Towards Better Capacity Development: Learning from the Private Sector

Could development professionals at the European Commission improve their efforts in developing capacity by drawing some lessons from experiences in the private sector? Consultants Paul Beaulieu and Robert LeBlanc, think they could.

There are differences of approaches to capacity development between the private sector and development cooperation. But this difference in approach should not detract those working in development from taking valuable lessons from the private sector, according to consultants Paul Beaulieu and Robert LeBlanc.

First of all, the private sector has also evolved and increasingly values human capacity and systems capacity as core strategic assets, and of more fundamental importance than say infrastructure and other tangible assets.

Second, development cooperation is under pressure to demonstrate results that are sustainable. Therefore there is a good reason to examine more closely possible lessons on capacity development practice from the private sector that can help put in place the capacity of partners to deliver services on a sustainable and long term basis.

Speaking at a recent workshop attended by EuropeAid staff from headquarters and delegations, Mr Beaulieu and Mr LeBlanc recommended five ways in which lessons from the private sector could be successfully applied to capacity development in the world of development assistance.

Five Lessons Adapted from the Private Sector

(Taken from LeBlanc and Beaulieu)

1. Continuous readjustment via monitoring and evaluation
2. Capacity development as progressive and grounded in realistic targets
3. Basis of capacity development is evidence-based performance
4. Context driven/ no mimicry
5. Sustained maintenance of capacities

First and foremost, Mr Beaulieu wants to see greater attention to continuous assessment and monitoring to allow for greater flexibility in operations, improved management of risk and continuous contingency planning.

 “You need to plan for what you want to do, and plan for what could derail,” said Mr Beaulieu. “You need to have some robustness in your plan for having a Plan B and Plan C in case of these kinds of scenarios.”

“We will make some mistakes so we need to provide some room to redesign and to redevelop to face threats and also to size up new opportunities that were not there [before],” he said. To hear more from Mr Beaulieu, watch the video interview above.

In the private sector, managers are expected to continuously assess and monitor their operations and performance. And at the same time, they are given the authority and means to react and change their approach should they find objectives are not being met, or could be met better.

Large donor organisations managing public money often lack this suppleness to assess, respond and adapt quickly that is fundamental to successful operations in the private sector, according to Mr Beaulieu and Mr LeBlanc.

To hear all five of their recommendations in detail, watch this informative video interview with Mr LeBlanc.

Based on these five lessons, Mr Beaulieu and Mr LeBlanc have proposed four priority action steps that they argue would be useful for donors like the EC (also detailed in the video above).

FOUR PRIORITY ACTIONS FOR CD

1. Put into place clear policies and protocols for supporting evidence and performance-based capacity development and develop and invest in performance-based management systems (a different focus to Results Oriented Monitoring, for example)
2. Adopt rigorous and continuous monitoring and on-going evaluation for capacity development and place accountability squarely in the hands of the development partner whilst getting operational managers much more involved.
3. Establish quality review mechanisms for capacity development design.
4. And, most importantly, assist in developing the partner countries’ ability to plan and manage their own capacity development needs with a view to transferring the responsibility for strategising capacity development to the partner country.

Improving the practice of capacity development is of course an important issue. This is indeed one of the objectives in two ongoing workstreams in Europeaid :

• A study on a new evaluation methodology for capacity development interventions and technical cooperation
• The current reform of the Project and Programme Cycle Management (PPCM)

Once completed, these documents will be available in the Public Group on Capacity Development & Technical Cooperation Reform.

Click here to download the presentation on Capacity Development in the private sector given by Paul Beaulieu and Robert LeBlanc  at the July 2011 European Commission's workshop on Technical Cooperation and Capacity Development.  

See also here additional notes to the presentation.