What?CD Priority |
Why?Rationale |
How?Potential Actions |
| 1. CD at core of sector and thematic development |
1.1
Focus on capacity development as critical factor within the mainstream of sector/thematic development
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There is a need for an integrated approach to CD firmly embedded at sector
level and in national SWAPS including all actors: government both central
and local, private sector actors, civil society. It is at the sector level
where most development resources are budgeted, planned and delivered, where
collective evaluations are focused and where stakeholder involvement is
more concrete. CD champions play an important role including high level
national/ sector/ thematic leaders with commitment and influence in
allocating adequate resources. Approaches need to be tailor made to the
sector and the country context in question. Beyond health and education,
vital productive sectors as agriculture and water should receive priority
attention. Sectors often function in "silos" systemic constraints need to
be addressed (see below)
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Actions at the country level:
- Allocate adequate funding for CD in sector/ thematic assessments, and include adequate CD expertise in the planning phases of SWAPs.
- Articulate actionable CD objectives and targets within sector plans and thematic strategies, including skills development, organizational level CD and factors in the enabling environment.
- Consider multi-stakeholder working groups or other mechanisms that focus attention on capacity development and strengthen CD champions within the given sector to spearhead change
- Integrate CD support with sectoral, thematic and technical support services.
- Ensure that adequate attention is given to systemic change and cross-cutting issues and that different components within the whole system effectively relate to each other.
Actions at the international level:
- Reinforce cross-country learning on how to mainstream capacity development in sector and thematic development. (Example: Train4dev, LenPA)
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| 2. Systemic factors that enable or undermine CD |
2.1
Identify the systemic issues that undermine capacity development and agree on joint action to address them
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Many sector-specific and results-focused efforts seem to fail or to lack sustainability because of broad, cross-cutting governance failures. Addressing these often constitute a difficult collective action problem leading to neglect and undermining many well intended CD efforts in sub-systems, organizations, or human resources. Successful efforts are usually associated with strong ownership, stakeholder participation, effective leadership, charismatic champions, demand-side pressures, accountability and incentives conducive to change. (see below)
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Actions at the country level:
- Identify the systemic factors that enable or undermine CD efforts in sub-systems (e.g. SWAPs) and collectively agree on strategies to directly address these.
- Support leaders and champions for CD to advocate and steer a CD agenda and gain support for needed reforms.
- Agree on joint benchmarks and performance criteria for all partners to collectively overcome systemic constraints to capacity development.
Actions at the international level:
- Invest in cross-country learning and South-South and N-S-S approaches to support and nurture such systemic change efforts.
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2.2
Reform incentive systems for better acquisition, use and retention of capacities
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Issues of motivation are crucial to a point that many organizational and sector CD efforts are bound to be wasted if the incentive structures are not directly addressed. In many countries salaries and working conditions are inadequate. In particular in aid dependent countries externally induced compensation schemes tend to aggravate the destabilization of the local labour market. Incentive systems need to be managed and adjusted at all levels, including the undesirable effects of donor schemes, in order to permit country institutions to effectively use and retain skilled labour and mitigate brain drain. In the long-term a growing private sector will need to form the base for taxation and sustainable CD.
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Actions at the country level:
- Identify and support domestically owned schemes of selective motivation, transparently managed and linked to long-term public service reform.
- Agree on relevant action by external partners to support a domestic scheme and regulate salary supplementation in a coherent way.
- Review and agree on measures to manage skilled labour migration, support brain retention and "brain-gain" strategies for developing countries.
Actions at the international level:
- Support knowledge exchange and learning to understand operational options for adjusting public service salaries over time.
- Reinforce international efforts to address migration of skilled labour and stabilizing labour markets from a CD perspective.
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2.3
Promote effective participation in the development process and accountability to domestic constituencies
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Reinforcing participatory approaches and involvement of a broad range of development partners is most often critical to progress on CD. Strengthening the role of parliaments, building social accountability protocols and tools such as score cards, and fostering transparency in the use of development resources are key to getting sustained, widely supported results. CD efforts need to support democratic ownership and change processes, including strengthening the role of representative bodies and civil society and opening up the political dialogue. Quality data widely accessible are a powerful means to enable effective participation and accountability. (see also below)
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Actions at the country level:
- Reinforce the legitimacy, capacity and roles of representative bodies in defining and monitoring the development process.
