Challenging Capacity Building

Transcription

1 Challenging Capacity Building Comparative Perspectives Sue Kenny Matthew Clarke

2 Rethinking International Development Series Series Editors: Andy Sumner, Fellow of the Vulnerability and Poverty Research Team, Institute of Development Studies, UK. Ray Kiely, Professor of International Politics, Queen Mary University of London, UK. Palgrave Macmillan is delighted to announce a new series dedicated to publishing cutting-edge titles that focus on the broad area of development. The core aims of the series are to present critical work that: is cross disciplinary; challenges orthodoxies; reconciles theoretical depth with empirical research; explores the frontiers of development studies in terms of development in both North and South and global inter-connectedness; reflects on claims to knowledge and intervening in other peoples lives. Titles include: Simon Feeny and Matthew Clarke THE MILLENNIUM DEVELOPMENT GOALS AND BEYOND International Assistance to the Asia-Pacific Niamh Gaynor TRANSFORMING PARTICIPATION? The Politics of Development in Malawi and Ireland Sue Kenny and Matthew Clarke (editors) CHALLENGING CAPACITY BUILDING Comparative Perspectives Eric Rugraff, Diego Sánchez-Ancochea, Andy Sumner (editors) TRANSNATIONAL CORPORATIONS AND DEVELOPMENT POLICY Critical Perspectives Jens Stilhoff Sörensen (editor) CHALLENGING THE AID PARADIGM Western Currents and Asian Alternatives Andy Sumner and Meera Tiwari AFTER 2015: INTERNATIONAL DEVELOPMENT POLICY AT A CROSSROADS Rethinking International Development Series Series Standing Order ISBN (hardback) You can receive future titles in this series as they are published by placing a standing order. Please contact your bookseller or, in case of difficulty, write to us at the address below with your name and address, the title of the series and the ISBN quoted above. Customer Services Department, Macmillan Distribution Ltd, Houndmills, Basingstoke, Hampshire RG21 6XS, England

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4 Challenging Capacity Building Comparative Perspectives Edited By Sue Kenny Director of the Centre for Citizenship, Development and Human Rights, Deakin University, Australia Matthew Clarke Deputy Head, School of International and Political Studies, Deakin University, Australia

5 Editorial matter, selection and introduction Sue Kenny and Matthew Clarke 2010 All remaining chapters respective authors 2010 All rights reserved. No reproduction, copy or transmission of this publication may be made without written permission. No portion of this publication may be reproduced, copied or transmitted save with written permission or in accordance with the provisions of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988, or under the terms of any licence permitting limited copying issued by the Copyright Licensing Agency, Saffron House, 6 10 Kirby Street, London EC1N 8TS. Any person who does any unauthorized act in relation to this publication may be liable to criminal prosecution and civil claims for damages. The authors have asserted their rights to be identified as the authors of this work in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act First published 2010 by PALGRAVE MACMILLAN Palgrave Macmillan in the UK is an imprint of Macmillan Publishers Limited, registered in England, company number , of Houndmills, Basingstoke, Hampshire RG21 6XS. Palgrave Macmillan in the US is a division of St Martin s Press LLC, 175 Fifth Avenue, New York, NY Palgrave Macmillan is the global academic imprint of the above companies and has companies and representatives throughout the world. Palgrave and Macmillan are registered trademarks in the United States, the United Kingdom, Europe and other countries ISBN hardback This book is printed on paper suitable for recycling and made from fully managed and sustained forest sources. Logging, pulping and manufacturing processes are expected to conform to the environmental regulations of the country of origin. A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library. Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Challenging capacity building : comparative perspectives / edited by Sue Kenny, Matthew Clarke. p. cm. (Rethinking international development series) ISBN Community development Case studies. 2. Infrastructure (Economics) Environmental aspects Case studies. 3. Sustainable development Case studies. I. Kenny, Susan, 1946 II. Clarke, Matthew, 1969 HN49.C6C dc Printed and bound in Great Britain by CPI Antony Rowe, Chippenham and Eastbourne

