2004 Forum Report: Financing Technologies for the Environment
Open Space Sessions: Capacity Building in the Developing World: A Next Generation of Leaders
Facilitated by Jeff Hamaoui, Origo Social Enterprise Partner and Laetitia Mailhes, Les Echos
Capacity Building Issue Synopsis
Often the focus on funding of technology does not take into account that the 'human interface' between technology and positive environmental impacts is not sufficiently trained in the use of that technology to deliver the required results.
Even when proper training is provided at the local level there are some key challenges to fostering an effective in-country capacity building leadership:
- Brain drain - Well-trained instructors will often migrate to the private sector or find opportunities outside of the very communities they trained to serve.
- Leadership and empowerment: Ensuring local leaders assume responsibility for capacity building and establishing an empowerment process that allows them to do so.
- Developing relevant curricula: Often, training provided and developed in the global north bears little relevance on local contexts and needs.
- Finding the market: Targeting cross sector clients for capacity building services; aligning activities to deliver value across sectors and activity sets and generate sufficient revenues to make capacity building programs VALUABLE and VIABLE.
Capacity Building Needs
- Capital: Accessing international funds and resources for capacity building, understanding the needs of those differing funds and communicating effectively to those funds
- Network: Network, information and communications channels for capacity building organizations to work through.
- Infrastructure: Two very similar points, finding the infrastructure to "fail forwards" for capacity building organizations and finding ways of making information provided 'operational'.
- Metrics: Creating 'value metrics' that reflect local, and not donor, values.
Capacity Building: Ways Forward
- Allow capacity to be bought by the customer: provide a blend between guided capacity building services and needs driven capacity building determined by customers themselves.
- Ensure capacity building throughout project lifecycle.
- Create a map of available resources.
