Capacity building
[6] The consensus approach of the international community for the components of capacity building as established by the World Bank, United Nations and European Commission consists of five areas: a clear policy framework, institutional development and legal framework, citizen participation and oversight, human resources improvements including education and training, and sustainability.
[11] The pervasive use of the term for these multiple sectors and elements and the huge amount of development aid funding devoted to it has resulted in controversy over its true meaning.
An independent public measurement indicator for improvement and oversight of the large variety of capacity building initiatives was published in 2015.
The United Nations Office for Disaster Risk Reduction (UNDRR), formerly the United Nations International Strategy for Disaster Reduction (UNISDR), defines capacity development in the disaster risk reduction domain as "the process by which people, organizations and society systematically stimulate and develop their capability over time to achieve social and economic goals, including through improvement of knowledge, skills, systems, and institutions – within a wider social and cultural enabling environment.
"[16] Outside of international interventions, capacity building can refer to strengthening the skills of people and communities, in small businesses and local grassroots movements.
Organizational capacity building is used by NGOs[17] and governments to guide their internal development and activities as a form of managerial improvements following administrative practices.
The United Nations Committee of Experts on Public Administration in 2006 offered an additional term, "community capacity building".
In the early 1970s, the UNDP offered guidance to its staff and governments on what it called "institution-building" which is one of the pillars of its current work and is part of a category of "public administration reform".
In the 1970s, international organizations emphasized building capacity through technical skills training in rural areas, and also in the administrative sectors of developing countries.
These include for example: new forms of financing and less of a North–South dichotomy; more in-country leadership and less donor power; resilience as a framework in fragile environments; increasing private sector engagement.
"[26] Sustainable Development Goal 6 also includes capacity building in its Target 6a which is to "By 2030, expand international cooperation and capacity-building support to developing countries in water- and sanitation-related activities and programmes, including water harvesting, desalination, water efficiency, wastewater treatment, recycling and reuse technologies".
[7] A publication by OECD-DAC in 2005 estimated that "about a quarter of donor aid, or more than $15 billion a year, has gone into "Technical Cooperation", the bulk of which is ostensibly aimed at capacity development".
[28] International donors often include capacity building as a form of interventions with local governments or NGOs working in developing areas.
Recognition of problems in capacity building interventions in evaluations funded and managed by international organizations dates back to the year 1999.
[32][13] A World Bank review in the year 2000 found many examples where capacity building interventions undermined public management efforts.
[14][13]: 8 In 2007, specific criteria for effective evaluation and monitoring of the capacity building of NGOs were proposed, though only in generalities without clear measures for the tool.
Despite these claims of existence of these evaluation approaches, there was little more than lists of inputs and outputs without use of professional management standards or any kind of real oversight, and a report for the World Bank in 2009 noted that the failures were deep and systemic, where the measures used are "smile sheets", asking beneficiaries if they are "happy" or "better off" and measuring things like "raised awareness", "enhanced skills", and "improved teamwork" that are "locally driven", rather than on whether the underlying problems are solved, and refraining from asking whether there may be hidden agendas to buy influence, subsidize elites, and continue dependency.
[27]: 34 An independent public measurement indicator for improvement and oversight of the large variety of capacity building initiatives was published in 2015, with scoring, and based on international development law and professional management principles.
[14] This comprehensive indicator for capacity building was proposed as part of the elements codifying international development law in a treatise.
[14] Critique of capacity development has centered on the ambiguity surrounding it in terms of its anticipated focus, its effectiveness, the role of infrastructure organisations (such as empowerment networks),[35] and the unwillingness or inability of public agencies to apply their own principles and international law.
[37] Despite some 20 years recognizing the problems, practitioners continue to note that some capacity development projects are just "throwing money at symptoms with no logic or analysis".