6 Contents List of Tables List of Contributors vii viii Part I Capacity Building and Community Development: 1 Challenging Rhetoric and Practice Chapter 1 Introduction 3 Sue Kenny and Matthew Clarke Chapter 2 Developing Capacities and Agency in Complex 21 Times Chris Miller Chapter 3 Community Capacity Building: Critiquing the 41 Concept in Different Policy Contexts Gary Craig Chapter 4 Capacity Building and Community Development 67 Jim Ife Part II Practical Challenges of Capacity Building 85 Chapter 5 Emergent Drivers for Building and Sustaining 87 Capacity in Australian Indigenous Communities Jill Abdullah and Susan Young Chapter 6 Re-imagining Capacity Building When 112 Participation is Constrained: Illegal Burmese Migrants in Thailand Matthew Clarke Chapter 7 The Solomon Islands: Conflict and Capacity 133 Heather Wallace Chapter 8 Capacity Building in Indonesia: Building 156 What Capacity? Ismet Fanany, Rebecca Fanany and Sue Kenny Chapter 9 Capacity Building and Urban Regeneration in 185 Dublin, Ireland Michelle Share v

7 vi Contents Chapter 10 Capacity Building and Community Power 211 Randy Stoecker Chapter 11 Transition Towns and Community Capacity 229 Building Phil Connors Chapter 12 Conclusion: Critical Capacity Building 248 Sue Kenny and Matthew Clarke Index 258

8 List of Tables Table 6.1 Types of Abuse Encountered by Illegal Burmese 115 Migrants in Mae Sot Table 6.2 Comparison of Key Indices Between Thailand 118 and Burma Table 6.3 Constraints of Working with Illegal Burmese 125 Migrant Communities vii

9 List of Contributors As researchers, policy advisers, practitioners, writers, editors and teachers in the areas of international and community development, many of the authors of this proposed book have identified a lack of critical analyses of the idea and practice of capacity building and the need for rigorous examination of the complexities and tensions in developing and implementing capacity building programmes. The focus of many capacity building programmes is poor and disadvantaged communities and the appropriateness of capacity building for these groups, whether located in developing or developed countries, is presented as self-evident. In much of the discussion of how to build capacity, critical questions regarding the determination of whose capacities are to built, the methods by which capacity will be built (for example, exogenous or endogenous) and the consequences for wider relationships of those whose capacity is being built (and presumably for those whose capacity is being left to be built at another time!) are not investigated. A deeper understanding of the meaning, practice and potential of capacity building is necessary and is undertaken in this book. Editors Professor Sue Kenny is the Director of the Centre for Citizenship, Development and Human Rights at Deakin University, Melbourne, Australia. She has extensive research and consultancy experience in development issues in Australia and internationally and has published widely on community development and non-government organisations. Associate Professor Matthew Clarke is Deputy Head of the School of International and Political Studies and the Course the Director of the International and Community Development programme at Deakin University, Australia. Associate Professor Clarke also undertakes regular evaluations of community development projects in the Pacific and South-east Asia. Other contributors Professor Chris Miller is Professor of Social and Community Development at the University of the West of England, Bristol, UK, Director of the Centre for Local Democracy, Research Fellow Centre for Pyscho-Social viii

10 List of Contributors ix Studies and Editor of the Community Development Journal. Professor Miller teaches research methods, policy and professional practice on the Masters in Leadership and Organisation for Public Services programme, which he helped establish. Professor Gary Craig is Professor of Social Justice at the University of Hull, Head of the Centre for Social Inclusion and Social Justice, and Associate Director of the Wilberforce Institute for the Study of Slavery and Emancipation. His research interests include poverty, local governance, race and ethnicity and community development. He is President of the International Association for Community Development, Fellow of the Royal Society of Arts and Academician of the Academy of the Learned Societies in the Social Sciences. Professor Jim Ife is Honorary Professor at the Centre for Citizenship and Human Rights at Deakin University, and Emeritus Professor in the Centre for Human Rights Education at Curtin University. His academic interests have centered on community development and human rights, and he has published extensively in both fields. He is currently working on a book Human Rights from Below which will integrate understandings of theory and practice from the perspectives of both community development and human rights. Dr Michelle Share is a Senior Researcher at the Children s Research Centre, Trinity College Dublin, where she leads the Centre in programme evaluation. She is involved in research and evaluation work in a number of Dublin city urban regeneration programmes. Prior to her appointment to the Children s Research Centre, Michelle was employed as a Senior Research Officer in the Division of Population Health, Health Services Executive. Jill Abdullah is a Wudjari woman with matrilineal links to a country in the south-east of Western Australia. Jill has completed her Master of Arts (Social Sciences) and is currently enrolled in a Doctor of Creative Arts at Curtin University of Technology. Throughout her career Jill has won both national and state awards and been successful with APA scholarships & AIATSIS research grants. Jill has extensive educational, policy and administrative experience in various government, statutory and academic organisations. She was a Visiting Fellow at the University of New Mexico, Albuquerque and has supervised doctoral, masters and post-graduate students at Curtin University of Technology.

