page_title: Capacity building
section_title: Definitions
hierarchical_section_title: Capacity building / Definitions
caption_attribution_description: English: Community Capacity Development in Brazil. In-person training was held in São Paulo on the weekend April 9th-10th 2016, when a local, Portuguese-speaking journalist was consulted in advance of the training, regarding the media landscape in Brazil and particularities of expectations and norms of Brazilian media.
context_page_description: Capacity building is the process by which individuals and organizations obtain, improve, and retain the skills, knowledge, tools, equipment, and other resources needed to do their jobs competently. It allows individuals and organizations to perform at a greater capacity. "Capacity building" and "Capacity development" are often used interchangeably. This term indexes a series of initiatives from the 1950s in which the active participation of local communities’ members in social and economic development was encouraged via national and subnational plans.
  Community capacity building is a conceptual approach toward social and behavioural change and leads to infrastructure development. It focuses on understanding the obstacles that inhibit people, governments, international organizations, and Non-Governmental Organizations from realizing the goals that will allow them to achieve sustainable results.
  The term community capacity building emerged, in the context of international development, during the 1990s. Today, "community capacity building" is included in the programs of most international organizations that work in development.
context_section_description: Many organizations may interpret community capacity building differently than others. Some methods of capacity building include fundraising, training centres, exposure visits, office and documentation support, on-job training, learning centres, and consultations. Developing nations are adopting strategies in the form of capacity building, to avoid becoming perpetually dependent on international aid.
  The United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) was one of the forerunners in developing an understanding of community capacity building and development. Since the early 1970s, the UNDP offered guidance to its staff and governments on what was considered "institution-building".
  The United Nations Office for Disaster Risk Reduction (UNDRR), formerly the United Nations International Strategy for Disaster Reduction (UNISDR), defines capacity development in the DRR domain as "the process by which people, organizations and society systematically stimulate and develop their capability over time to achieve social and economic goals, including through improvement of knowledge, skills, systems, and institutions – within a wider social and cultural enabling environment."
  In 1991, the term evolved to be "community capacity building". The UNDP defines community capacity building as a long-term continual process of development that involves all stakeholders. This includes ministries, local authorities, non-governmental organizations, professionals, community members, academics and more. Community capacity building uses a country's human, scientific, technological, organizational, institutional, and resource potentiality. The goal of community capacity building is to tackle problems related to policy and methods of development while considering the potential limits and needs of the people concerned. The UNDP outlines that community capacity building takes place at an individual, an institutional, societal level and non-training level.
  Individual level – This requires the development of conditions that allow individual participants to build and enhance knowledge and skills. It also calls for the establishment of conditions that will allow individuals to engage in the "process of learning and adapting to change."
  Institutional level – This should involve aiding institutions in developing countries. It should not involve creating new institutions, rather modernizing existing institutions and supporting them in forming sound policies, organizational structures, and effective methods of management and revenue control.
  Societal level – This should support the establishment of a more "interactive public administration that learns equally from its actions and from the feedback it receives from the population at large." Community capacity building must be used to develop public administrators that are responsive and accountable.
  Non-Training Level - This should provide an enabling of an environment for the trained staff to perform at their optimum level.
  Patrick Wakely (1997) from the University College London held similar views to the UNDP about systems nature of capacity. He believed that thinking about capacity building as simple training or human resource development was too limiting and that there needed to be a shift from that mindset. He also believed that increasing the capacity of the individual was not enough to contribute to the advancement of sustainable development alone, and needed to be paired with a supportive institutional and organizational environment. The three aspects of capacity building that Wakely believed to be essential to creating better cities are human resource development, organizational development, and institutional development. Human resource development is defined as "the process of equipping people with the understanding and skills, and access to the information and knowledge to perform effectively". It is where Wakely believes too much emphasis and efforts are focused here. Organizational development involves the processes of how things get done within an organization and require examining how and why an organiza
caption: Community Capacity Development in Brazil where a local, Portuguese-speaking journalist was consulted in advance of the training, regarding the media landscape in Brazil
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