- Strengthen democratic ownership of the development process by reinforcing systems, rules, forums and uincentives that allow civil society actors to engage effectively.
- Ensure transparency and access to information and reinforce the quality of publicly available data, including statistics disaggregated by gender, district and socio-economic status.
- Align incentive systems for government to become aware pay attention to CSOs.
- Introduce voice and accountability mechanisms that allow for the articulation of demand and ensure access to recourse and arbitration.
Actions at the international level:
- Support cross-country knowledge exchange on broadening democratic ownership and accountability.
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2.4
Assess capacity and measure progress in CD in particular at country level with locally agreed measures
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Empirically-based diagnostic processes are increasingly used to measure baseline capacities and look systematically at ways to build stronger country-level institutions. Concerted efforts among partners are required to establish an evolving framework on measuring capacity and progress in CD that is agreed and owned at country level. It matters who does the analysis and who's purposes it serves. "Horizontal" diagnostic processes with multiple partners catering for country needs should be the rule and have priority over "vertical" processes serving donor accountability. Improvements of approaches for country-based and focused diagnostics should also facilitate more meaningful aggregated international measures of progress in CD.
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Actions at the country level:
- Jointly develop a realistic framework and indicators (long-term and progress) as collective reference for joint capacity assessment and M&E.
- Make CD a results area within sector and national strategies to ensure adequate attention and follow up.
- External partners should support country agents to lead assessments and do the analysis of CD needs and options and refrain from doing the job
- Invest more in evaluative evidence that links aid effectiveness to development effectiveness and focus on what impacts on development results
Actions at the international level:
- Clarify options for measuring CD to support country choice of "horizontal" diagnostic processes and approaches.
- Explore ways for adapting donor results, risk management and accountability systems to using country-lead, processes rather than insisting on agency specific analysis.
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2.5
Strengthen country aid management with a view to improving the quality of aid relationships and contribution to effective development
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The Paris Declaration outlines a set of critical issues in aid effectiveness that are particularly important for capacity development. These include strengthening country ownership and leadership, managing multiple aid relationships, developing country systems, and avoiding parallel implementation structures, among others. Critical is the strengthening of country systems that are important to allow domestic management of aid resources including public financial management, procurement, monitoring and evaluation. Equally important is country capacity to effectively manage aid relations are frequently marred by power differentials, fragmented interests, misperceptions and lack of trust. Making the aid relationship more evidence based, mutually accountable and accountable to domestic stakeholders, is an important factor in improving the effectiveness of external support to domestic capacity development efforts.
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Actions at the country level:
- Strengthen country aid management with a view to improving the quality of aid relationships, processes, trust, honest dialogue and synergies and make it inclusive of civil society stakeholders.
- Allocate adequate resources to strengthen country-level capacity and systems to effectively align donors to country priorities and systems.
- Seek effective ways of moving away from money driven relationships to mutually supportive roles in supporting CD.
- Agree on evidence based independent monitoring of CD efforts: systematise feedback and learning loops as an integral part of capacity development management and quality control.
- Consider an independent mechanism of recourse and mediation to allow for a continued means of resolving divergent positions or conflict.
Actions at the international level:
- To flexibly engage for CD donors should devolve decision powers to their country offices or delegate authority to country level agents.
- Maintain pressure to discourage the reliance on parallel PIUs by continuing to track use of such structures and setting clear targets for reductions.
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| 3. Relevance, quality and choice of CD support (including TC) |
3.1
Ensure "good fit" approaches to support CD and better deployment of existing capacity assets
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Failure to take into account existing capacities, previous initiatives, or to consider culture and context, has been a persistent weakness in support for CD. CD agents need to focus more on finding, inducing, igniting, and unleashing endogenous capacity, human energy and commitment. What works in one context may not necessarily work in another, and "best practice" approaches have often resulted in supplanting more viable local solutions. Parallel structures and vertical mechanisms most frequently do not fit in with and nurture existing capacities.
