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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.
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.
Interview: Riding the green wave
13 September 2011
Elizabeth
Dipuo Peters, Minister of Energy, Republic of South Africa
South Africa’s path to universal energy access
South Africa is on track to achieve near-universal access to energy by 2015, a remarkable achievement given that 15 years ago, only 30% of the population had access to electricity. Minister Elizabeth Dipuo Peters, explains how they did it.
MoreInterview: Less teaching more learning
13 September 2011
Sombath Somphone, Director of the Participatory
Development Training Centre, Laos
Innovative education in Laos
PADETC, the Participatory Development Training Centre, introduces active approaches to learning
in Laos, where education is still based on a passive and traditional one-way-transfer of knowledge
from teacher to students.
Interview: A well respected voice
12 September 2011
Betty Maina, Executive director, Kenya
Association of Manufacturers
Fostering a beneficial business environment in Kenya
The Kenya Association of Manufacturers has tackled a very challenging political system to bring about a more favourable business environment.
MoreOther 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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