Farmers must be given the opportunity to strengthen their position in global food value chains. Value chains represent the sequence of activities through which value is added to a product from its raw form until it reaches the consumer. The more farmers participate in value chains, and the more they benefit from higher prices, the better they...

Many organisations dedicated to poverty reduction have realised that this is not good enough. experimented with ways to improve their performance through learning since Peter Senge published his trailblazing book The Fifth Discipline: The Art and Practice of the Learning Organization in 1990. Although Senge drew mainly on experiences and insig...

The concept of the ‘fragile state’ entered the development discourse when, in the early 1990s, governance in Somalia disintegrated. Thousands of people fell victim to violence and millions faced starvation. Fragile states, however, were not given much attention in development policies. Donor countries concentrated their aid on fewer countries,...

Welcome to issue 31 of Capacity.org on accountability. In this issue we focus on the question: what initiatives citizens can take to hold decision makers, service providers and development practitioners accountable to their commitment to reduce poverty? The articles in this issue deal primarily with two specific relationships: that between gov...

In many countries non-state providers play a vital role in the delivery of basic services. Based on research in six countries, Richard Batley assesses how governments could work in partnership with non-state providers and promote better services for poor communities.

Many years of experience in the field had led David Watson to question the value of monitoring and evaluation. Recently, a range of innovative to M&E approaches has given him new hope. Here he explains why.

This issue of Capacity.org includes contributions on various aspects of leadership. Leadership is about action and about change at the individual, organisational and societal levels. Ultimately, leadership is indispensable for the development and growth of capacity.

Throughout Africa civil society networks are successfully engaging with the state and attempting to influence public policy in order to accelerate poverty reduction and national development. Drawing on the experiences of civil society networks in the PRSP process in Ghana, this article discusses whether engagement has actually led to their emp...

Issue 26 traces the evolution of the debate on capacity development, and outlines our ambitions for Capacity.org as a forum for discussion and a gateway to relevant information. This is not the first issue of Capacity.org - it was launched some six years ago by the European Centre for Development Policy Management (ECDPM) - but this issue mark...

It is generally recognised that we need to bridge the gap between macro policy levels and local communities. Practical exchanges among different levels of action need to be facilitated to achieve a better mutual understanding between policy-makers and implementers.