11 x List of Contributors Dr Susan Young is a social work educator whose practice experience has been over the past thirty years in community development, much of which has been with remote Indigenous communities. Susan s recent publications have investigated the relationships between Indigenous and non-indigenous workers in a large welfare bureaucracy. Dr Ismet Fanany lectures in Indonesian language and culture and coordinates Deakin s in-country intensive Indonesian language and culture programme held every summer semester in Padang, West Sumatra. Before coming to Deakin, he was Head of the Department of Asian Languages and Studies at the University of Tasmania. His most recent publications include topics on Malay proverbs and metaphors and language and public policy. In addition, he also writes fiction and translates from English into Indonesian. Dr Rebecca Fanany teaches within the School of Public health at La Trobe University, Australia. She has lived and worked in Indonesia, Malaysia, and Singapore periodically since her first contact with the region in She has worked in collaboration with her husband on many projects. Dr Heather Wallace is a lecturer in the Masters of lnternational and Community Development at Deakin University. She has a background of research and work in aid and development projects in the Solomon Islands, Vanuatu, Bangladesh, China, Cambodia, Thailand, Indonesia, Pakistan and India. Dr Wallace s research includes government and NGO relationships in development with a particular focus on the Solomon Islands and Vanuatu. She has had various articles published on community development, gender and development issues in the Pacific Islands. Professor Randy Stoecker is Associate Professor in the Department of Rural Sociology at the University of Wisconsin, with a joint appointment in the University of Wisconsin-Extension Center for Community and Economic Development. He has a Ph.D. in Sociology from the University of Minnesota, and a Masters of Science in Counseling from the University of Wisconsin-Whitewater. He moderates/edits COMM-ORG: The On-Line Conference on Community Organizing and Development ( He conducts training and speaks frequently on community organising and development, participatory research/ evaluation, and community information technology.

12 List of Contributors xi Dr Phil Connors is a lecturer in International and Community Development at Deakin University and has undertaken research for Victoria Police into engaging with hard to reach communities and youth. Currently Dr Connors is completing a research project with the Big Issue Magazine in Melbourne exploring the economic and social outcomes for vendors.

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14 Part I Capacity Building and Community Development: Challenging Rhetoric and Practice

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16 1 Introduction Sue Kenny and Matthew Clarke The romance with capacity building As has been noted recently (Cornwall, 2007), the field of international and community development is a haven for buzzwords, jargon and acronyms. The development lexicon is full of commonly used terms that have been assigned specific meaning within the development context: consider for example participation, gender, empowerment, sustainability, partnership or indeed the word development itself. None of these words are innocent. They carry with them particular theoretical and normative standpoints. In some cases they are infused with contradictory or melded meanings and operate as Trojan horses for a new set of ideological predispositions (Kenny, 2002). Common terms that are heavily imbued with significance all too often assume an aura of infallibility, which in turn can limit meaning, debate and discussion. Capacity building is one such term. It has the power to foreground certain approaches to development, such as those based around human resource and organisational enhancement, while silencing others, such those based around as activism and environmentalism (see Ife, Chapter 4 in this volume). Of course in and of itself, the term capacity building is innocuous enough, but within the development context, the practices, meaning and importance of capacity building are often simply assumed. Whether or not the meaning and importance are assumed or explicitly defined, the term is usually loaded with positive value. At face value there is considerable appeal in capacity building. For example, in its most ambitious form, capacity building can enable disempowered people in both the global north and global south to take control of their own destinies. As Miller and Ife discuss in this volume (albeit with different implications), capacity building speaks to human 3

