Global review and cataloguing of capacity building organizations in water and sanitation for

developing countries

Tommy Ka Kit Ngai, Ph.D. Director, Research Learning, CAWST

&Romain de Oliveira, Cherubina Lepore, Marie Mattens, Taru Sibanda, Mark Sweet

Cranfield University

CAWST – a new member of SuSanA

We are a NGO established in Calgary, Canada in 2001.

We provide training and ongoing consulting to governments, community groups, and local and international NGOs of all sizes.

Our core expertise is in household water treatment, but we increasingly train on household sanitation, community health promotion, water quality testing, domestic rainwater harvesting, and project planning.

Since 2001, we have conducted 400 training workshops in 40+ countries, attended by 7000+ people from 1000+ organizations.

Purpose of this study

• To understand who are the capacity building organizations in the WASH sector, what they do, and where.

• Identify potential gaps in the global capacity building landscape

Method• Examined 72 networks of WASH organizations (e.g. those

associated with Cap-Net).

• Reviewed the website of these organizations, and identify those that do capacity building (over 200 found).

• Limit the study to those that build capacity of other organizations (104 found), rather than those that build capacity of end-users.

• Developed a catalogue of 5 sections:

• basic information of the builder (e.g. location, annual budget);• capacity building policy (e.g. top-down or bottom-up approach, themes

of capacities targeted);• capacity building targets (e.g. who and where are the beneficiaries); • actions taken (e.g. training, networking, technologies taught); • and how the capacity building efforts are monitored and evaluated

• Obtained information from website, questionnaire and phone calls.

Example

Example

Findings - headquarters location

Among the 104 capacity builders…

Findings – organization type

Findings – year of creation

Note: some organizations were established long ago, but only recently became capacity builders (e.g. SNV). The original creation date is plotted here.

Findings – creation decade and region

Findings – annual budget

Note: this is the total budget of the overall organization. Not all of the budget is used for capacity building activities.

Findings – capacity building approaches

Top-down approach e.g. Change client’s organizational policyBottom-up approach e.g. Train client staffPartnership approach e.g. Works together with clientCommunity organizing e.g. Form new committee/organizations

Findings – capacity building actions

Findings – WASH topics

Findings – WASH topics

Findings – other topics

Findings – target organizations/clients

Findings – financial charging policy

Findings – monitoring & evaluation on capacity building activities

Summary and gaps

• Capacity builders are mostly European NGOs, providing training on technical subjects.

• There seems to be duplication of services in some areas, so better coordination and sharing of information may improve efficiency.

• There are few indigenous capacity builders, and more is needed.

• Capacity building activities concentrates in capital cities, and lacking in rural or more remote areas, where the capacities of the local organizations are the lowest and needs are the greatest.

• Few capacity builders provide full suite of services (e.g. training + mentoring + consulting + networking + partnership).

• Capacity building is a long-term process yet few builders build long-term relationship or provide long-term support to their clients.

• Few capacity builders track how their clients perform after the capacity building support.

Limitations

• Capacity builders that do not have websites are not included.

• Website information are not always up-to-date or comprehensive.

• Different organizations uses different terms, so it was sometimes difficult to categorize.

Your suggestions and feedbacks are highly appreciated.Please let us know if you found any error or omissions.