Capacity building is a noble concept, and it has received much praise, scholarly thought, and criticism since the early 1990s. Craig (2007) cites a report that hails capacity building as the “new holy grail” of development programming (p. 335). Though a tinge of sarcasm lines his comment, he rightfully observes the incredible attention given to capacity building in recent years. Major institutions such as the World Bank are in a frenzy attempting to measure its efficacy and pinpoint its meaning. Yet the attention is deserved and even overdue. In 1974, the United Nations Research Institute for Social Development (UNRISD) coined the term “capacitation,” to refer to the capacity building process as an operation that will “permit a given society to meet its problems in the future” (Smillie, 2001, p.10). Its origins are also commonly said to lie in the Agenda 21, the product of the United Nations Conference on the Environment and Development in Rio de Janeiro (UN, 1992). Capacity building is also often referred to by its more popular synonym: empowerment. A useful definition provided by the Sierra Leonian development practitioner Thomas Mark Turay shows how the meanings of “capacity building” and “empowerment” are intertwined:
Capacity building [is] a process through which the people of a given society are motivated to transform their physical, socioeconomic, cultural, political, and spiritual environments for their own well-being and the advancement of their society. Capacity building is about empowering people to take control of their lives (Turay, 2001, p. 122).As seen from this explanation, capacity building and empowerment are closely related, and they are often used interchangeably. The World Bank views empowerment as, “increasing poor people’s freedom of choice and action to shape their own lives” (Narayan, 2005, p. 4). Compare this with the UK Charity Commission’s definition of capacity building as “developing the capacity and skills of the members of a community in such a way that they are better able to identify and help meet their needs and to participate more fully in society,” and one sees the correlations between the two terms (Craig, 2007, p. 343).
Deborah Eade of Oxfam wrote a guide on capacity building in 1998 that was comprehensive at its time. In Capacity Building: An Approach to People-Centered Development, Eade poignantly inverts the idea of capacity building to refer to the development practitioners themselves, thereby highlighting it as a mutual process. She writes, "An agency's ability to learn from and respect the experience of the men and women it aims to serve may be the most important capacity of all" (p. 192). Poor communities are not the only entities that need strengthening. In a healthy NGO-client relationship, relief and aid workers are “downwardly accountable” to community members at every stage of their work (Eade, 1998). Therefore, capacity building appears as a working relationship between NGOs and their clients in which the skills of both are valued and utilized to meet agreed upon developmental goals.
What is it not?
Capacity building is presented in a variety of ways, many of which curtail its true meaning. For instance, training seminars and workshops are perhaps the most common form of supposed “capacity building.” Many NGOs are proficient in hosting training sessions meant to transfer their knowledge to local clients. Often, workshops are not even requested by the community, nor are the chosen topics relevant to their context.[i] Smillie argues, as the workshop example demonstrates, that capacity-building initiatives cannot be conceived of and primarily implemented by outsiders; they are less effective when expatriates are determining exactly what kind of “capacity” needs to be built (Craig, 2007, p. 342). Clearly, capacity building is not as simple as a mere transfer of information, though information sharing can be one very important aspect.[ii] Similarly, Narayan (2005) points out that launching income-generating programs for women does not denote “economic empowerment,” since participants do not necessarily have greater decision-making power or freedom of movement in society as a result (p. 22). Capacity building is not embodied in one particular activity, but it is an approach to relief and development that results in the empowerment described above by Turay.
Though the meaning of capacity building is often misunderstood, there are a variety of legitimate uses that require clarification. Organizations may use “capacity building” to refer to their own internal operations. Bolstering accounting or management systems are forms of building organizational capacity. Craig notes that, in the U.S., capacity building is most often used in this internal sense. Major NGOs and multilateral organizations often refer to building the capacity of governing structures in poorer countries. This is especially prevalent with the United Nation’s (UN) and World Bank’s recent focus on promoting “good governance” in developing nations.[iii] Finally, many NGOs speak of local capacity building which occurs in the grassroots arena. These agencies interact with locals on a more personal basis, actively seeking to empower communities through their development and relief programming. Due to their ability and experience working on a community level and their unique position between the government and citizen sector, NGOs are some of the best equipped entities to engage in local capacity building (Eade, 1998). Though capacity building must occur at a variety of levels, this paper will focus on the importance and power of community-based, local capacity building, though at times it will be referred to simply as “capacity building” (Narayan, 2005, p. 6).
FOOTNOTES
[i] Smillie says that Bosnian NGOs claimed that they never wanted to sit through another workshop on how to write a mission statement or grant proposal (Smillie, 2001, p. 17)
[ii] The Uganda Water and Sanitation NGO Network (UWASNET), for example, sees itself as building CBO and NGO capacity for improved water systems through sharing of information between local, national, and international bodies. This is a valuable means of capacity building, but it is minor when compared to the greater implications outlined in this paper. For more information on UWASNET, see Nafula (2004). The 2005 World Disaster Report (IFRC, 2005) also focuses on the importance of information sharing for improving disaster preparedness and response in communities, which can also be framed as building local capacities to deal with disaster: http://www.ifrc.org/publicat/wdr2005/index.asp
[iii] One only need to browse a few of the Poverty Reduction Strategy Papers (PRSPs) and other comprehensive strategy documents put out by the Bank, UN, or IMF to see the term “good governance” in extensive use.
REFERENCES
Eade, D. (1998). Capacity-Building: An Approach to People-Centered Development. London: Oxfam Publications.
Narayan, D. (2005). Measuring Empowerment : Cross-Disciplinary Perspectives. Herndon, VA, USA: World Bank, The.
Smillie, I. (2001). Patronage or Partnership: Local Capacity Building in Humanitarian Crises. Bloomfield: Kumarian Press.
Smillie, I. T., Goran. (2001). Reconstructing Bosnia, Constructing Civil Society: Disjuncture and Convergence. In I. Smillie (Ed.), Patronage or Partnership: Local Capacity Building in Humanitarian Crises. Bloomfield: Kumarian Press.
In 2010 I conducted research on the concept of capacity building for a disaster and relief mitigation graduate course at Eastern University. I share excerpts from my research here, in a series of posts called Capacity Building: What Does it Take?
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