Increasingly, international development agencies are teaming up and adopting new aid modalities. Sector-wide programming and the integration of social assistance programmes into wider recipient-led poverty reduction strategies have been the main innovations thus far. The willingness of donors to work in closer harmony and to integrate support...

The past decade has seen a growing awareness of the role played by capacity development in the development process. It is now recognised as being central to the fight against poverty. Against this background, donors and recipient countries alike have undertaken a number of promising aid reforms, that are aimed at enhancing the development proc...

With the renewed interest for international trade agreements, developing countries are faced with an increasing number of initiatives in this connection. Among the recent development have been a series of regional trade agreements among the developing countries themselves, as well as initiatives coupling developing with developed nations. The...

The search for new aid delivery mechanisms to enhance capacity development is high on the agendas of international development cooperation agencies. The pooling of funds for technical assistance (TA) in the context of sector-wide approaches and other new aid mechanisms is one response to the increasing criticisms of development cooperation.

Involving non-state actors in the development process has become a major characteristic of international cooperation over recent years. Non-state actors include the private sector, social and economic partners, such as trade unions, and civil society in all its diversity. The development community has recognised that their contribution can go...

The term ‘capacity development’ has always been a popular catch phrase within the international donor community, and often embraces a wide range of programmes and strategies that are used for strengthening Southern institutions. The vast number of international task forces and initiatives on the use of new information and communication technol...

With this edition of Capacity.org, we are celebrating the second anniversary of this web-site with an extra long issue. It looks at an area which has often been disconnected from mainstream development thinking: building capacity for dialogue in science and technology (S&T).

This issue of Capacity.org focuses on a practical dimension of capacity-building: the role of capacity assessment instruments in supporting capacity-building processes. With the growing importance that has been attached to institutional and capacity development over the past few years, development practitioners have started to develop and app...

This issue of Capacity.org focuses on a rapidly-emerging issue in development - the challenge posed to individuals and organisations by new information and communication technologies (ICTs). The focus of this issue is not, however, on the technologies themselves, but on the institutional capacities needed to make effective use of them.

On 1 April 2000, Capacity.org is one year old and we celebrate this event in two ways. First, by simultaneously launching issue 5 of the "web-letter" in English and French. This issue features the challenges of joint action between local government, civil society and the private sector. Second, by hosting an on-line discussion on-lin...