Introduction - UNDP The Gambia

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Capacity Building Challenges and
Opportunities in the Private Sector
CHAPTER PREVIEW
• Capacity Building in Africa: The Regional Context
• The National Context: The Contributions of the Private Sector to the
Attainment of the MDGs and the Objectives of the PRSP
– Millennium Development Goals
– Macro-Economic Performance and the Private Sector
• Contributions of Selected Private Sector Projects to the MDGs
– Capacity Building at the Department of State for Trade, Industry and Employment
– Capacity Building at the Department of State for Tourism and Culture
– Capacity Building at the Department of State for Fisheries and the
Environment
This chapter examines how building
capacity in the private sector could
contribute towards the achievement of
the MDGs. It also identifies the opportunities,
constraints, challenges and issues that the
private sector will have to deal with in order
to contribute effectively towards the
achievement of the MDGs.
Capacity building is essentially a public
domain function and the private sector is
purely seen as a beneficiary. If therefore the
latter is purely a recipient of public policy,
what role can the private sector effectively
play in human development? What are the
capacity areas that the public sector should
address to capacitise the private sector?
3.1 Capacity Building in Africa: The
Regional Context
Between 1995 and 2004, the World Bank
provided some US$9 billion in lending and
about US$900 million in grants and
administrative budget to support capacity
building in Africa. The bulk of the support
however went to public sector capacity
building and not to the private sector.
Traditional donor support and efforts in
building capacity in the public sector in
Africa were primarily focused on creating or
re-organising government units and building
individual skills through training. But
persistent weak public sector capacity
signalled that these strategies were not
producing the expected results.
The World Bank, in particular, has now
broadened its support for capacity building in
Africa to include:
• strengthening public institutions that can
facilitate and enhance the performance of
the public and the private sectors
• supporting the creation of an economic,
political and institutional environment
conducive to private sector development.
Globalisation is also widening the gaps within
Africa and between Africa and other regions.
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Building Capacity for the Attainment of the Millennium Development Goals in The Gambia National Human Development Report 2005
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