Engaging for "good fit" requires specific tools and skills, such as change management, process facilitation, action learning, iterative inquiry and response to what actors want to learn, as well as a longer time frame to allow changes to take hold. South-South approaches can be most useful. Some situations may be better served by working with societal actors, such as mainstream cultural institutions which have a real stake in their constituencies.
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Actions at the country level:
- Agree on a joint process of identifying existing assets, entitlements, activities and knowledge, as a common basis for defining sensible CD support.
- Ensure that CD, including human resource development, is part of relevant strategic and managing for results frameworks.
- Permit the use of project implementation units (PIUs) only in exceptional cases where this can be justified and where stakeholders agree that this is the most appropriate option.
- Negotiate collectively binding rules that guide the use of TC funds in the respective country. These should ensure maximum use of local institutions and consultants, as well as relevant and highly adaptive approaches to supporting CD.
- Make smart "locally tailored" use of South-South exchange, North-South-South cooperation and use of Diaspora.
Actions at the international level:
- Agree on options for reforming existing results and logical frameworks to make them more suitable to long-term, systemic CD approaches.
- Make donor systems more flexible to respond to actually circumstances and to allow local and regional support services to be mobilized.
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3.2
Establish professional standards and accountability for CD support including technical cooperation to ensure technical rigour and systematic use of state-of- the-art approaches.
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Capacity development has for decades been declared "everybody's business but nobody's responsibility". Today "CD" is used as label for many support efforts that do not actually serve that purpose, and poor performance is often ignored or even rewarded. Effective support to CD needs to integrate state-of-the-art approaches including change management, process facilitation, coaching, training and expert services that combine technical, contextual and stakeholder engagement competencies. CD practice should not only be tailor-made to context, but practitioners should be held to the highest standards of professional rigour. On country level development partners need to open up their performance in supporting CD to evaluation by users and regular independent review. It may be possible to apply relevant international standards to CD support including TC. The feasibility of a system of accreditation should also be explored.
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Actions at the country level:
- Agree on common quality standards for CD support and guidance on CD audits.
- Agree on means that help ensure complementary CD efforts at all levels (individual, organizational and the enabling environmental).
- Explore a country accreditation mechanism for CD service providers such as training institutes
- Realign incentive systems for CD service providers to ensure that development of capacity is rewarded while poor performance is sanctioned.
- Women are frequently critical agents of change. CD support requires gender sensitive approaches.
Actions at the international level:
- Explore a mechanism to establish state-of-the-art quality standards and practices for CD support services, including existing standards, relevant professional associations, potential systems of accreditation, review mechanisms, etc.
- Development agencies should establish and implement quality assurance mechanisms for ensuring good practice for CD services, including adequate funding for upgrading skills, continued learning and adequate needs assessment.
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3.3
Ensure real choice of suppliers for CD services, including through South-South, NSS cooperation
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Just as all learning is voluntary, ownership is not an option but a fundamental condition for capacity development. Strengthening country-level capacities requires that country stakeholders take the lead in deciding what serves their needs and thus in choosing the supply of CD support services. Systems that guard against undue influence and supply driven inputs can be established. Support to local and regional think tanks, universities and research would enable countries to develop appropriate development models that suit their endowments as well as aspirations. South-South or North-South-South cooperation should become an increasingly viable option. Northern suppliers of CD support services should increasingly team up with local or South-South suppliers in delivering services.
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Actions at the country level:
- Identify sensible ways that ensure real choice of CD support services by country stakeholders, for instance pooling of TC supply in mechanisms that are impartially managed.
- As a rule, the choice of CD support should include options for local or South-South supply of relevant services.
- Strengthen local and regional institutions able to support CD processes and promote S-S and N-S-S cooperation.
Actions at the international level:
- Donor procedures should allow partner countries to have optimal choice. Tying, earmarking and conditionality may more effectively be replaced by adequate domestic decision and accountability mechanisms.
