Understanding capacity development from within

12 September 2011

The June 2011 issue of Capacity.org, ‘Fighting disease or strengthening health systems’, highlighted the huge backlog of work that still needs to be done to apply the principles of the Paris Declaration in the health sector.

In this issue we would like to communicate three core messages to Busan:

• Capacities develop when the initiative comes ‘from within’.
• External support can provide a valuable boost to capacity development processes but only as adjunct to internal leadership, drive and commitment.
• It is possible to measure capacity development results and to demonstrate their contribution to overall development results, but realistic timelines must be set for assessing their impact. More investment is needed to develop appropriate monitoring and evaluation methodologies

Effective capacity development

In terms of developing capacity, significant progress is being made in many fields. In this issue, we invited a number of change agents to speak about their experiences in leading change processes. They all came back with stories of how investment in capacity has contributed to sustainable results.

The interviews in this issue cover a wide range of sectors and countries: achieving universal access to energy in South Africa, improved sanitation in Nepal, a more favourable business environment in Kenya, enforcing compliance with environmental laws in Zambia and introducing active approaches to learning in Laotian schools. Through their diversity, these cases convey a set of consistent messages and patterns:

• Capacity development begins at home, building on local or domestic dynamics, ambition, leadership and commitment.
• The starting point for local actors who drive capacity development efforts is to find ways to make meaningful contributions to positive social change rather than focusing on delivering the preset targets demanded by external partners.
• Drivers of capacity development are able to mobilise multi-actor engagement for change, which generates legitimacy and provides the basis for a viable revenue model. The WASH movement in Nepal is funded by resources of the central government, the local government and the commitment of hundreds of volunteers. The main source of income for the Kenya Association of Manufacturers is membership subscriptions and the fees it gets for services. The Environmental Council of Zambia earns most of its income from government budget allocation and licensing fees.
• The time it takes for capacity development to transform into better performance varies, and often does not correspond with a typical project cycle. Sometimes it may take more than ten years, while in other situations significant achievements can be realised in a much shorter time.

The role of external support

External aid can provide a significant boost to country-led processes. However, if external partners focus on the performance of their own aid, policies, approaches and knowledge, their support is more likely to hinder than support a country’s efforts.

The cases in this issue were not selected on the basis of whether or not capacity development support had been provided by donors. The key phrase we used in our search for interviewees was that they could talk about capacity development that has led to significant change.

We found that in all cases, external support had been instrumental. Such support consisted of knowledge brokering, facilitating multi-actor processes, twinning, financing, technical assistance or a mix of all these. Whatever the precise mix, external support appears to have been effective when it was flexible and responsive and when it combined substantive ‘sector’ knowledge with a sense of how to support change and build relationships. Also important in terms of effectiveness was that these efforts were underpinned by a commitment to mutual learning.

All interviewees emphasised the importance of maintaining an atmosphere of trust and openness between development partners. For this to occur, it is necessary for external partners to be willing and able to understand the capacity development process ‘from within’ and to try to look at circumstances from the perspective of the owners of the capacity development process.

When processes are led by domestic actors, the role of aid becomes one of support. Such a role demands a change in thinking that many in the aid sector still find hard to accept because they are uncomfortable playing second fiddle. Nevertheless, a competent second fiddle contributes more to the music than a soloist who ignores the conductor and is out of sync with the rest of the orchestra! Capacity development results are most likely to be achieved when there is a competent local ‘conductor’ in place and where aid plays a constructive support role.

Evaluating capacity development

The ability to understand the capacity development process from within depends on the ability to carry out good monitoring and evaluation of the processes and support. With regard to evaluation, we see that many aid agencies still focus their evaluations on their own interventions and pay little attention to the perspectives of the capacity development owners and to the broader context within which they must operate.

In the September 2009 issue of Capacity.org, Piet de Lange of the Policy and Operations Evaluation Department (IOB) of the Netherlands Ministry of Foreign Affairs announced an evaluation with a different approach. The IOB evaluation of capacity development support would allow the evaluators to focus on how capacity has developed from within rather than to look only at what outsiders had done to support it.

At the time of going to press, the findings of the IOB evaluation had not yet been published. As soon as they are made public, we will send our e-subscribers a supplement containing interviews with Piet de Lange and others involved in this evaluation.

[EDITOR'S NOTE: The synthesis evaluation report has been published and is can be accessed here]

The IOB evaluation, with all its merits and shortcomings, as well as several other evaluations which have taken a similar approach, are pioneering initiatives in the evaluation of capacity development, a field that still remains under-explored. Considering the investment in capacity development, it is remarkable that the management-for-results-and-measurement drive remains focused on the physical results of initiatives, with less in-depth attention paid to understanding how sustainable capacity is achieved.

Yet expectations remain high that evidence of the effectiveness of capacity development support will be delivered. In the North, the socio-political context within which evaluations are conducted has become very charged. The benefits of capacity development may be evident to those who are experiencing it, but this is not enough for the aid sector. They need to measure and quantify results in order to demonstrate to tax payers that they are getting value for their money. Policy makers are looking for hard evidence that capacity development support satisfies the policy agendas of the day. Politicians are also looking for material for sound bites that suit their short-term political tactics.

However, recipients of capacity development support, and those who lead programmes are looking for ways to improve practice and make it more professional through learning. Evaluators are caught in between, and quickly find out that it is impossible to deliver all things to all people.

In his contribution to this issue, Doug Horton highlights the confusion that exists in this area. He explains why the evaluation process rarely satisfies and outlines ways in which those in the evaluations business could do better. Doug’s contribution is an evaluation in its own right, and is recommended reading for those who want to know how to approach capacity development evaluations.

Commitment, modesty and professionalism
In the build-up to Busan, the ‘voices’ in this issue of Capacity.org offer three clear messages. The general one is simply that there are no meaningful and sustainable results without capacity. And the many examples of effective capacity growth across sectors and domains teach us that capacity growth takes place ‘from within’.

• If the international community is serious about results on the ground, it must start to understand the insider perspective. The Paris Declaration’s principle of ownership still stands firm. If external development partners focus on their own aid, policies, approaches and their own knowledge they will hinder rather than support effective local dynamics.
• External support for capacity development can be significant, as long as it is responsive, relevant and based on mutual learning and trust. It has to work as an adjunct to internal leadership, drive and commitment and can be sourced increasingly from the South and the East.
• A huge leap forward is needed in the monitoring and evaluation of capacity development. In view of the money invested in capacity development, we need better, customised evaluations that tell us more about how capacity development takes place and how external partners can provide meaningful support. If we do this, evaluations will contribute to learning and to meeting mutual accountability commitments.

 

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Members of the Capacity.org Editorial Board

Jan Ubels (SNV)

Niloy Banerjee (UNDP)

Volker Hauck (ECDPM)

Hettie Walters (ICCO)

Heinz Greijn, Editor-in-chief, Capacity.org