By the late 1980s, some development specialists began to acknowledge that the emphasis on minimalism had been 'a reaction too far' and to note that effective state action was important to the promotion of equitable growth. It is acknowledged that levels and degrees of poverty could not be reduced, nor could economic growth be sustained, unless governments committed themselves to invest in human resource development, particularly in health, education, and social safety nets. Effective government performance thus became central to a changed definition of the role of the state in development and its ability to create the institutional conditions for market-oriented economies, secure and productive populations, and democratic political systems. It seems furthermore that although the importance of the broader contextual setting for organizational and individual activities is obvious, a large number of capacity-building initiatives are in fact designed without regard for this environment. Civil service reform efforts in developing countries have to be influenced by restructuring public sector management to be performance- and results oriented.
Training can lead to better performance among public servants.
However, it seems that human resource constraints are more likely to derive from the failure to provide people with meaningful jobs and utilize their skills effectively than from problems related to training per se. Next, a framework is described, which proved useful in identifying capacity gaps and providing a tool for the strategic design of interventions that are sensitive to the roots of performance deficits. A framework for assessing capacity gaps For the study, capacity is defined as the ability to perform appropriate tasks effectively, efficiently and sustainably. In turn, capacity building refers to improvements in the ability of public sector organizations, either singly or in cooperation with other organizations, to perform appropriate tasks. The framework identifies five dimensions, and correspondingly, five levels of analysis, that affect capacity and capacity-building interventions.