2004, Yemile Mizrahi / The World Bank
During the past decade, capacity enhancement has become an increasingly important topic of discussion within the development community. Both academics and practitioners have recognized that developing countries need to enhance the capacity of their private and public institutions and organizations to meet the challenges of development in a sustainable manner. Virtually all donor agencies and multilateral organizations include capacity enhancement programs in their strategies. The topic has been thoroughly researched and a vast literature has been written on this subject.
The purposes of this paper are to: identify indicators of capacity and capacity enhancement in the development related literature produced over the past ten years; examine the difficulties and challenges of measuring capacity enhancement; and suggest an analytical framework format for designing capacity enhancement indicators.
The following pages review the literature on capacity enhancement and identify some of the indicators that have been proposed to disaggregate measure and operationalize this concept. Using this literature and combining different analytical approaches, this document suggests a format for designing capacity enhancement indicators for a hypothetical project on statistical capacity enhancement. The annexes reproduce the indicators referred to in the text and are included to facilitate consultation.
