperAcorn International's Position Paper describes some current challenges of international capacity building and outlines why it is important to us, as well as our industrial and investment clients, to continually improve performance in the strengthening of in-country EHSS services.

ces and Capacity building

At the core of Barclays Microbanking Initiative, BBG devised the “A-B-C of Microbanking”, a three pronged approach aimed at serving the needs of the informal sector by supporting existing financial intermediaries and their clients in the areas of Awareness creation (A), Banking services (B) and Capacity building (C) (Barclays PLC 2005).

A for Awareness creation: the awareness component was designed to help Susu collectors clients in gaining the confidence to use basic financial skills for the effective management of their money;

B for Banking services: BBG introduced specialized banking services for on-lending to the final clients and facilities for savings to be delivered through the “Dwetiri Current Account”. BBG also adjusted its opening hours in order to suit the lodgement requirements of Susu collectors, thus satisfying their needs for a safe place to keep the clients’ savings after their collection rounds. Furthermore, specialized bank tellers have been dedicated to deal with the specific requirements of the Susu collectors.

C for Capacity building: the capacity building program was aimed at providing training and support tailored to the needs of the participant Susu Collectors: considering that the Susu business is focused on saving mobilization, building the capacity for managing the lending activity was essential.