How can we best assess capacity building initiatives? Canada’s International Development Research Centre (IDRC), in line with many development organisations, has been grappling with this question for a long while. Capacity development for research is fundamental to IDRC`s existence and in 2005, the IDRC Evaluation Unit launched a strategic evaluation to investigate the organisation’s contribution to developing the capacities of the people and organisations with whom it works.

How can we best assess capacity building initiatives? Canada’s International Development Research Centre (IDRC), in line with many development organisations, has been grappling with this question for a long while. Capacity development for research is fundamental to IDRC’s existence, and in 2005, the IDRC Evaluation Unit launched a strategic evaluation to investigate the organisation’s contribution to developing the capacities of the people and organisations
with whom it works.

The IDRC study found, not surprisingly, that capacity building is an abstract concept, with different definitions reflecting many disciplines, values and ideologies. Capacity development is complex, but can sometimes be used as a catch-all phrase by practitioners when they have difficulties articulating exactly what it is they want to do or achieve through a project or programme.

IDRC staff and partners have strong views and beliefs about capacity development. Even the language used is full of allusions to power and control, and to how learning and change happen. Although there is a great deal of descriptive information regarding development projects that have attempted to build capacity, there are few systematic reviews analysing how research stakeholders construct the concept of capacity building in order to understand how it can be effective.

In response, we designed a study that would provide IDRC’s staff and senior managers with an intellectual framework and useful common language to help understand and document the concept, experiences and results that IDRC has accumulated over the years. The evaluation
focuses on the processes and results of IDRC support for developing the capacities of its
southern partners. What capacities have been enhanced, whose, how, and how effectively?

Spanning a period of four years, the evaluation comprises five phases. Phase 1 aimed to define what IDRC means by ‘building’ or ‘developing’ capacities and to sharpen our understanding of how and with whom IDRC supports capacity development.

Phase 2 developed a set of typologies to assist IDRC staff and partners in conceptualising, planning, monitoring and evaluating capacity development at the individual researcher, organisational and network levels. The first two phases also produced a number of frameworks, including the ‘research-into-use’ framework (see diagram), for planning, monitoring and evaluating capacity development with individuals or groups of researchers.

Phase 3 produced a working definition of capacity development at IDRC – not an easy
exercise considering the diversity of perspectives and disciplines within the organisation and among IDRC’s partners.

Phase 3 also generated a list of ‘good practices for capacity development’ capturing the key elements that IDRC staff and partners view as critical to building research capacities. The good practices are not intended, however, to act as a formal metric against which project results can be measured. Rather, they offer guidance and act as an organisational barometer to ground the corporate culture and values that define IDRC support to capacity development.

Given the growing interest within IDRC to understand the complexities of building research organisations, phase 4 aimed to provide evidence on how IDRC develops ‘complete capacity’ to carry out research-based activities within organisations. Six case studies examine different types of organisation (universities, networks, NGOs, a member of the Consultative Group on International Agricultural Research, and a national government) in different regional contexts. This phase also produced a cross-case analysis and a paper focusing on how IDRC could identify and communicate aggregate results more effectively both internally and externally.

In the fifth and final phase of this strategic evaluation, which will end in early 2010, we will prepare a synthesis brief highlighting the key findings and the most useful frameworks emerging from the study.

Link

• Capacity building at IDRC, a strategic evaluation: www.idrc.ca/evaluation_capacity