Shaping Capacity Development Messages for South Korea and Beyond

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Capacity Development issues are set to top the agenda for many development professionals in 2011. A recently published Issues Brief from the OECD/DAC is just the latest contribution to a debate set to climax with a High Level Forum scheduled for the year’s end.

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Capacity Development issues are set to top the agenda for many development professionals in 2011. A recently published Issues Brief from the OECD/DAC is just the latest contribution to a debate set to climax with a High Level Forum scheduled for the year’s end.


Basket Makers

The Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development/ Development Assistance Committe brief, ‘Capacity Development in Aid Business Processes: Getting it Right!’,  summarises the results of a meeting of experts convened on 29-30 November in Paris, to address capacity development in aid business processes.

At the event, some 50 attendees from aid agencies, partner countries, multilateral organisations and civil society held an in-depth discussion into the incentives, constraints and dilemmas of trying to integrate CD in development procedures.

“The consultation broadly acknowledged that the CD discussion - since the Paris Declaration and the Accra Agenda for Action - has resulted in a consensus on the importance of local ownership and an interest among development partner agencies to work through capacity development principles,” said James Hradsky, the OECD/DAC Senior Coordinator for Capacity Development and organiser of the event. “The challenge is now to move beyond and to translate these concepts into concrete practice.”

The key messages of the Paris event are expected to form the basis of further discussions scheduled in preparation for the High Level Forum on Aid Effectiveness in Busan, South Korea on 29 November – 1 December 2011.

 

KEY HIGHLIGHTS  FROM THE CONSULTATIONS
  • While there is a widespread interest to work through CD principles, a fundamental gap remains between theory and practice in the way development partners address CD.
  • Ownership can only emerge when country stakeholders commit critical resources, like leadership and finances, and when development partners increase flexibility and adapt procedures and processes so as to provide space to partner countries to take a greater leadership.
  • The provision of technical assistance personnel or other types of support perceived as “free” – with neither financial nor more indirect opportunity costs for partner countries – can undermine, rather than support partner country ownership.
  • The CD debate – while high on the agenda since the Paris Declaration – has not reached the top level decision-makers adequately and often has been confined to CD experts and practitioners.
  • There are particular dilemmas around CD in fragile situations where political and time constraints can force a heavy reliance on technical cooperation and lead to a risk of doing harm and undermining – rather than supporting – existing capacities.
  • Strengthening the capacities of competent and resilient institutions matters highly, but is only effective if development partners understand well the context in which support is provided.
  • Effective CD strategies must be integrated into sector policies, plans and programmes from the beginning.
  • In terms of reforming technical cooperation, more can be done. Using local expertise, South-South cooperation options or well-designed ‘pooled funds’ for technical cooperation are often not fully valued or explored.

For more information, visit the Public Group on Capacity Development and Technical Cooperation.

 

The results of this consultation, and the resulting key messages will form one of the inputs to  a meeting in Cairo, Egypt, scheduled for the 28-29 March 2011. According to Mr Hradsky, this is planned as a “Southern-led event” and it is hoped it will provide an opportunity for southern partners to express their views.

As further inputs to this follow-up meeting in Cairo, five perspective notes are currently being prepared on:

1 - Sector capacity development

2 - Capacity development in fragile situations

3 - The enabling environment for capacity development

4 - Technical co-operation and capacity development

5 - Capacity development and civil society organizations

The authors invite comments on these documents, which can be downloaded from: http://sites.google.com/site/lencdorg/

To ensure that southern viewpoints are heard and incorporated into the Cairo and Busan agendas, a preparatory meeting of the Learning Network on Capacity Development (LenCD) is planned to take place on the 10-12 February in Kigali, Rwanda. The African Capacity Building Foundation is co-hosting.

The Learning Network on Capacity Development (LenCD) is an informal network of analysts and practitioners that have come together to create a global community of practice around capacity development.

The capacity4dev.eu Editorial Team shall be following and documenting the outcomes of these meetings.

 

 

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