CAPACITY BUILDING PROGRAMME

CAPACITY BUILDING PROGRAMME

Capacity building is the process of developing and strengthening the skills, instincts, processes and resources that organizations and communities need to survive, adapt, and thrive in the fast-changing world. Capacity-building efforts must be closely linked to clearly defined results, to sustain improvements over the long term.

Building the capacity of a community involves more than improving technical skills, developing new strategies or revising a mission statement. While these are obviously important, building capacity means changing behaviour. This requires paying attention to intangible factors, such as attitude, motivation, values, relationships and commitment, all of which underlie an organization’s ability to truly affect meaningful and sustainable change.

Capacity-building interventions require focus, direction and linkage to an overall strategy for improving performance.  Leadership is essential to breaking down barriers, encouraging personal responsibility, promoting shared values and creating a culture that welcomes critical self-reflection and anticipates the need for change. Its key concepts demonstrate successful communities are those that can adapt to the unique and constantly changing social, political and economic conditions that tend to be characteristic of developing countries.