Annual Report 2008

UNDP programmes: capacity development in action

Capacity development is the key to sustainable human development. Without an enabling environment, efficient organizations and a dynamic human resource base, countries lack the foundation to plan, implement and review their national and local development strategies and promote human development.

Over the last decade, the development community has come to realize that it is impossible to work on policies without at the same time working on the capacities of people, organizations and the larger community. It is institutions that sustain policies, allowing policies to evolve from words into actions governing the development process. The development of the institution – at the grassroots level, at the community level, at the national level – is at the centre of the development challenge, be it about its human resource base, the systems or the environment in which it must function. It is for this reason that capacity development is at the heart of everything UNDP does.

UNDP places priority on strategies that create opportunities to develop and sustain capacity at national and local levels. These include institutional reform and incentives; scaling up leadership capacities; promoting education, training and learning; and enhancing accountability and broad engagement on achieving development results.

Above all, capacity development is about transformations – in people, organizations and societies – that lead to sustainable human development. The following pages present examples of UNDP’s work in its four focus areas:

• poverty reduction and achievement of the MDGs;
• democratic governance;
• crisis prevention and recovery; and
• environment and sustainable development.

Capacity development cuts across these four areas, and defines how the organization contributes to development results.