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> Introduction
The AAA commits developing countries to the integration of CD within national sector and thematic policies and strategies as a matter of priority.
Capacity development strategies and objectives should be an integral part of partner country national, sector and thematic policies and strategies, rather than treated as stand-alone or as an add-on. An increasing number of developing countries and donors have adopted sector wide approaches that integrate capacity development within country policies and strategies in specific sectors. One of the major challenges currently being faced relates to the definition of clear and measurable capacity development objectives to be included in supported country strategies, so as to make capacity development an explicit policy priority.
The sector level provides a particularly suitable context for embedding capacity development:
· Theory meets practice. The sector level provides an appropriate level to bring together conceptual ideas from the top with operational realities and dilemmas that emerge from the bottom.
· Encouraging a country-owned agenda. The sector level offers the opportunity for CD strategies to become an integral part of a sector development strategy. It can help country partners take ownership of capacity development, no longer treated as something separate that donors do to help, but something that is an integral part of the sector development process for which local stakeholders need to take charge.
· Helping to harmonise and align external support. It provides a potential framework around which the role of development partners in supporting a country-led CD strategy can be discussed in more concrete terms both in relation to “what” and “how” questions, and especially in relation to the possible contribution of TC.
· Promoting Dialogue and Learning. The process of preparing a CD strategy is as important as the product that emerges. This is because it encourages stakeholders to engage in discussion about capacity issues and in the process to confront sometimes divergent notions and views on what is important. It can help generate a common language that makes the shift away from sometimes symbolic reference to CD.
· Multi-actor engagement. It is at the sector and thematic level that different actors and stakeholders including government both central and local, private sector actors, civil society can meet to address concrete policy questions and implementation challenges.
· Leadership and resources. It is at the sector level where most development resources are budgeted, planned and delivered, and where CD champions can play an important role in influencing the allocation of adequate resources.
This resource corner highlights a selection of resources that address the challenges and opportunities of embedding capacity development within national, sub-national, sector and thematic policies and strategies.
> Editor’s Choice
The Political Economy of Policy Reform: Issues and Implications for Policy Dialogue and Development Operations World Bank 2008 Access full text:
How can donors improve the effectiveness of policy reform processes? This study from the World Bank addresses the political economy of sector reform in agricultural marketing, and water supply and sanitation. It uses a social analysis perspective to analyse stakeholder interests, incentives, institutions, risks and opportunities. Development agencies should undertake timely political economy analysis and establish a sustainable process for building broad coalitions. They should also promote transformative institutional change that includes empowering forms of bottom-up accountability.
First Steps Towards Joint Capacity Development in the Transport Sector in Ethiopia
http://sites.google.com/site/lencdorg/cd-learning-initiative/cdli-ethiopia-transport-sector
How can the transport sector in Ethiopia strengthen its capacity through a joint approach? How can fragmented, often supply driven capacity building support be transformed into a more coherent, holistic approach that addresses both sector-wide issues and capacity building in individual organisations, in a sector with multiple national public and private actors, as well as multiple development partners? These were the topics for the first pilot Joint Capacity Development Learning Event, held in Addis Ababa in October 2008 on the initiative of the European Commission.
Guidelines for Capacity Development in the Education Sector
http://fti.threshtech.com/media/library/CDguidelines.pdf
The guidelines offer a holistic approach to support governments to analyze the status of education in their country, to set goals and work together in achieving those and making the best use of a country's strengths and balancing their weaknesses. They introduce a strategic, participatory and "best fit" approach to capacity development in the education sector, support a country government in preparing a sound Education sector plan, identify capacity gaps and existing resources for implementation and address capacity gaps with a CD strategy in a systemic way.
> Good Practice / Case Materials
This Practical Guide has been developed in response to the targets defined in ADB’s action plan for capacity development.1 It is in particular designed to increase demand-orientation and effectiveness of upstream technical capacity development support.2 The Practical Guide also responds to the recommendation of ADB’s Operations Evaluation Department to provide guidance for assessing capacity development needs and strategies.
Asian Development Bank (ADB). Integrating Capacity Development into Country Programs and Operations: Medium-Term Framework and Action Plan. 2007
In 2004, the Asian Development Bank (ADB) adopted capacity development as a thematic priority. By doing so, ADB acknowledged that strengthened country capacity is not only a means to achieve public sector performance but a goal in its own right. A working group was established to develop an operational medium-term framework and budgeted action plan to enhance the effectiveness, efficiency, and sustainability of ADB-supported capacity development interventions. This report summarizes the findings and recommendations of the
working group.
This Practice Note provides UNDP staff and other development practitioners with a concise overview of the capacity challenges involved in local development as well as an easily adaptable five-step approach to address them. The note is not meant to be a comprehensive toolkit or guide but rather a review of different approaches to local development from a capacity development perspective based on best practices and lessons learned.
