Capacity Building

Change frequently requires trained facilitators. And most programmes of change, especially behavioural change, have strategies to build capacity. Yet, like in our classrooms and schools, true capacity building is measured not by the number of classes attended or textbooks read, but by actual tested performance. Thus, the real measure of whether a hand pump mechanic course was useful for the men who attended the course, is how many of them are able to repair a hand pump in real life - and how well!

Capacity building is a usually provided from "outside" the village community: A service to support the change that is envisaged. Yet, there are many aspects of capacity building - and hence many places things can go wrong.

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Bad quality training

Poor quality trainers: Good trainers are hard to find - those with the ability to impart information in a manner that makes it easy to absorb it - and convert it into knowledge. Poor trainers do not help trainees absorb information or raise their curiosity. They may even put the trainees off attending training sessions in future! Yet, almost anyone with a few years of field experience aspires to becoming a trainer. Rules and qualifications are required to maintain quality of teaching.

Poor quality material: Not all of us can remember everything we are taught. Teaching materials help stimulate our memory and help us remember. But giving rural Indian children good quality training material from other cultures and countries may not help the teaching process. Sometimes, however, the material is good ? but teachers do not care to use them, and they end up in dusty piles in village classrooms or Panchayat offices!

Inconvenient location, timing or facilities: The convenience of the location, timing and facilities are arguably more important to women than to men. Holding the training within the village, at times convenient to the rhythms of household tasks, with basic toilet and water facilities may actually encourage more women to attend training programme. And a village with a good hall and other facilities, will attract more people in subsequent programmes.

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Training - not capacity building

Lectures, not hands on: Teaching is extremely challenging to the teacher. Unfortunately, only a handful can "practice what they preach". The lack of confidence of the teacher usually leads to lectures rather than hands on demonstration. And yet, it is the latter that gives the student the confidence of "doing", as opposed to just "talking".

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Selecting the wrong people

The best of the lot? The wrong people being selected to attend the training is a common story. Sometimes this is deliberate - as when the influential people in the village send themselves on trainings held in "nice" places - and sometimes, the "best of the lot" are selected and sent. Why don't the more deserving candidates come forward? Sometimes the answer is simple: if they are poor, low caste or women, they are simply not informed about the training - and the call for candidates.

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Capacity Building Support Services

Strategy: If SOs responsible for implementing Swajaldhara were commercial firms whose market share was closely linked to the number of people they trained, and trained well, there could be huge explosion in interest and thus, strategies to achieve their goals. Given that so much of sustainable water supply, sanitation, hygiene education and health require long term behavioural change, a clear strategy is vital.

A strategy incorporates objectives, means to achieve them (action or business plans), verifiable indicators and means of verification. It is constantly updated in comparisons with the actual state of affairs and modified if necessary.

Training needs assessment: Any serious strategy requires information on base levels of knowledge. How much do people already know? With this knowledge, training and capacity building events can be planned with more focus and therefore effectiveness.

Training calendar: Usually confined to large teaching institutions, a training calendar provides information on what courses are offered by whom, where, when and for how much. While a lot of training institutions have training calendars, it is quite rare to see such calendars where they are really required? with the VWSCs, SHGs and GPs.

Training of trainers: A crucial link in the "cascade" form of training - where a higher level (e.g., district) trains a lower level (e.g., block), which turns another lower level (GP), and so on. As in elementary physics, there is usually a loss of some information (or context, background or detail) in the transmission process. Sometimes, this loss is significantly high.

An independent evaluation of the GOI-UNICEF CEP (1999 - 2003) in rural India found that more than 50% of the teachers responsible for improving sanitation and hygiene behaviour among school children were themselves unaware of all the 7 (or in UP 10) key hygiene behaviour messages. In a programme where children are to carry the message of change into their own homes, and from there onwards to the rest of the village community, such a lapse can affect the final result quite badly.

Horizontal learning: Often, communities can learn much more, and faster, from each other. This process needs to be explored and supported by more "horizontal" learning programmes including cross-visits and experience sharing. The effectiveness of such unconventional learning efforts can be enhanced many fold through process documentation - and even video-taping ? to spread the news of these innovative practices and ideas, far and wide.

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Good practice

Informing others of training issues: How many training programmes insist that their trainees must go back to their respective villages and share their experiences - and newly-developed skills. That way, a lot more people will benefit from a single person going for the training.

Putting training to use: A clear sign of training being useful and absorbed effectively when the skills learnt are either transferred or used to generate income or to improve ones own status within rural communities. For, only those who have mastered their skill can use their skills to good effect.

Using feedback: Often, feedback from the initial rounds of capacity building contain valuable hints on how to improve the effectiveness of capacity building programmes. But this requires a systematic effort to collect and use feedback, something that is not commonly found in development programmes in any sector

Capacity building has remained a "soft" activity, without clear cut measurement indicators and consequences of failure. And yet, clear messaging that stimulates others' thinking and behaviour are vital in our society of change.

Links to

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Tools and Resources (India)

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