MODULE 1

CORE CONCEPTS

What is capacity?

UNISDR: Capacity is the combination of all the strengths, attributes and resources available within a community, society or organisation that can be used to achieve agreed goals.

ECDPM: That emergent combination of individual competencies, collective capabilities, assets and relationships that enables a human system to create value.

Ubels et al, Earthscan/SNV: The ability of a human system to perform, sustain itself and self-renew.

UNDP: The ability of individuals, institutions and societies to perform functions, solve problems, and set and achieve objectives in a sustainable manner.

3 levels of capacity

Enabling Environment: Broader system within which individuals and organisations operate and function

Organisational Level: Policies, procedures and frameworks - allow an organisation to operate and deliver on its mandate and enable

individual capacities to achieve goals

Individual level: Skills, experience and knowledge

Enabling environment

Organisational

3 levels of capacity

Individual

Levels of capacity are not stand alone

All need to be taken into account when determining 'who' needs 'what‘ capacities for 'what purpose‘

Organisations need to support changeCould impact power structuresSupportive enabling environment critical

Focus on one level unlikely to succeed!

What is capacity development?

• UNDP: The process through which individuals, organisations and societies obtain, strengthen and maintain the capabilities to set and achieve their own development objectives over time.

• OECD/DAC: Process whereby people, organisations and society as a whole unleash, strengthen, create, adapt and maintain capacity over time.

• UNISDR: The process by which people, organisations and society systematically stimulate their capacities over time to achieve social and economic goals, including through improvement of knowledge, skills, systems and institutions.

Capacity development is:

An ongoing process of change that needs to take place over time

An iterative process, neither linear nor sequential, which includes learning

from, changing and developing operations

A process that looks beyond individual skills and a focus on training

One of the most critical issues for donors, development organisations and

countries alike

A complex challenge to provide support of the type that contributes to

capacity development at all three different capacity levels of society

From capacity building.....

• Capacity building mainly a technical process, involving the simple transfer of knowledge or organisational models from North to South

• Focuses only on the initial stages of building or creating capacities

• Assumes that there are no existing capacities to start from

• Implies that capacity is something that is built by outsiders

• Tries to ‘fill the gaps' in organisational and individual capacity

• Results in a lack of ownership of the process

• Undermines the capacity of partners to actively pursue and exercise control over their own development

Capacity building is relevant in crisis or immediate post-conflict situations where much of the existing capacity has been lost due to capacity destruction or capacity flight.

....to capacity development

• Capacity development emphasises that capacity is something that must grow from the inside

• Benefits from receiving stimulation externally but not developed by outsiders

• Capacity development is one of the most difficult focus areas for international programmes

• Capacity development is increasingly becoming an explicit objective of national and poverty reduction strategies

Capacity of what and whom?

Two types of capacity:

Functional Capacity (or soft capacity)• cross cutting in nature• organisational capacities and adaptive capacities• management capacities to formulate, implement and

review policies, strategies programmes and projects

Technical Capacity (or hard capacity)• technical, functional, tangible and visible• particular areas of need, specific sector requirements• skills, explicit knowledge and methodologies,

organisational capacity to function, or laws,

policies, systems and strategies

hardProductsServicesResults

softLearning

AdaptationRelationships

Capacity of what and whom?

Successful capacity development programmes are founded on:

• Understanding people’s and organisations’ current capacities

• Must further strengthen and build on those existing capacities

Culture and contextualisation

Context: political and institutional systems, inter

country relationships, power dynamics,

economic, geographic and social factors

Capacity defined and understood within culture

and context

Culture and context offer potential levers for

change

Culture: Value systems, beliefs, norms, societal

practices+

In summary

• All 3 levels of capacity must be addressed during capacity development processes

• Capacity development is an ongoing iterative process that takes time

• There are two types of capacity: functional/soft and technical/hard

• Capacity development must start from and build on existing capacities

• Capacity development cannot be imported but must be an endogenous process, shifting the balance away from supply driven support

• Capacity development is one of the most fundamental and difficult global challenges

• Capacity development needs to become an explicit objective of national development and poverty reduction strategies