A ripple in development? - Channel Research

6.2 Local development frameworks: whose capacity?
A salient issue in each of the areas and with many stakeholders is that
many programmes are designed to build the capacity of someone else.
This has been a longstanding twofold limitation of capacity building
efforts following emergencies 88 . One is the supply-driven nature of
capacity “building”, i.e., agencies from more developed countries focusing
on someone else’s capacities rather than encouraging local organisations
to set their own capacity development agenda, and the second that
humanitarian agencies invest in (or just ‘rent’) local capacities in order
to implement their own projects and not to contribute to these local
organisations’ own goals.
Few initiatives sought to improve an institutions’ own capacity to
manage recovery effectively, whether they were programmes of donors,
national ministries, INGOs, local NGOs, or communities. Some agencies
delivered services and developed their know how without prior
knowledge in the sector (e.g. housing).
The Poverty section discussion, elaborated above, noted that ineffectiveness
of support was often due to low levels of relevance to the
context. Based on evidence in the field for the three organisations
selected for our study, work is done for designing interventions at the
district level either with the government or with NGOs (which tend to
be international). Less is done for membership based poor people’s
organisations or movements (which often do not have an NGO status
and are referred to as associations). Outcomes so far are essentially
related to legislative tools and the assignment of responsibilities to
national bodies (quite often government in Aceh).
Timeframes do not appear to have been a constraint on capacity
building in relation to the tsunami. Emergency work has included
capacity development, such as trainings and assets such as pre-positioned
relief stocks or rescue tools, and the development and regular
testing of contingency plans; the establishment of emergency funds to
support response and recovery activities; reinforcing social and financial
safety mechanisms and strengthening community based disaster risk
management programmes, as indicated in the Hyogo Framework for
Action 2005–2015 89 . From AIDMI’s own work, direct support to the
poor people’s own organisations can be added into this list.
There are significant examples of the development of intermediary
capacities that are in a position to address recovery needs. As noted
above in the section on Social Fabric and Community Development,
social protection systems continue to largely rely on family and community
networks. For example in Sri Lanka, one effort to mitigate tension
over distributions was the People’s Planning Commission. The
Commission received support from local CSOs and INGOs and con-
88
Christoplos (2005)
89
UNISDR
100