Capacity.org | A Gateway For Capacity Development

Becoming professional: the practice of capacity development

Capacity development has come of age as a field of theory and practice. Concluding their ground-breaking resource volume for practitioners (Capacity Development in Practice, Earthscan, 2010), editors Jan Ubels, Naa-Aku Acquaye-Baddoo and Alan Fowler point out that a key sign of maturity is the way in which stakeholders within the sector are "beginning to deal with the interconnections relevant for addressing real-life issues and ambitions." As most development challenges are to be addressed by combinations of actors working together, they require capacities that live not only within them but also between them," they note. Such capacities include an expansion in the range of services as well as opportunities for strengthening 'demand power', improving quality of support, scaling up local solutions and reforming financing arrangements.

In order to equip thousands of practitioners around the world with the requisite skills to meet these challenges, the Volume's editors propose three areas of focus in the further development of the capacity development sector:

A process of intensive, practitioner-focused reflection to distil useful insights from the body of work that has been done so far;

Accelerate efforts to arrive at a shared understanding of 'the art of intervening', through exploring such questions as: What constitutes a capacity development intervention? What informs the intervention choices that practitioners make? Can the full array of intervention choices be organized in a coherent way to inform decision-making? How can capacity development interventions be tailored to different contexts? ;

Encourage the systematic tapping of Southern perspectives and experiences in further shaping debate and engagement.

These principles can be further embedded in day to day practice through such practical steps as:

encouraging systematic learning processes through critical reflection and testing of ongoing capacity development initiatives;

enhancing mechanisms for peer review and public debate;

providing greater access to educational programmes and professional training;

supporting practitioner-led action research;and

improving engagement with wider society, funders and governments to enhance understanding of the capacity development field.

Building on this 'call to action' this section aims to bring together emerging debates and knowledge to contribute to the professionalization of capacity development practice. We encourage your feedback and ideas to help move this discussion forward.

About "Theory U": Resources from the Society of Organizational Learning

Screen shot TheoryU book In Theory U: Leading from the future as it emerges (SoL, 2007), C. Otto Scharmer expounds on the theoretical foundations of what he calls "the social technology of precensing". Presencing is a blend of the words "presence" and "sensing", and is defined as "the ability to sense and bring into the present one's highest future potential—as an individual and as a group".

Theory U is presented as a new territory of scientific research and personal leadership, one that is grounded in real life experience and shared practices. Otto Scharmer invites us to see the world in new ways by learning to become aware of our "blind spot", by sharing from his own personal and professional development. The final chapters lay out principles and practices that allow everyone to "participate fully in co-creating and bringing forth the desired future that is working to emerge through us".

Search Terms:: books; multimedia; analytical frameworks; casestudies

How to write Terms of Reference for an evaluation

23 January 2012

Screen shot 2012-01-23 at 11.41.43 AM 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.

Building nonprofit capacity

15 January 2012

Cover-building nonprofit capacity This book uses the organisational lifecycle framework to help the nonprofit sector and its leaders figure out how to effectively shepherd a change process in their organization. The book is based on research by the TCC Group, a New York based consultancy, in the area of organizational effectiveness studies. It also includesd results from the core capacity assessment tool (CCAT) - a 146-question online survey that measures a nonprofit organization's effectiveness in relation to four core capacities - leadership, adaptability, management, and technical capacities - as well as organizational culture.

Capacity building for local NGOs: A guidance manual for good practice

15 January 2012

In the early 1990s, as Somaliland emerged from civil war and conflict, indigenous non-governmental and community-based organisations mushroomed. International organisations began targeting reconstruction and development aid through local organisations and quickly came to realise the need for institutional strengthening and capacity building. To coordinate these efforts, a number of organisations came together to create an international NGO forum known as the Capacity Building Caucus (CBC) in 1999. The aim of the CBC was to ensure learning from best practice, coordinate, capacity-building activities, and eventually to promote sustainability through a ‘training of trainers’ programme for Somali capacity- building officers.

This package of manuals was developed in part as a curriculum for the training of trainers programme, and in part for use by individual local organisations to assist them in the ongoing process of developing their own capacity.

Training opportunity: Facilitating value chains

10 November 2011

Enterprise Development through Value Chains and Business Service Markets: A Market Development approach to Pro-Poor Growth is an 8-month distance learning course offered by the International Training Centre of the International Labour Organisation (ITC ILO) in Turin, Italy. The course will appeal to professionals involved in developing and implementing Value Chain and enterprise development projects. The course starts on 19th March 2012 and will comprise four modules of two months each.

A practitioners guide to results-oriented capacity development

07 September 2011

Capacity development is usually marketed as a ‘process of change’. However, there is little point to change for the sake of change. Results-Oriented Capacity Development. A Practitioner's Guide for Leaders of Organizations and Development Managers, published in August 2010 by the Austral Foundation, offers a simple and practical approach to leaders, programme designers and managers, advisers and facilitators for implementing a results-based approach to capacity devleopment.

Facilitating resourcefulness: Synthesis evaluation report of Dutch support for capacity development published

29 August 2011

A long-awaited evaluation report of Dutch support for capacity development carried out by the Policy and Operations Evaluation Department (IOB) of the Dutch Ministry of Foreign Affairs has been published. The report synthesizes the findings of seven separate evaluations carried out since 2008, and covering 26 individual case studies. The evaluation is the result of collaboration between IOB and six Dutch NGOs (Agriterra, Netherlands Commission for Environmental Assessment, Netherlands Institute for Multiparty Democracy, Partos, PSO, SNV) and the Ghana Ministry of Health.