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Learning
Without learning, there can be no capacity development. Learning is the ability to acquire new knowledge and skills. It enables individuals, organizations and higher level human systems adapt, self-renew and respond to sudden changes and crises.
The available body of knowledge on learning is vast and encompasses areas of psychology, pedagogy, education, neuroscience, and increasing also economy and management sciences. The resources available on this page explore some of the challenges of bringing about learning at three levels: individual, organizational and institutional.
At the individual level capacity development practitioners need to engage in personal learning through self reflection. They also guide others in growing their personal competencies through learning. At the organizational level capacity development practitioners help facilitate collective learning processes that are aimed at enhancing overall performance. Furthermore, they contribute to building a learning culture, whereby learning becomes part and parcel of the organisation's day-to-day work processes. Finally, capacity development practitioners are increasingly being called upon to support learning within more complex multi-actor processes processes, in which individuals and organizations from a diverse social, political and professional spectrum attempt to work together for the common good.
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
Building capacity for competitive agricultural systems and enterprises in West Africa (Video)
30 January 2012
This
film presents four examples of Agri-Business Clusters in Ghana and Togo. They
illustrate the experience of entrepeneurial individuals in building small to medium scale
businesses through new relationships with colleagues and so-called Agri-Business Cluster and Value
Chain partners.
Using (South-South) knowledge exchange for capacity development: What works in global practice?
26 January 2012
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.
How to write Terms of Reference for an evaluation
23 January 2012
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.
Linking agricultural research and practice: Climate analogues tool helps farmers anticipate their future climate
09 January 2012
"Climate Analogues" is a new open access
tool launched at the UN Climate Change conference in Durban in December 2011 that aims to help
farmers to assess the impacts of progressive climate change on agricultural production. The tool
locates sites where the climate today is similar to that predicted for another location in the
future, enabling farmers and policymakers to determine how to adapt to anticipated
changes.
CAPACITY → RESULTS
30 November 2011
This
new publication from the Learning Network on Capacity Development (LenCD) features case stories on
capacity development and development results. The collection showcases how endogenous investments
in capacity development have led, over time, to produce short, medium and long-term sustainable
results.
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.
Other Topics
Essential Readings
-
Irene Guijt (2010) Accountability and learning: Exploding the myth of incompatibility between accountability and learning” in Ubels, J., N. Acquaye-Baddoo and A. Fowler (eds) Capacity Development in Practice, Earthscan, pp. 277-292
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Bruce Britton (2010) Self Reflection: monitoring and evaluation for personal learning, in Ubels, J., N. Acquaye-Baddoo and A. Fowler (eds) Capacity Development in Practice, Earthscan, pp. 264-276
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Simon Hearn & Nancy White (2009) Communities of practice: Linking knowledge policy and practice, ODI, November 2009
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Ben Ramalingam (2009) Organizational learning for aid, and learning aid organizations, Capacity.org # 33
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Peter Senge (1990) The Fifth Discipline: The Art and Practice of the Learning Organization, Currency Doubleday
More Web Resources
Featured Community
Featured communities
Capacity Development is a professional community of practice on Ning (a social
networking platform). Hosted by the World Bank Institute, the community currently has close to
700 members.
Capacity Development aims to unite a community of practitioners and experts
to encourage discussion on capacity development practice and results and the sharing of
related resources and experiences. The community is open to new members and includes practitioners
engaged or interested in capacity development in several contexts, such strategy, planning,
diagnostics, programme design, monitoring and evaluation, and systematic learning about what
works.
The
Learning Network on Capacity Development (LenCD) is an informal network of analysts and
practitioners aimed at creating a global community of practice around capacity development. Its
objectives are to facilitate the sharing of lessons and distill quality criteria for good practice;
promote research, share experiences, monitor outcomes and carry out other empirical work; foster
country-level, regional and international dialogue and collaboration; promote the mainstreaming of
capacity development issues into agency operations; and act as a key partner to advance the
OECD/DAC’s capacity development agenda.
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