OPS 36. Practical Guidelines for the Monitoring and Evaluation of Capacity-Building: Experience from Africa

Capacity-Building and Monitoring and Evaluation have become two of the most important priorities of the development community during the last decade. The UN General Assembly Resolution (UN, A/RES/50/120 Art 22.) now refers to the ‘objective of capacity-building’ as ‘an essential part of the operational activities of the UN’. Other official agencies as well as international NGOs have made capacity-building central to their strategic goals. This is a welcome development. At the same time, bilateral and multi-lateral agencies in particular have taken impact assessment even more seriously. With political pressures to reduce aid budgets, official agencies are seeking to focus their resources on areas, where they can have most impact. Information about impact is required to do this and so international NGOs are increasingly requested to provide evidence of ‘value for money’ to their back donors.