What Makes Local Government Work? Social capital, leadership, participation and ownership in Benin
The basic question of the study is to measure the impact of capacity development programmes on the municipal performance to improve the economy, the health and education, as well as the living conditions of its citizens. Benin’s municipalities use a municipal development plan to achieve this improvement. What is the relation between the performance in implementing the municipal plan and the level of social capital, the quality of leadership, the use of participatory approaches and the feeling of ownership? This study answers this question using proxy indicators for these concepts.
Ethiopian Ministry of Capacity Building
The Government of Ethiopia has declared developing capacity one of its main objectives. It formalized this commitment in 2001 by establishing the Ministry of Capacity Building (MoCB), the only country in the world to have such a ministry. The MoCB is a crosscutting ministry which, in addition to its own programs, works with other ministries- from the Ministry of Finance to the Ministry of Trade and Industry to the Ministry of Education- to enhance and accelerate those ministries’ capacity development efforts. The MoCB also focuses on private sector support and decentralizing the capacity development process to the regions
A Study on Results Based Planning in the Philippine Rural Development Sector
This study analyzes past and ongoing activities and achievements regarding the introduction of
results based planning and budgeting systems in oversight and the rural development agencies
in the Philippines.
Developing Health Sector Capacity in Cambodia – Patterns, Challenges and Lessons
This report presents the findings of the second part of a study commissioned by the Royal Government of Cambodia to examine the contribution of technical cooperation to capacity development in the Cambodian public sector. The first study provided a general and country-wide overview of trends and experiences in the use of technical cooperation across the entire public service. This second study explores the various issues raised in the first report in the context of the health sector. The findings of both studies serve two purposes. First, to support the efforts of the RGC and development partners to improve aid effectiveness. Second, to serve as an input to the Global Study on Technical Cooperation and Capacity Development that has been commissioned by a consortium of development partners.
> Useful Web-sites and partners
SNV Sources of Knowledge
This sub-page of the SNV source of knowledge provides a list of case studies related to SNV capacity development support at sub-national levels across a range of sector and thematic areas.
Health as a Tracer Sector – Aid Effectiveness at the Sector Level
Looking at aid effectiveness at the sector level is the best way to communicate widely about aid effectiveness. Examination of sectors allows for concrete measuring of results and in-depth understanding of problems. The Aid Effectiveness agenda has been confined to a restricted and high-level policy audience within agencies and international agencies. It needs to trickle down to practitioners and should be mainstreamed in all aid activities and at sector level. This is the best way to actually change behaviour. It offers concrete and tangible illustration of what the whole aid effectiveness/process and policy guidelines mean in countries.
> Opinion pieces / discussion platforms
The author discusses key messages emerging from the work of the World Bank’s Task Force on Capacity Development in Africa. He stresses that African governments and societies must take the lead in capacity development, which needs to be approached as a core area of country strategy for growth and poverty reduction. By Callisto Madavo. Development Outreach, September 2005.
CD and Sector Experiences – Agriculture – Alfredo Mazive
Contribution to the Bonn 2008 Accra HLF preparatory workshop on Capacity Development
> Other knowledge resources: tools, reports, books, ...
Will Patients be Better Off with a Decentralised Basic Health Service?
In Burkina Faso basic health services are progressively being decentralised to municipalities after the local elections of 23 March 2006. However, contrary to expectations, decentralization in many African countries has not lead to improvements in basic service delivery. This raises the question whether Burkina can fare better. This study analyses the nature of the relationship between four key actors (‘policy maker’, ‘service provider’ and ‘beneficiaries’ and ‘donors’) in terms of its effect on health service delivery. Risks are identified, which permits to focus on the restoration of the disrupted mechanisms of accountability. If no corrective arrangements are taken, the poorest patients risk paying the price.
Capacity.Org Issue 36 Capacity Development for Water and Sanitation
This issue of Capacity.org looks at the capacities that need to be developed in order for the water and sanitation targets for 2015 to be achievable. The main focus is on capacity needs at the intermediate and local levels, but links between macro-level policy making and local-level implementation are also addressed.
Norwegian Agency for Development Assistance. Review and synthesis of lessons learned from Institutional Cooperation and Capacity Building in the Environmental Sector in Norwegian Development Cooperation. Norad (2008)
20Institutional%20Cooperation%20and%20Capacity%20building.pdf
As part of its wider mandate to support the implementation of capacity development themes raised in the Accra Agenda for Action, LenCD has begun developing a set of seven web-based resource corners. Each resource corner consists of six sections: i) a narrative orientation text ii) top ten web-based publications iii) good practice/ case materials iii) list of useful web-sites and partners, iv) opinion pieces/ viewpoints v) list of additional knowledge resources. Eventually these resource corners will be accessed via a knowledge platform offering a range of functionalities that will facilitate interactive sharing and dissemination of knowledge and experiences related to the capacity development themes. Content of each resource corner will be regularly updated with the support of a resource corner adviser, while various interactive events/ facilities such as blogs, ediscussions and working group are also envisaged.
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