Participatory Evaluation Forum - Refocus Institute: I’m Going to Build Me Some Capacity

By: Cindy Banyai, Ph.D.

In part 2 of my contribution to the development phrases diatribe started by WhyDev, I would like to tackle the phrase capacity building. Admittedly, I am in the field of capacity development. I worked as a capacity builder for the Japanese government for several years and yes, it mostly entailed training.

However, once I broadened my perspective on capacity development to include community capacity, things got interesting. The process of capacity building works like this (in my view), first you train a group of people to improve their individual capacity, then, using the skills from the training, they can go out and contribute to their community, in turn improving overall community capacity. 

And to make the verbiage even more fun our capacity building trainings were on teaching the nuances of community capacity, not to mention that the programs were largely presented in Japanese then translated into English, often the second (or third or fifth) language of the training participants. 

Confusing terminology aside, these trainings did serve a purpose in terms of enlightening public officials on how to leverage the social capital within their communities, as well as building their own practical capacity as administrators.

I guess I don't "hate" the term capacity building, but much like those at WhyDev I am dismayed by its overuse and misuse. Especially because, after all, we aren't really "building" anything in these trainings (and you can't even reasonably put capacity building as on output of a project because you can't control or measure it).

When I hear people gripe about capacity building I'm taken back to one of my early research trips to Indonesia where 2 "seasoned" development professionals were ribbing each other about it. One man jokingly said "I'm going to build some capacity over here [mimicking building a mound of something with his hands] and over here [same gesture]." Then he continued to laugh hysterically.