Role Of Capacity Building Research Articles

Capacity building: Facilitating citizen participation in local governance

The International Council for Local Environmental Initiatives (ICLEI) suggests that local government, as the level of government closest to the people, has an important role to play in facilitating opportunities for local citizens to take action on local sustainability issues (ICLEI 1997). However, it is argued that citizens and community groups will require support from local governments to be able to participate effectively. Such a capacity building role for local governments has not yet been well articulated (Cuthill 2003b, 2001; Gaventa 2001; Blaxter 2003; Wallis and Dollery 2002). Capacity building is an ambiguous concept both in its conceptualisation and in implementation (Eade 1997). Epstein et al. (2000:2) argue that ‘it is difficult to point to a widely accepted ‘good practices framework’ either for citizens or for those attempting to engage citizens’. Nevertheless, while recent literature suggests some distinct themes that might contribute to such a framework (Cavaye 1999; Eade 1997; Jackson 2001; Kaplan 1997; Lowndes and Wilson 2001; Lyons et al. 2001), little work has been undertaken to synthesise these themes within a capacity building framework. This article presents a synthesis of research findings drawn from a pilot study and five applied research projects focusing on the concepts and processes which underpin the operationalisation of citizen participation in local governance. However, it does not re-visit in any detail the empirical research methods and findings from these previous studies. Rather, the approach taken in this paper is heuristic in that it draws on inductive reasoning from past experience. Readers are invited to explore in more detail, through the cited literature, results from these previous studies. The research program was completed over a three year period from 1999 to 2002. The guiding question for this research asked, How can local governments enhance the capacity of citizens to take informed action for a sustainable local community? This guiding question was explored through the pursuit of three objectives. These were first, to identify and analyse what is required by communities to enable them to take informed action for a sustainable local community, second, to explore the role that citizen participation in local governance plays in working towards a sustainable local community; and third, to identify, analyse and implement institutional requirements within local government that will support and facilitate citizen participation in local governance. The pilot study (Cuthill 2002a) and subsequently, five applied research projects were undertaken to explore these objectives (Cuthill 2004, 2003a, 2002b, 2001, Cuthill et al. 2004). These projects adopted an action research approach working with citizens, local community groups and local government, to test capacity building processes that might facilitate citizen participation in local governance. Building on the results from the pilot study, applied research and the literature reviewed for

Intermediary Organizations as Capacity Builders in Family Educational Involvement

Although a substantial literature examines the outcomes of family involvement in education, and the family and school characteristics that support or deter such involvement, we know little about the role of national nonprofit intermediary organizations in family educational involvement. This article argues that intermediary organizations play a crucial role in capacity building for family involvement by providing alternatives to school-centered approaches to family involvement and engaging families with intensive support that schools seldom offer. It examines the functions of intermediary organizations by using a framework of capacity building at the individual, organizational, and relational levels.

Global interdependence and Arctic voices: capacity-building for sustainable livelihoods

AbstractIn recent years the concept of capacity-building or capacity development has evolved to help policymakers frame crucial questions about how sustainability can be achieved. However, like sustainable development, capacity-building proves difficult to define, as it encompasses human, technological, educational, organisational, scientific, cultural, financial, and institutional aspects. This article suggests that capacity-building is an approach to sustainable development, its main goal being to enhance the capabilities of people and institutions to improve their skills and abilities to solve problems, define their needs, and strengthen their prospects for achieving sustainable livelihoods. Capacity-building is now a key objective for the Arctic Council — indeed, the Council sees it as a necessary element for both the achievement of sustainable development and for co-operation at circumpolar and wider international levels. The Arctic Council has charged its Sustainable Development Working Group to draft a capacity-building implementation strategy. The overall aim of a capacity-building implementation strategy will be to enhance the Arctic Council's own effectiveness in managing its own structures and developing programmes and activities, and also to shape a capacitybuilding role for the Council in international affairs. This article offers some perspectives on the kinds of critical issues an Arctic Council capacity-building strategy should be concerned with, such as skills, knowledge, well-being, gender equality, and the barriers to capacity-building for sustainable livelihoods. A test of the effectiveness of such a strategy will be how far it strengthens the capacity of the peoples of the Arctic to achieve sustainable livelihoods and how the Arctic Council can build its own capacity to be an enabling environment for Arctic voices to be heard in circumpolar and international contexts.