17 4 Introduction potential. Projects organised around capacity building can offer important ways of enriching human lives, through general transfer of knowledge and skills and local participation and control. Indeed, under the alluring slogan of helping people to help themselves capacity building interventions have promised to change the very nature of development. Capacity building is placed in favourable opposition to traditional top-down social engineering, structural adjustment programmes or welfare-based models of development. In more modest ways capacity building programmes assist groups, communities and organisations to enhance their performance in regard to specific tasks and adapt to social change (Morgan, 1999; James, 2001). In particular, capacity building can improve an organisation s effectiveness and sustainability (James, 2001). Furthermore, whether through non-government organisations (NGOs) speaking for disadvantaged and marginalised people, or through such people being given their own voice, capacity building programmes promise to empower people who have been excluded from participation in society. As discussed in this book (for example see Chapters 2 and 8 by Miller and Fanany et al.), there are also pragmatic reasons for organising development programmes around capacity building principles. Building people s capacities to take control of their own needs takes pressure off governments and the obligations of aid agencies to maintain continuing support for local development programmes, the latter effect being particularly important in the case of developing countries. Being closer to the ground so to speak, local communities understand where the resources are and how to access them. They know how to identify and handle local needs and they can mitigate the effort, energies and costs borne by external agents in providing infrastructure for development programmes. These, then, are the promises. It would seem that the logic of the arguments for a capacity building approach to development is both reasonable and intuitively sound, as Clarke points out in Chapter 6. However the authors in this book take issue with the almost global fixation with capacity building (Craig, 2007). For example Clarke (Chapter 6) argues that the value of capacity building is now considered vital to development interventions internationally, so much so that it has become fetishised. One of the factors that has contributed to this fetishisation is the narrow framing of capacity building. A number of the contributors to this book point out that capacity building programmes are set within the restricted parameters of neo-liberalism. Neo-liberalism calls for organisational principles that have come to be known as new managerialism. New managerialism involves the enhancement of managerial leadership

18 Sue Kenny and Matthew Clarke 5 and initiative, a focus on output and outcomes rather than process, and a competitive attitude, including performance initiatives and rewards (Considine and Painter, 1997). A key characteristic of both neo-liberal and new managerialist activities and policies is the appearance of value neutrality. Tasks are performed as technical procedures. What matters is the efficient fulfilment of set goals. However neoliberal policies and new managerialism are indeed based on values (see Chapter 2 Miller in this book). These values include the views that competition and individualism are the key drivers of society. Supporters of neo-liberal policies condemn dependency, arguing that individual agency can overcome disadvantage. It is this focus on agency that underpins the fetishisation of capacity building. For a wider framing of capacity building we must turn to community development. The history of community development, as a set of development principles and practices based on ideas of social justice, human rights, community participation and ownership of projects, can be traced back to the post-world War II attempts to empower communities in the developing world to take responsibility for their own development. By the mid-1960s community development was taken up in the so-called developed world, and particularly in English speaking countries (see Chapter 3 Craig). In the Anglo dominated world community development was constructed in opposition to the patronising and disempowering tendencies of the welfare state and to authoritarian social work. Ironically, even though much of community development was premised on the approach and ideas that we today call capacity building, it was not until the late 1990s that capacity building entered the community development lexicon and began to capture the policy agendas of governments in such countries as the UK, Canada, Australia and New Zealand. Significantly, the bifurcation of community development constructed around different discourses and practices in the North and South has continued, and is maintained in the capacity building literature today. The tracking of the trajectories of community development and capacity building led to the obvious question of whether capacity building is actually synonymous with community development, but for a number of reasons is presented as a new set of practices, obfuscating not only capacity building, but community development itself. This issue is a major theme of this book and the different contributors deal with this issue quite differently. As argued in this book, by the beginning of the 1990s capacity building had become a central tenet of development interventions, including interventions that took place in international aid agencies,

19 6 Introduction multilateral organisations or urban renewal projects. The intellectual embrace of capacity building can be linked to the ascendancy of three sociological perspectives that edged their way through the social sciences and into policy agendas in the 1970s and 1980s. These were the perspectives of agency, active citizenship and civil society. Brought together, they held that active citizens, participating in the institutions of burgeoning civil societies, have the capacity to steer human endeavour in a direction that can produce self-determining, sustainable societies. In contrast to the view of the citizen as a passive subject whose citizenship rights and obligations are decided upon from above, active citizens are emancipated actors. In its strongest sense then, capacity building requires self-rule and self-determination (Warren, 2001:62). If this is so, then what type of capacity building, if any, can occur when these features are missing? This question is addressed by Clarke in Chapter 6. In the hands of a new generation of development workers in both international and community development, these ideas became powerful mobilising tools by the end of the twenty-first century. In particular, the notion that civil society had significant emancipatory power and offered practical support to problem solving in both established and emerging democracies (Edwards, 2004) found a receptive audience in the younger generation of development professionals who were then moving into policy positions in UN agencies, NGOs and local government settings alike. Civil society, in particular, identified as the sphere where people associate freely, identify shared interests, shape norms and articulate purposes (Rosenblum and Prost, 2002) was an appropriate site for the establishment of capacity building programmes. It was paraded as the ideal place to empower individuals and communities to take responsibility for their own directions and welfare. This framing of civil society took place within a strong anti-statist rhetoric (Ehrenberg, 1998). It was bolstered by the view that the state dampened the initiative and creativity necessary for a fully productive, self-sustaining society, whilst civil society nurtured responsibility and provided spaces for constructing alternative practices and visions (Ehrenberg, 1998). In so far as they operated in and through civil society, capacity building programmes could open up discussion of issues of community concern and provide new processes for generating local solidarity. Collective participation in capacity building could offer a way of countering the socially corrosive effects of the contemporary state controlled political and social order. Such views reflect a general shift in our understanding of the relation between citizens and the institutions in which they operate. This

