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Capacity Development

Capacity is defined as the skills, abilities, understandings, attitudes, values, relationships, behaviours, motivations, resources and conditions that enable individuals, organisations and the broader social systems to carry out functions and achieve their development objectives over time. As such, capacity development is the process whereby people, organisations and society as a whole create, adapt, strengthen and maintain capacity. It is therefore a process that involves change in knowledge, skills, work processes, tools, systems and management style, among others.

Capacity development distinguishes three levels: 1. the individual level; 2. the organizational level; and 3. the enabling environment level. Capacity development at individual level involves enabling individuals to embark on a continuous process of learning to build on existing knowledge and skills. At organizational level, capacity development concerns itself with the internal policies, arrangements, procedures and frameworks that allow an organization to operate and deliver its mandate. The enabling environment is the broader system within which individuals and organisations operate. The enabling environment determines the ‘rules of the game’ for interactions between and among organisations. Capacity development at the enabling environment level is directed at policies, legislation, power relations and social norms, all of which govern the mandates, priorities and modes of operation across different parts of society. All three layers of capacity are interdependent and not addressing all of them at once is likely to result into skewed or inefficient development.

In the water and sanitation sector, the need for integral, multi-layered capacity development as described above came up in the late 1980s, early 1990s, as another learning from the International Water Supply and Sanitation Decade. A first symposium on water sector capacity building convened at IHE-Delft in 1991 resulted in the Delft Declaration that contributed to changes in water policy at the World Bank, Asian Development Banks and other IFIs, and with several of the bilateral donors. Capacity development became and to this date is an integral component of many water sector investment programs and even a stand-alone activity.

Capacity development on WASH delivery around Lake Victoria: https://www.linkedin.com/in/maarten-blokland-b7069914/detail/overlay-view/urn:li:fsd_profileTreasuryMedia:(ACoAAALy5EQBXJuRCFV6VCP_m6EThQ2fiXbnLeY,1602172508777)/

Capacity development is a long-term iterative process that involves design, application, learning and adjustment. There are five key steps that shape the capacity development process. These include; engaging stakeholders on capacity development, assessing capacity assets and needs, formulating a capacity development strategy, implementation of the strategy and evaluating the whole process. Most efforts aiming at capacity development are fragmented and not founded on needs assessment thus reducing chances of effectively addressing the existing knowledge gaps. Also, there is often little specification on capacity for whom, to do what and to what ends, thus representing a lack of direction for achieving development goals.

Knowledge generation and transfer: capacity can be developed by the coding and transferring of knowledge, of which there are two types: tacit knowledge and explicit knowledge. Tacit knowledge is personal and rooted in an individual's actions and commitment. Explicit knowledge is knowledge that can be captured, written down and or shared in form of documents or databases. A number of knowledge transfer mechanisms exist and some of these include; training seminars and courses, face-to-face meetings, working groups, multi-stakeholder platforms, electronic data exchange, video conferencing, procedures and directives among others.

Capacity Development in the Water Sector: in developing countries, the water sector is faced with varying conditions that hinder capacity development efforts. Experience shows that institutional weakness and malfunctions are a major cause of ineffective and unsustainable water services. Capacity development is hindered, among others, by institutional fragmentation, inadequate financial management, low levels of transparency and accountability, unpredictable, unbalanced or inflexible funding and staffing, lack of rewards and sanctions related to organisational and individual performance as well as entrenched corruption in core government organisations. Where capacity development is carried out, it tends to operate on a short-term horizon and have a narrow focus on training at the individual level without there being adequate attention to the other two capacity levels (organisation and enabling environment).