Welcome to Capacity.org: a gateway for capacity development

Welcome to Capacity.org, a resource portal for the practice of capacity development and the home of Capacity.org journal, published two to three times a year. Building on the topics covered in the journal, this website aims to facilitate access to a broad range of related online resources that practitioners can draw on for their own work. These include the latest research findings, analytical frameworks, policy debates, practical experiences and toolkits. Through links to ongoing discussions and communities of practice, we enable practitioners to find and link up with diverse organizations, professional networks and communities of practice for further support and knowledge exchanges.

Capacity.org collaborates with the Learning Network on Capacity Development (LenCD) and the Capacity Development Network (Capacity.net) to make knowledge resources on capacity development more accessible to policymakers, researchers, development practitioners and funding organizations.

Core Topics

For a quick overview of key resources available on Capacity.org, grouped by thematic area and topic, please follow the links below. (For a full list of topics, please select ‘view all topics’) .

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Featured resource

Using (South-South) knowledge exchange for capacity development: What works in global practice?

While knowledge exchange, especially between countries facing comparable challenges, is widely recognised as a tool for facilitating development innovation, there has been little empirical work to assess the effectiveness of such programmes with a view to informing global practice. This joint study by the Korea Development Institute (KDI) and World Bank Institute (WBI) assessed three of their South-South knowledge exchange programmes in Asia, Africa and Latin America.

Search Terms:: casestudies; analytical frameworks; south-south cooperation; africa; asia; latin america

More resources

Pathways out of poverty: Applying key principles of the value chain approach to reach the very poor
The value chain approach has traditionally focused on improving the competitiveness of the entire market system through engaging existing value chain actors; few programmes have deliberately targeted the extreme poor or disaggregated direct impact by poverty levels. This discussion paper from the USAID microlinks programme was designed to present guidance for practitioners, recognizing that consensus around best practice is still emerging.
How to write Terms of Reference for an evaluation
Developing an accurate and well-specified terms of reference (ToR) is a critical step in managing a high-quality evaluation. The evaluation ToR document serves as the basis for a contractual arrangement with one or more evaluators and sets the parameters against which the success of the assignment can be measured. This practical guide from the World Bank's Independent Evaluation Group sets out a few basic principles and guidelines to help in the development of an effective evaluation.

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To find resources that match your interests or field of expertise, use the "Advanced Search" link below to browse through more than 20 capacity development topics that we track regularly.

Issue 43 : September 2011

Voices of capacity development

Next Issue: Making markets work for small-scale farmers

With the global population expected to grow to 9 billion people by 2050, the role of small-scale agricultural producers is drawing increasing attention at the highest policy circles. Until now, much of this has focused on connecting producers to markets. But there is also growing critique of market-based development, resulting in a highly polarized debate between ‘rights-based’ and ‘ market-based’ approaches. Issue 44 of Capacity.org, to be published in April 2012, will focus on a key missing element in this debate: the role of producer agency and capacity to make effective choices in the face of powerful external interests. Bringing insights from different disciplines, the issue aims to help reshape the debate and to find solutions how markets can made to work for small scale farmers.

Capacity.org Blog

Bringing the invisible into perspective: ECDPM call for reflection and materials on the 5Cs framework

10 January 2012

In December 2011, the European Centre for Development Policy Management (ECDPM) published a synthesis report on initial practices and lessons emerging from organizations in developing countries that are using the five core capabilities (5Cs) framework to support capacity development at various levels. The reference document is intended to make these and other practical experiences more widely accessible.

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Consider the organizational life cycle when evaluating the effectiveness of capacity-development support

13 December 2011

In August 2011, the Policy and Operations Evaluation Department (IOB) of the Netherlands Ministry of Foreign Affairs, published a report titled ‘ Facilitating resourcefulness’, which presented the results of an extensive evaluation of Dutch support for capacity development, based on the five core capabilities (5CCs) evaluation model. One of the evaluation’s key findings is that Southern organizations exhibit a high level of donor-dependency. For NGOs in particular, donor funding provides a vital lifeline. In other words, without donor support they do not have the capacity to survive, or as it is described in the 5CCs parlance, “the capability to adapt and self-renew.”

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