20 Sue Kenny and Matthew Clarke 7 understanding was embedded in an approach that focused on the role of individuals and collectivities as agents in their own destiny. It is constructed around what is often known as the agency paradigm. The agency paradigm involves the conception of humans as autonomous, self-conscious beings who associate freely and take responsibility for their own lives. Moreover, active citizenship means that people are producing new ways of being subjects (Isin and Nielsen, 2008). Citizenship rights and obligations are not just passed down from above. As indicated above, they are actively created by members of societies. The tension between the two ways of thinking about citizenship, about whether humans create their world or are determined by it, has also been thought of in terms of agency versus structure. In the discourse and practice of development the pendulum has swung from the emphasis on structure, such as in policies for structural adjustment in international development, and in policies for welfare reform in the global north, towards the agency side of the debate, placing capacity building programmes at the centre of development initiatives. There has been another, more political and largely unfulfilled project that has helped shape policies for capacity building, particularly in the last few years. This is the project of human rights, which has drawn attention to the rights of development subjects to identify their own capacities and needs, do their own envisioning for the future and construct their own ways of achieving needs and visions. Human rights agendas also acknowledge the obligations of those who have power and resources to facilitate capacity development when required. Considerations of capacity building Given the growing interest in capacity building as development practice since the 1990s it is no wonder that there has been considerable discussion of the role of capacity building in a range of development settings. Most of this discussion has focused on the developing world, in initiatives ranging from World Bank projects, such as the Kecamatan Development Programme in Indonesia (World Bank, 1998) to programmes in post-conflict situations, such as in Bosnia (Sterland, 2006). However, since the early 1990s there has been a burgeoning commitment to capacity building in the so-called developed world. This discussion has involved some probing analyses, particularly around the issue of the multiple meanings of capacity building (see for example Chapman and Kirk, 2001). However, while there are some notable exceptions (see Miller in Chapter 2 including Mowbray, 2005; Powell

21 8 Introduction and Geoghegan, 2006; Verity, 2007; DeFilippis et al., 2009) their main purpose has been to strengthen capacity building by clarifying its meaning, elucidating its purpose, understanding better how it works and suggesting areas and methods for improvement. Thus any critical edge to the discussion of capacity building has been instrumentally driven: the concern of commentators has been how to do it better. While some analyses in this book are written with a view to suggesting areas and methods for improving capacity building programmes, all chapters are primarily concerned to interrogate the assumptions and practices of capacity building. It is possible to discern some general themes arising from these interrogations. First, both the general analyses and the case-studies presented in this book reveal that there is considerable terminological confusion surrounding the idea of capacity building, and indeed there have been many attempts to extend or replace it (with such terms as capacity development, capacity enhancement and community capacity building). As Ife (Chapter 4) points out in this book, the use of different language signifies different ideas and emphases, which can profoundly affect the construction of capacity building. Notwithstanding the terminological confusions, the rhetoric of capacity building has immense power. It is replete with normative meaning. At the same time there is little or no acknowledgement of theoretical and political contexts. The normative force of capacity building is reinforced when it is linked to community, that contested construct that can be invested with profoundly different meanings, as discussed by Craig in Chapter 3 and Abdullah and Young in Chapter 5. A corollary to the normative understanding is the essentialist construction of capacity building initiatives, such as is found in the idea that capacity building methods can be developed through a formulaic one size fits all approach. The normative formulaic approach to capacity building facilitates the foregrounding of some aspects of capacity building, such as the importance of individual agency and measurable outputs, and the silencing of other aspects, such as the capacity for activism (see Ife in Chapter 4), for mutual support and trust (see Miller in Chapter 2) and cultural sensitivity (see Abdullah and Young in Chapter 5). Second, capacity building is premised on a social ontology in which agency trumps structure. It ignores the fact that the very reason why some communities have difficulties in developing is not their lack of capacity, but the structural, political and resource impediments in their way. This social ontology is compounded when external capacity builders are employed and they fail to understand that all com-

