Supporting Capacity Development
UN photo/Fred NoyThe world has just seven years left to reach the internationally-agreed Millennium Development Goals (MDGs), including the overarching goal of cutting extreme poverty in half by 2015. While additional financial resources will be essential to reaching these targets, success will ultimately hinge on how able people, organizations and societies are to transform their lives for the better.
For local authorities in the aftermath of conflict, societies struggling to meet rising food prices or states dependant on highly volatile commodity markets, effective change can be one of the hardest things to get right as the capacity to change is often limited. Without sufficient capacity like effective leadership and succession planning, aid coordination and financial management skills, a functioning civil service, a skilled labour force or an environment conducive to business countries lack the foundations on which to plan, implement and evaluate their development strategies. Capacity development works to strengthen this foundation.
If human development is the 'what' of UNDP's mandate, then capacity development is essentially the 'how'. UNDP works with national governments to identify what capacity exists in terms of skills, knowledge, institutions and relationships. Driven by the priorities of the country in question, it looks as how to retain what is there, what can be improved upon, where the gaps are and how to fill them, so that the countries' human development strategies can move from aspiration to implementation.
News
- Fostering public sector capacity development in Afghanistan
[17/04/09] The Government of Afghanistan has clearly identified low public sector capacity as a main challenge. more...
- Call for proposals: Capacity development learning initiative
[17/04/09] TheCD Learning Initiative aims at supporting local or regional stakeholders moving their capacity development agenda forward in a specific sector or thematic context. Facilitators with CD experience will help connect local action and global knowledge, enabling participants to move CD processes further ahead. more...
- Capacity development wiki page
[17/04/09] This is a collaborative space which allows those interested in capacity development at theoretical and practical level to contribute to the knowledge base. The new capacity development wiki page is accessible at: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Capacity_Development. more...
- Capacity needs for water and sanitation
[17/04/09] This issue of Capacity.Org looks at the capacities that need to be developed in order for the water and sanitation MDGs targets for 2015 to be achievable. The main focus is on capacity needs at the intermediate and local levels, but links between macro-level policy making and local-level implementation are also addressed. more...
| 
