Third E-discussion: Capacity Development in Practice
Capacity is not only about what is done but also how it is done
7 October - 2 November

Week 1: How to build trust, meaningful dialogue, commitment and self-confidence?
Week 2: When and how to use external expertise?
Week 3: How to ensure accountability to the ultimate beneficiaries of aid?
Week 4: How to pursue capacity development in fragile environments?

The answers to these and other questions can be found in the day-to-day work of those engaged in development. While there are no blueprints and contexts differ widely, experiences can be shared across borders. One can learn both from success and failure. This forum focused on an exchange of constructive ideas and real examples of how things can be done to achieve lasting capacity.

The e-discussion fed directly into a third book with the working title Can We Do Better? Insights for Capacity Development.

Previous E-discussions

Two earlier rounds of electronic discussions were organized as part of the initiative, in collaboration with the European Centre for Development Policy Management and hosted by Capacity.org. These global e-discussions allowed study authors to interact with discussants in a moderated exchange on focus study topics.

The first round of discussions, which attracted over 200 contributions, marked the launch of the initiative in June 2001. During a six-week period period in the run up to the first Roundtable in Geneva, participants discussed the extent to which donor agencies, recipient governments and the wider development industry are ready to reform technical cooperation in order to achieve the objective of capacity development.

The second round of e-discussions, which began in October 2001 and ran for eight weeks, dealt with questions raised by the "Alternatives and Options" topics. Over 600 participants discussed the hypotheses emerging from four focus studies: "Making Capacity Stick", "Opportunity Costs and Effective Markets", "Easy to Evoke, Hard to Account for" and "TC Modalities Under Scrutiny". Contributions fed into the research and the second Roundtable in Turin.

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