- Where donors continue contracting they should simplify contractual relationships to allow Southern suppliers to compete.
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| 4. Civil society and the private sector as agents for CD |
4.1
Strengthen Civil Society and Private Sector Agents as important forces and service providers for capacity development
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In general support to capacity development is targeted at the public sector. Yet, not only governmental organizations but equally civil society actors, domestic and international, are in need of CD to play their respective roles. Civil Society and the Private Sector are important forces for capacity development and need to be strengthened as such. CSOs are often closer to local realities, can promote pluralism of ideas, facilitate communication between people and authorities, mobilize local skills and resources, strengthen voice and demand pressures to hold authorities to account.
The private sector (PS) in many ways contributes to CD. It contributes as the engine for national development through creating capital - human, financial, goods and services and is the basis for taxation. The PS often can be more efficient providing services.. Further, the PS owns the media and therefore has tremendous influence on informing people on their developmental and human rights and expose bad practices. (see also above 2.3)
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Actions at the country level:
- Beyond regulation for a vibrant civil society (see above) countries should create legal recognition mechanisms for civil society actors as CD agents.
- Agree on explicit funding flows for strengthening CSO capacity, e.g. under SWAPs.
- Establish agreeable mechanisms for funding CD support to CSOs that should be impartially managed rather than controlled by the state to guard against instrumentalisation of CSOs.
- Support the development of think tanks, South-South cooperation and civil society service providers for CD.
- Agree on arrangements that allow supporting CD efforts in CSOs and, if pertinent, to work with nongovernmental players.
- Strengthen capacities to closer engage with and link the Aid for Trade agenda to the development results and effectiveness dialogue.
- Support CD for the private sector as the main long-term basis for developing and sustaining capacity (rather than aid which is temporary).
Actions at the international level:
- Reinforce modalities that help strengthen the capacity of international NGOs, foundations and non-traditional donor funds to effectively engage and support capacity development.
- Consider international, regional or sub-regional options for supporting CD in the private sector.
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| 5. Situations of fragility as particular challenge for CD support |
5.1
Conceive operations to achieve optimal capacity development impact in fragile situations and establish temporary mechanisms to remain accountable to stakeholders
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Crisis has many faces that can aggravate capacity development dilemmas. While operational responses vary, CD principles should be upheld whenever possible, despite difficulties encountered along the way. Donors need to remain engaged in difficult development contexts. Immediate needs should not completely overshadow possible openings for capacity development and sustainability. The presence of external agents can, if handled carefully, provide a space for dialogue and building trust. It is important to maintain support focused on CD over time once the immediate emergency situation is overcome. Measures for reconciliation and prevention of relapse are a contribution to CD. Fragile situations are particularly vulnerable to inadequate unilateral interventions. Where a national framework is not in place, emerging external agents should pool their resources in a temporary arrangement, perhaps in a country level agency. It can serve as a clearinghouse and local broker, and should offer a high degree of flexibility, competent staff and credible autonomy.
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Actions at the country level:
- Agree on priority state capabilities recognising differing needs: pre-conflict (dialogue, early warning), conflict (humanitarian relief) and post-conflict (institutions, exit strategy)
- Establish a temporary, collective arrangement for coordination and ensuring accountability to stakeholders where a government framework is not functional.
- Agree on mechanisms for gap-filling and personnel substitution "without shame", keeping in focus basic principles of ownership, CD and state building, together with an exit strategy.
- Commit to flexible pooled funds and for CD to start earlier and continue for longer, bridging the transition from humanitarian relief through recovery to development.
- Invest in secondments, attachments, training, knowledge and dialogue as a means to create a fertile interface of knowledge acquisition by national agents and foster a perspective and commitment for long-term CD efforts.
- Do joint assessments of fragility, to be used for establishing interim indicators for conflict/ stability and CD targets
- Make early coordinated efforts to bring back and integrate the Diaspora, refugees and displaced people as a capacity asset.
- Ensure increased transparency in resource rich countries, e.g. through the EITI, as part of conflict prevention, i.e. protection of existing capacity.
