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Change facilitation
By its very definition, capacity development implies facilitating or leading an entity to improved performance. This often entails helping different actors within an organization or across organizations to change and/or improve their interactions in order to bring about the desired changes.
Change facilitators do not only help to bring about the desired outcomes, they actively intervene in the capacity development process itself. The aim in doing this is to help the actors involved to engage, act and reflect on both the immediate challenge faced and the wider capacity development context. As the resources provided on this page show, the issues faced will vary considerably, depending on whether one is dealing with a single organization or network, or a broader multi-stakeholder process. Effective change facilitation requires a good understanding of, among others:
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Different advisory roles and the related behavioural requirements for change facilitators;
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Some of the underlying concepts and frameworks in change processes as well as a range of dialogue tools, methods and approaches used (for example action learning, social-organisational learning and knowledge networking);
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Specific approaches and tools for dealing with contesting values, politics, power, negotiation, conflict resolution and transformation, and mediation.
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Applications of these frameworks and approaches to specific change facilitation challenges, for instance multi stakeholder processes, social and public acccountability, and ‘value chain’ development
Several of the other topics featured on this website address aspects of these themes in more detail.
Featured Article
Learning to evaluate capacity development: The making of 'Facilitating resourcefulness'
This article is a supplement to Issue 43 of
Capacity.org. It takes a look behind the scenes of an extensive evaluation of 26 case
studies covering the support to capacity development of seven Dutch Development Partners under the
coordination and partial responsibility of the Policy and Operations Evaluation Department (IOB) of
the Netherlands Ministry of Foreign affairs. The evaluation aimed to draw lessons on how to improve
the effectiveness of future capacity development interventions.
- Search Terms:
- analytical frameworks
- casestudies
Recent Articles
Strengthening pastoralist voices in Tanzania
14 February 2012
This booklet, and its accompanying DVD, reports on the ‘Strengthening Voices’ project,
underway in two districts in northern Tanzania. The project aims to strengthen the capacity of
pastoralist communities and local governments to shape strategies for adaptive environmental
management and poverty reduction in Tanzania’s drylands. At the core of the project is a training
course that explains the economic and ecological processes at the heart of pastoral systems -
clarifying the rationale that underpins pastoral livelihood strategies.The course is based on a
similar initiative that has been field-tested and run in the Sahel region of West Africa since
2000.
Supporting improved livelihoods for pastoralists
27 January 2012
Pastoralism is often depicted as an anachronistic system that cannot cope with the demands of
modern development. However, practical experience reveals that pastoralism is not only capable of
changing with the times, it is often the only viable livelihood option, particularly for
communities living in remote, dryland environments. This collection of case studies from SNV
Netherlands Development Organisation demonstrates that external support can help to strengthen
pastoralists' voice in policymaking, enhance their engagement with markets and improve service
provision and natural resource management in some of the most challenging environments in Africa
today.
Building nonprofit capacity
15 January 2012
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.
Learning to evaluate capacity development: The making of 'Facilitating resourcefulness'
30 November 2011
This article is a supplement to Issue 43 of
Capacity.org. It takes a look behind the scenes of an extensive evaluation of 26 case
studies covering the support to capacity development of seven Dutch Development Partners under the
coordination and partial responsibility of the Policy and Operations Evaluation Department (IOB) of
the Netherlands Ministry of Foreign affairs. The evaluation aimed to draw lessons on how to improve
the effectiveness of future capacity development interventions.
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.
MoreIn and above Conflict - A study on Leadership in the United Nations
27 October 2011
Peace
is seldom concluded when a peace deal is signed. The principal external role in consolidating peace
frequently falls to United Nations (UN) missions and agencies. Their ability to achieve this task
is contingent on many factors including resources and cohesive international political support. It
depends most critically on effective leadership. What are the unique, defining challenges to UN
leadership in conflict and post conflict environments? How have effective UN leaders approached
these challenges?
Other Topics
Essential Readings
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Facilitating multi-actor change
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M. Hemmati (2002) Multi-stakeholder Processes for Governance and Sustainability: Beyond Deadlock and Conflict, Earthscan
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Pruitt, B. and P. Thomas (2007) Democratic Dialogue – A Handbook for Practitioners, CIDA, IDEA, OAS and UNDP
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Wageningen International (2009) Building your Capacity to Facilitate Multi-Stakeholder Processes and Social Learning
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Divine Thaw and Warren Banks (2007) Facilitating Development Processes: Working in the Unknown, Olive-PPT, Durban
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De Caluwe, L. and H. Vermaak (2003) Learning to change: A guide for organizational change agents, Sage, Thousand Oaks, California
Featured Community
The Change Alliance: Using stakeholder processes and complexity thinking in governing for sustainability and social justice
The Change Alliance is an emerging
global network of organizations joining forces to increase the effectiveness of the
multi-stakeholder processes in which they engage. Its aim is to help improve the quality of
the design, dialogue, learning, and facilitation, on which these processes depend. The logic of the
Alliance is that complex problems demand a new dynamic of how governments, citizens, business and
civil society organizations work together. The Alliance facilitates a NING online learning
platform with interesting discussions, a Q&A section, blogs and announcements from
members.
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