22 Sue Kenny and Matthew Clarke 9 munities already have capacities. In their eagerness to identify ways of overcoming capacity deficits, many professional capacity builders ignore not only the assets of the community they are working with, but what they can themselves learn from the recipient community (see Abdullah and Young in Chapter 5). This deficit orientation is a significant weakness of capacity building programmes and is commented on throughout the book. It prompts the question of whose capacity it really is that needs building. Several contributors reflect on the cross-cultural capacity building needs of external professionals (see chapters by Abdullah and Young and Fanany et al. in Chapters 5 and 8 respectively). The third theme concerns the construction of the discourse and practice of capacity building within narrow instrumentalist and technocratic terms of reference. As Ife points out in Chapter 4 capacity building programmes are based on a lineal logic directed at predetermined objectives and goals. Capacity building is also technocratic in so far as its activities become technical tasks or procedures and political decisions are dressed up as technical decisions (Habermas, 1971). This is particularly evident when a gap analysis or pathology approach (see Ife in Chapter 4) is applied (identifying what is needed and what is missing, and developing strategies to redress the gap). Instrumentalist and technocratic thinking are facilitated by top-down methods of decision-making. As Ife points out, such methods foreclose the possibility of an organic, iterative process of decision-making. They also fail to grasp the messy, unpredictable reality of community processes. There are many ways in which the instrumentalist and technocratic nature of capacity building programmes denies the promises of fulfilment of human potential and empowerment. As Miller discusses in Chapter 2, capacity building can offer an appealing strategy in a larger project concerned with social justice and deepening democracy. In this wider project capacities can be developed through reflection upon experiences. However within the dominant instrumentalist and technocratic framework, capacity building involves the mastery of predefined skills. Such an understanding forecloses alternative perspectives and activism. Once critical dialogue is silenced in the interests of narrow instrumentalism the quest for social justice and deeper democracy collapses. Any possibility of capacity building for social change gives way to capacity building for efficient organisations, obedience or bettering oneself (see Miller in Chapter 2 and Fanany et al. in Chapter 8). By focusing on training and practical skills, technocratically-based capacity building dispenses with the broader understanding of empowerment

23 10 Introduction that has been so influential in community development practice in the 1990s (Ife et al., 2006). For example it ignores the vital understanding in community development that empowerment requires power over resources, power over relationships, power over information and knowledge and power over decision-making (see Abdullah and Young in Chapter 5). In community development considerations of empowerment draw attention to the ways in which power is constructed and exerted. Full empowerment requires changes to the material living conditions of those who are oppressed and disadvantaged in society. Fourth, linked to the instrumentalist and technocratic nature of capacity building and the framing of capacity building in managerialist terms of reference is the focus on organisational development and training. Several contributors to this book reflect on the preoccupation with building the capacities of organisations (see Chapter 8 by Fanany et al. and Chapter 10 by Stoecker), most noticeably in the image of a business organisation, and the didactic pedagogies underlying the preoccupation with capacity building as training (see Chapters 2, 4, 8, and 10 by Miller, Ife, Fanany et al. and Stoecker respectively). Training lends itself to passive learning, where the purpose of instruction is to adapt individuals to the existing world. In contrast, the active learning that is championed by community development involves people creating their own worlds for the purpose of liberation Freire (1972), in a mutual journey of discovery. Fifth, capacity building discourse follows the general pattern of bifurcation that divides development into discrete endeavours: development that occurs in the global south, or developing world; and development that occurs in the global north, or developed world. This problematic and essentialising practice is difficult to erase. Indeed we found it difficult to avoid in this book. What can be erased however is the assumption that capacity building is what Westernised professionals do for the undeveloped world, Indigenous communities or disadvantaged groups in industrialised societies. A number of contributors to this book consider the effects of the asymmetrical power relations embedded in such bifurcation. Ife for example comments on how capacity building in which industralised countries impose their agenda on the developing countries is indicative of the continuing colonial project (see Chapter 4). In Chapter 5 Abdullah and Young note that what is called capacity building in Australian Indigenous communities is called training, education and up-skilling in non-indigenous communities without any inference that the latter group lack capacity.