Actions at the international level:
- Further develop international guidance, including good donor principles and HAP, to take fully account of CD imperatives.
- Invest in research an knowledge exchange in particular for situations of fragility, which are the litmus test for CD approaches.
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| 6. Concerted efforts to change operational practice |
6.1
Engage at the country level in a concerted effort to translate what is known about effective support to CD into practice.
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Any agenda for change needs agents for change. At the country level, attention to CD requires a bundling of energies around a common vision and agenda and an orchestration of change within mainstream processes. A few CD champions may be able to promote a vision, broaden understanding and commitment for action, including in the areas that have been identified in this document. An alliance of champions may also promote longer term regulatory norms, CD institutions and an adapted and stable set of institutional mechanisms for CD.
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Actions at the country level:
- CD champions should establish a partnership to foster common vision, and an agreed agenda and promote change within the mainstream of country development.
- Invest in broadening a common understanding and learning on CD among decision makers, experts and CD practitioners.
- Agree on a series of learning and planning events on CD before 2010 with broad stakeholder involvement.
- Invest in local knowledge architecture, applied research, curricula development, and professional learning opportunities on state-of-the-art approaches.
- Motivate donor agents to engage in learning processes with country counterparts and stakeholders.
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6.2
Agree on a concerted international effort to broaden and deepen CD knowledge and to change operational practice in development cooperation
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Further mechanisms are needed to take forward a specific work programme after the Accra conference to deepen CD knowledge, strengthen networks and communities of practice of experts working on CD. While much has been learned in recent years, further expansion of the global CD knowledge base requires efforts to capture and make widely accessible experiences, methodologies and tools, and ways of improving outcomes from CD initiatives. This effort would facilitate South-South interactions on CD, support research and learning programs undertaken by Southern universities and research institutes and promote joint donor and partner country learning programs on CD.
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Actions at the country level:
- Establish a DAC joint venture and/or global partnership mandated to lead a concerted effort in moving CD knowledge into concrete operational changes for effective CD support.
- Strengthen complementarity and synergies between global CD initiatives, e.g. DAC, UN initiatives, LenCD, ACBF, Capacity.org, CDNet, Capacity Collective, ECDPM, Train4Dev, etc.
- Broaden and deepen the knowledge base on CD in priority areas that require greater understanding and research (including those indicated above).
- Invest in open access to CD knowledge by internet and increase space for S-S learning on CD on sub-/regional levels (e.g. Asian Community of Learning)
- Pursue opportunities for learning and skill development for CD including courses in relevant research and learning organizations.
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6.3
Agree on a concerted effort for upgrading the capacity of donors and their agents to engage effectively in CD
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Learning on how to support CD will require a sustained and concerted effort to translate changing policy into practice throughout agencies. Donors should not use the "lack of capacity" in developing countries as an excuse for not aligning with partner systems. Donor agencies themselves often lack capacity, especially in field offices, in critical areas such as public financial management, procurement, but also managing partnerships and effective engagement in multi-stakeholder processes. Development agencies should revisit all aspects of their TC, including policy aspects, review of procedures, delivery systems, and communications. Translating CD knowledge and policies into improved operational practice and implementation requires a major effort among donors to educate and support their staff on aid effectiveness and CD and to align incentives and performance measures accordingly.
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Actions at the country level:
- Development agencies should invest in an extensive, inclusive CD learning process on the ground together with country stakeholders (e.g. 60% of field staff reached by 2010, or )
- Agree on concrete measures for increasing donor use of country systems, consistent with the targets agreed in the Paris Declaration and linked to progress in capacity development.
- Support the creation of broadly based (multi-stakeholder) theoretically and empirically grounded spaces for action-learning for innovative CD practice
Actions at the international level:
- Development agencies should revisit all aspects of their TC, including policy, procedures, delivery systems, organizational learning, skill profiles, incentives and performance management.
- We need to open up the political dialogue around development cooperation and effective aid delivery - lessons learnt and good practices need to be shared openly/freely with new emerging donors
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