A Guidebook on Capacity Development Agenda Formulation

2Capacity Development:A New Perspective23· Capacity development is a process bywhich individuals groups,organizations, institutions andsocieties increase their abilities toperform functions, solve problemsand achieve objectives; tounderstand and deal with theirdevelopment need in a broadercontext and in a sustainable manner”(UNDP, 1997)· Capacity development is a conceptwhich is broader than organizationaldevelopment since it includes anemphasis on the overall system,environment or context within whichindividuals, organizations andsocieties operate and interact (andnot simply a single organization).(UNDP, 1998)· Capacity is the combination ofpeople, institutions and practicesthat permits countries to reachtheir development goals …Capacity building is... investmentin human capital, institutions andpractices (World Bank, 1998)· Capacity is a condition of a systemthat emerges out of a combinationof attributes. It refers tocollective capabilities to act andsurvive, generate developmentresults, relate, adapt and selfrenew,and achieve coherence(Peter Morgan, European Centerfor Development PolicyManagement (EDPM) May 2006)· Capacity is the power to performtasks and produce output, todefine and solve problems, andmake informed choices (RealLavergne, CIDA)In its culminating publication Trekkingthe Good Local Governance Terrain:The LGSP Capacity Development Way,the Philippines-Canada LocalGovernment Support Program Phase II(LGSP II), the flagship governanceprogram of the Canadian InternationalDevelopment Agency (CIDA) from2000-2006, offers the view of capacitydevelopment as a complex, holisticprocess that takes place at differentlevels of the system in a web ofinterconnectedness. It describes anopen system with the local governancestakeholder terrain at the individual,organizational and institutional levels.