The discourse on the practice of facilitating capacity development (CD) is mainly about knowledge, skills, methods and tools. Yet, the outcomes of interventions depend to a large extent on the way the people involved relate to each other. Especially for CD practitioners as facilitators of change, the ability to relate to clients in an appropri...

Local expertise to support people and organisations in developing their capacities is arguably one of the most valuable resources a society can have to boost development. In this issue of Capacity.org we focus on local capacity developers (LCDs) who ‘own’ this expertise. LCDs facilitate change, explore new ways of working and help enhance capa...

In capacity development, it is good to be humble and recognise the contextual dynamics that are often more forceful and influential in the long term than support intervention itself. This issue of Capacity.org focuses on methods that can help to understand the societal context in which capacity development takes place. One of these methods is...

This issue of Capacity.org looks at the capacities that need to be developed in order for the water and sanitation 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.

This issue of Capacity.Org focuses on the link between research-based evidence, policy and practice. Researchers, policymakers, civil society organisations (CSOs) and practitioners in capacity development often live in very separate worlds. Their dynamics, values and ways of handling evidence are very different. As a result, research-based evi...

Farmers must be given the opportunity to strengthen their position in global food value chains. Value chains represent the sequence of activities through which value is added to a product from its raw form until it reaches the consumer. The more farmers participate in value chains, and the more they benefit from higher prices, the better they...

Many organisations dedicated to poverty reduction have realised that this is not good enough. experimented with ways to improve their performance through learning since Peter Senge published his trailblazing book The Fifth Discipline: The Art and Practice of the Learning Organization in 1990. Although Senge drew mainly on experiences and insig...

The concept of the ‘fragile state’ entered the development discourse when, in the early 1990s, governance in Somalia disintegrated. Thousands of people fell victim to violence and millions faced starvation. Fragile states, however, were not given much attention in development policies. Donor countries concentrated their aid on fewer countries,...

Welcome to issue 31 of Capacity.org on accountability. In this issue we focus on the question: what initiatives citizens can take to hold decision makers, service providers and development practitioners accountable to their commitment to reduce poverty? The articles in this issue deal primarily with two specific relationships: that between gov...

In many countries non-state providers play a vital role in the delivery of basic services. Based on research in six countries, Richard Batley assesses how governments could work in partnership with non-state providers and promote better services for poor communities.