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Monitoring and evaluation of capacity building
Why monitoring and evaluation (M&E) of capacity building?
This new Praxis theme aims to explore how to effectively monitor and evaluate capacity building activities and programmes.
Many CSOs struggle with the monitoring and evaluation of capacity building. Part of the challenge is how to measure and attribute the impact of any capacity building activities. This is exacerbated by the indirect nature of capacity building (in relation to final results) and uncertainty in identifying cause and effect.
CSO capacity building is important – and problems caused by the lack of capacity are often clear – but it is hard to be precise about what difference a specific capacity building intervention has made. As donors are increasingly concerned to demonstrate results, this is clearly an important issue. All stakeholders, however, have an interest in making improvements in this area.
Latest paper
Monitoring and Evaluating Capacity Building: Is it really that difficult?
A 36-page paper by Nigel Simister with Rachel Smith, which examines both the theory and current practice of M&E of capacity building, and aims to promote debate on some of the key barriers to progress.
Learning group
The M&E of capacity building learning group will bring together M&E and capacity building specialists, practitioners and thinkers globally to explore issues in more depth. Group members will steer the work of this theme, participate in online discussions, share and discuss challenges and success stories, publicise their events, and contribute to new and useful practitioner resources.