Capacity Development & Technical Cooperation

Capacity Assessment as part of the European Commission support to CD (toolkit)

Capacity assessments often describe what is missing, rather than explaining why capacity is what it is. Typically, assessments include findings such as lack of resources, lack of planning, poor monitoring, and/or lack of leadership.

The typical answer from development partners is then to introduce elements such as planning, with procedures, formats and training, often to discover that technocratic planning exercises are unlikely to change such root causes to what appears to be ‘lack of planning’.

Capacity assessments should therefore be careful to avoid being reduced to ‘gap analyses’ which measure the existing situation against a perceived ideal for how organisations or sectors should work. There are two reasons for this.

• Gap analyses tend to identify weaknesses instead of strengths — and may thus be highly demotivating.
• Gap analyses may measure the distance to a desired ideal — but they do not explain why the situation is as it is — they identify symptoms rather than causes.

The CD Toolkit offers a checklist tool aimed at helping to ensure that an assessment of capacity of one or more organisations is addressing the critical key issues important for possible subsequent CD efforts. More detailed information is available at the document Institutional Assessment and Capacity Development: Why, what and how?

For that, seven assessment areas are taken into account in each assessment area:

1. Organisational outputs

• Past and present levels of key outputs (coverage, quality, quantity, etc.)
• Past and present customer satisfaction
• Past trends in key output delivery
• Availability and quality of data on outputs produced
• Availability and quality of data on consumer satisfaction
• Focus on outputs among staff and management
• Relation between past output targets and actual production
• Perceived realism of future output targets

2. Inputs

• Past and present levels of budgeted resources and sources
• Past and present levels of actually available resources and sources
• Predictability of resource availability in time/quantity
• Degree of flexibility of resource allocation (e.g. salaries, operating costs, investment)
• Possible bottlenecks and/or unbalances in resource availability
• Match between goals and targets and actual resource availability
• Supply-side situation (staff, materials, information, capital goods)

3. Leadership

• Leadership characteristics (style, culture)
• External leadership effectiveness compared to peers
• Internal leadership effectiveness compared to peers
• Effectiveness and practices of delegating authority
• Predictability of senior- level decision-making
• Internal and external consultation practices
• Effectiveness of internal communication from leaders
• Effectiveness of motivating staff and solving conflicts
• Openness about leadership issues

4. Motivation and incentives

• Clarity of tasks and purpose
• Match between tasks and individual capabilities
• Delivery of means and support for performance by the organisation and by leaders/managers
• Fair, adequate and non-distorting material compensation package
• Credible threat of sanctions for wrongdoing and not doing
• Credible praise and recognition based on performance
• Adequate status and career opportunities with merit counting appropriately

5. Balance between functional and political dimensions of the organisation(s)

• Balance between pursuit of formal goals and goals not related to organisational performance
• Checks and balances on the use of power inside the organisation
• Balance between importance of personal loyalties and performance of formal tasks
• Degree of dependence on external power structures
• Actual criteria for hiring, firing, promotions and demotions
• Appropriateness of concentration and/or fragmentation of power in or between the organisation(s)
• Culture and climate in the organisation in relation to power holders and sources

6. Fit between the formal and informal organisation(s)

• Is there broad goal agreement?
• Is work actually done following the formal structures, or are they systematically bypassed ‘to get things done’?
• What is the balance between formal and informal communication channels?
• What kind of networks is the basis for informal communication and exchanges?
• What are the implicit, informal rewards, and how do they weigh compared to formal ones?
• What is the balance between formality and informality of actual leadership and management functions?
• What are formal systems (budget, information technology, planning, control) actually being used for?
• Are formal systems subverted? If so, how?

7. Networking capacity

• Scope of contact and outreach to significant external partners and stakeholders
• Degree of formalisation and stability of networks
• Adequacy of degree of centralisation of contacts/network access
• Degree of proactive/reactive use of networks