Probing the Strategic Intricacies of Public–Private Partnership: The Patent as a Comparative Reference

This article pursues a detailed understanding of strategic considerations in large‐scale partnership negotiations that have implications for public service over the long term. Specifically, this study focuses upon the strategic context of negotiation between governmental entities and private firms as fundamental to partnership viability. Metaphorical comparison between U.S. patent policy (especially as it pertains to cutting‐edge biotechnical and digital information issues) and public–private partnership is used to coax out new insight about the latter. The first section sketches an outline of U.S. patent policy as a means of generating analogous questions that can structure discussion of strategy in public–private partnerships. The second section explores the intricacies of public partnership by responding to four questions derived from the patent metaphor. In probing the implications of strategic partnership issues for public managers, the final section defines new capacity‐building roles that are consistent with governance as an emerging form of public administration.

Historical Perspectives on Forest Policy Change in Asia: An Introduction

Forest devolution policies have generated much hope for sustainable development in rural areas of the South. Yet such policies have not always generated economic benefits for the poor, and have seldom transferred substantial decision-making authority to the poorest forest users. We discuss four case studies of the history of devolution policies in Asia that ask why. We draw several conclusions from these cases. Devolution policies will fail to meet the expectations of the poorest forest users unless they address historical ‘holdovers', particularly ideologies and institutions within government that continue to favor centralized control and elite/subordinate relations at the local level. At the same time, policies must include scope for building capacity at the local level to deal with new forests and new institutional and political conditions. The state can play a role in capacity building, but will succeed only by working collaboration with social movements and NGOs that advocate on behalf of forest users, especially the poor among them. Because addressing holdovers and building capacity are difficult tasks, policies should be organized so that they can be reviewed and reformed in a collaborative fashion on a regular basis.

International psychology: Is the whole greater than the sum of its parts?

CPA Award for Distinguished Contributions to the International Advancement of Psychology (2000) Prix pour contributions remarquables a l'avancement international de la (2000) Abstract The beginning of international psychology dates back to the end of the 19th century, with the Ist International Congress held in Paris in 1889, but its first official structure, the International Union of Scientific Psychology, was created only in 1951. A rapid development then followed and today, 68 national societies of psychology involving more than one half billion psychologist,; throughout the world are currently represented by the Union, which has indeed become the voice of psychology on the international scene. The present structure of international psychology and its various elements are presented and discussed, and the role and function it assumes are described in relation to the development of psychology as a science and a profession. Examples are given of the capacity-building role to which international psychology has given priority and of diverse research projects pursued in collaboration with United Nations (UN) agencies, such as the United Nations Education Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) and World Health Organization (WHO). Current issues, such as the unity of psychology and the archiving of primary psychological data, are discussed, and future perspectives and directions are identified. The history of international psychology can be traced to the Ist International Congress of Psychology, held in Paris in 1889, and to the parallel formation of the International Congress Committee (Rosenzweig, Holtzman, Sabourin, & Belanger, 2000). Previously, in 1881, a young Polish psychologist, Julian Ochorowicz, had suggested holding a First International Congress which would help launch an international organization of psychologists. He managed to convince a friend, the editor of the Revue Philosophique, French psychologist Theodule Ribot, to publish a short note entitled Projet pour un congres international de psychologie (Ochorowicz, 1881). Although Ribot was doubtful that this idea, which he nevertheless judged attractive, would ever be achieved, this visionary project materialized, eight years later, on the occasion of the celebration of the centenary of the French Revolution. It is worth noting that the closing banquet was held on the first platform of the newly completed Eiffel Tower overlooking le Tout-Paris! What a remarkable start for international psychology! Although its official name was then the International Congress of Physiological Psychology, the term physiological was used to stress the fact that psychology was to be regarded as scientific as physiology (Rosenzweig et al., 2000). An International Committee was then created to assure that there would be other international congresses in the years to come. And it worked very well! Following Paris, 11 other congresses were held every three or four years in various European cities (with the exception of the 1929 Congress held at Yale University, in New Haven, Connecticut) until the International Committee was abolished by the Assembly at the 1948 Congress in Edinburgh in view of the creation at the next Congress on July 15, 1951, in Stockholm, Sweden, of an International Union of Scientific Psychology (IUSP). The Golden Anniversary of existence of the Union was celebrated this year, during the 27th International Congress of Psychology, in the city where it was born almost 50 years earlier. The creation of the International Union in 1951 provided for the first time, a recognized voice for psychology in the international arena. Rapidly, contacts were made with the Department of Social Sciences of UNESCO, which had provided support to the creation of the Union, and gradually the IUSP was to be recognized by other international agencies as the body representative of international psychology. Another positive consequence of this initiative was that international congresses became more regular, larger, and were attended by participants from more countries than before. …