The role of
civil society and citizens’ participation
is increasingly being recognized as key to sustainable
development and promoting democratic governance
in recent times. The growing importance of civil
society organizations (CSOs) and citizens in catalysing
social change makes it imperative for us to find
ways to strengthen the capacity of CSOs.
Capacity building
of CSOs needs to be located in this context. PRIA
recognises capacity building as a gradual and
cumulative process. Therefore, initiatives aimed
at building the capacity of a voluntary organisation
are expected to result in improved effectiveness
in pursuit of its purposes and mission.
In this sense,
capacity for continuous organisational learning,
reflection and systematisation, are the bases
on which new capacity building occurs. It means,
building of capacity without rush, hurried immediate
pressures of task completion. Thus capacity building
of a voluntary organisation acquires a purposive
and a systematic nature; it implies especially
designed, planned and structured interventions
carried out by the voluntary organisation with
the assistance of others.
However, capacity
building of voluntary organisations has been a
serious problem as seen in the Indian (and global)
experience.
Some of the
key problems are:
· Capacity
building has been driven largely by the concerns
of northern donors to ensure better efficiency
and reporting of funds provided for specific projects.
Thus the focus of much of capacity building has
been on improving the financial management and
reporting system of a voluntary organisation
·Capacity building is
only linked to specific projects in order to improve
the performance of that project alone. No effort
is made to institutionalise capacity building
beyond the requirements of that project
· Short
term orientation to capacity building is linked
to immediate and measurable targets that can be
reported to the donors. Long-term cumulative processes
of learning are ignored.
· Capacity
building predominantly focuses on technical training
of individuals working in different roles on a
funded pectoral project. Locating the new technology
in the existing culture and context of a voluntary
organisation is not even attempted.
· Training is the dominant
method of capacity building to ensure capacity
of individuals equipped to play project specific
roles. Hardly any focus on organisational systems,
culture or institutional linkages is given in
training.
· The bulk of the provision
of capacity building relies on provision of external
(in many cases expatriate) experts to transfer
knowledge gained in one context to be applied
to the other. Building local support mechanisms
for on-going capacity building are largely ignored.
PRIA envisages
the capacity of civil society organisations to
strengthen their engagement in public participation.
Through such efforts, it seeks to help build new
roles and relationships between government and
non-governmental organisations. Capacity building
for PRIA is about building new processes and not
about delivering products. The challenge is to
design capacity building interventions, which
would not only build the organisational capacity
but also strengthen network, partnership building
and campaign at the grass roots level.
