Abstract
The article offers an easy-to-use indicator for scholars and practitioners to measure whether NGOs, international organizations, and government policies and projects meet the criteria for design and implementation of “capacity building” projects that have been established by various international organizations and that are recognized by experts in the field. The indicator can be used directly to address failures that are routinely reported in this key and growing development intervention. Use of this indicator on more than a dozen standard interventions funded today by international development banks, UN organizations, country donors, and non-governmental organizations (NGOs) reveals that while many smaller organizations are working to change institutions and society in ways that effectively build long-term capacity, most of the major actors in the field of development have failed to follow their own guidelines. Many appear to be using “capacity building” as a cover for lobbying foreign governments to promote international agendas (“purchasing foreign officials”) and/or to increase the power of particular officials at the expense of democracy, with the public lacking simple accountability tools. The indicator points to specific areas for holding development actors accountable in order to promote development goals of sustainability and good governance. The breadth of the field of “capacity building” also allows this indicator to be used, with some modifications, for a large variety of development interventions. This article also offers several examples of where current capacity building projects fail, along with a sample test of the indicator using UNCDF as a case study.
Highlights
The article offers an easy-to-use indicator for scholars and practitioners to measure whether non-governmental organizations (NGOs), international organizations, and government policies and projects meet the criteria for design and implementation of “capacity building” projects that have been established by various international organizations and that are recognized by experts in the field
The World Bank itself commits more than $1 billion per year to this service in loans or grants (World Bank, 2005) and identifies it in all of its formulaic country studies as a ‘core objective,’ while the U.N. system practically defines itself by capacity development as the “how” for ‘“how” UNDP works’ to fulfill its mission32
Despite the enormous reliance on this tool to implement missions of ‘human development’ or the rather different goals of ‘poverty reduction; economic growth; improved services’ (World Bank, 2005) or ‘poverty eradication’ (UNDP, 2002), the very organizations that are most committed to this tool are the first to admit that they do not follow their own guidelines and that results are often the opposite of what they claim they are trying to achieve
Summary
“Capacity building” has become the tool of choice for several major international “development” organizations in recent years, including the United Nations system, the World Bank and other development banks, major international government bilateral donors as well as non-governmental organizations. Some may view statements like this as rather bold, officials in developed countries are often the first to admit that they use ‘aid’ as a form of ‘soft power’ (as opposed to military power and economic pressure) in order to manipulate the political systems of weaker countries (Nye, 2004) This attempt to influence decisions by government officials in weaker countries through use of financial benefits directed to those officials, in ways that favour the interests of the businesses and peoples of the donor country over other countries and/or over the peoples of the recipient countries, meets the definitions of corruption that are recognized under international law and that are the very practices that governments all claim they are trying to eliminate. The article begins by defining “capacity building” according to basic internationally agreed principles that can be placed into an indicator, surveys existing indicators, explains why several international “capacity building” projects fail in the absence of an indicator or standard to hold them accountable to minimal levels of competence, offers a new indicator and tests it on several categories of projects, including a detailed examination of how to use the indicator on an organization like the United Nations Capital Development Fund that claims to be doing capacity building as it central tool
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