How to measure the impact of capacity development intervention at the level of the beneficiaries?

An advisor has been struggling with impact measurement of capacity development intervention, in particular on the quality of service delivery of his partners. What is the impact of capacity development of an organization on its beneficiairies? How to measure this? And how to do this systematically? Furthermore, it would be nice if this method for measurement does not result in a document alone, but in an increased learning capacity of partner organizations, beneficiaries and donors alike. Smaller organizations may do good work with beneficiaries, bu

Measuring the output of capacity development interventions is easy: number of trainings, number of workshops etc. but measuring outcome is more difficult because it is about measuring behavioural change. It is not only about qualitative data, but about qualitative data.

It might be an idea to learn from other sectors how they measure impact, in order to find innovative ways forward. For instance the Dutch 'rekenkamer' the Governmental Accountant Control Institution has worked with the African Accountant Control Institutions and have developed a methodology.

Within the communities of practice theory, there is a suggestion to measure intangible outcomes by collecting 'systematic anecdotal evidence'. What can we learn from these fields of measurement?

How to link capacity development to improved services delivery?

Shannon McNary (see picture) shared her experiences trying to reinforce the link between capacity development and improved service delivery. In this blogpost you will find a summary of her case.

She worked in Baku in Azerbaijan with the National Committee of the Helsinki Citizens Assemblee (HCA) working towards sustainable peace, protecting human rights and promoting civil society.

The habit within the capacity building program was that each organisation created a capacity building plan, and most partners focused on training topics like improving public relations, writing proposals, computer and language skills and attracting volunteers. Nearly all chose to use local trainers for these trainings. A mid-term review of the capacity building program showed however that the partners were too much time on managing the program, and the interventions were delinked from actual service delivery and analysis. It had become 'capacity for capacity sake' and needed to be capacity linked to program and organizational goals.

So how to improve the link between capacity development and improved service delivery? The advisors embarked on a strategic planning and organizational self-assessment process with each partner. In the workshop, for 6 days long, partners using the Rose of Leary to score themselves. Long and short term strategies and activities and proposals for capacity building were explicitly linked to programs and activities.

Picture below: trust building meeting for youth in Georgia