24 Sue Kenny and Matthew Clarke 11 Finally, capacity building prioritises localist problems, deficits and strategies. The subjects of capacity building are mainly local communities and their organisations. This localist focus makes sense because it is much easier to train, track and measure capacity development at the local level, especially in the reified community, than at the level of wider groups and institutions such as the nation state. However localism presents its own kinds of difficulties. A localist orientation connects with the idea of community as commonality, reinforcing the view that community denotes homogeneity, overlooking the important characteristic of diversity which exists in all communities. Craig (Chapter 3) for example, reflects on the way in which cultural difference is seen as a problem. Diversity is a weakness not a strength. It equates with a capacity deficit which requires rebuilding. By focusing on the local as a homogenous entity, many capacity building programmes fail to acknowledge the multifaceted nature of assets and needs, some of which might be in conflict with each other. Moreover concentrating on the local shifts attention away from the wider state and structural hindrances to development. The local might strengthen internal ties, or bonding social capital, and offer a refuge against economic globalisation, but it also circumscribes consciousness of the needs of others and what has come to be known as the cosmopolitan outlook. Cosmopolitanism includes the local but emphasises the bridge between local loyalties and loyalties and obligations to others, which are based in the principles of the respect for and equal worth of all humans, tolerance of differences, acceptance of multiple and overlapping identities and the interconnectedness of people s lives. Indicators of a cosmopolitan outlook include scepticism and ironic distance from one s own tradition (Turner, 2006:64), curiosity, concern and action around issues that impact on global society, solidarity and support across national borders (Gaventa, 2001) an ability to see how issues are linked together and to perceive them from different perspectives, respect for the autonomy of individuals and for different ways of doing things and commitment to universal human rights (Szerszynski and Urry, 2002; Beck, 2006). A cosmopolitan standpoint requires a range of capacities. For example, Miller (see Chapter 2) full human subjecthood requires an understanding of the fluidity of capacities, which include those which are ethical, relational and spiritual. Cosmopolitanism opens the way for different paths to self-determination and different modes of capacity building such as through the transnational networks of activist groups that mobilise internationally and new sources of knowledge through the internet, that were unheard of only several decades ago.

25 12 Introduction Are the rhetorics and practices of capacity building no more than a set of development imperatives that are used ingenuously for the purpose of incorporation into the broad project of neo-liberalism, with its kitbag of managerialist tools and technocratic thinking? Or does capacity building provide a set of normative, practical and political tools that can empower communities to take charge of their own affairs and nurture a cosmopolitan outlook in a complementary way to critical community development? There are various ways of answering these questions. Some of the answers are offered in the different arguments presented in this book. The organising theme of the book is that capacity building, in both its rhetoric and practice, is indeed a challenging topic of investigation. The book considers the idea of challenging capacity building in three ways. First, conventional ideas of capacity building are critiqued and challenged (capacity building as object). Second, it examines how capacity building as an activity is a challenging endeavour for development practitioners. Finally, it investigates the way in which capacity building can challenge existing arrangements, through for example, the genuine empowerment of communities (capacity building as agent). Following this introductory chapter, the volume has two distinct sections. The first section considers theoretical challenges to the concept of capacity building. Three chapters by Miller, Craig and Ife consider why this term is problematic on a number of levels. These theoretical challenges are then illustrated with seven case studies that explore the practical challenges of capacity building. The strength of this second section is that the case studies are drawn from developed and developing countries. Miller notes in Chapter 2 that capacity building is another term with contested meaning within the general community development field. This chapter examines the concept of human capacities understood as those powers technical, practical, intellectual, ethical, relational and spiritual that are potentially realisable rather than fixed human attributes. However, despite the confidence surrounding capacity building, building capacity within these realms is simply a model for development, not necessarily a panacea in and of itself. Any work undertaken under the guise of capacity building is not done so in a vacuum and therefore it is necessary to recognise the interconnected nature of social, economic and political spheres and how these all impact on those who are disadvantaged in some way. Miller therefore considers the implications for development work and development workers in maintaining this approach in the context of neo-liberal globalisation and complex-

26 Sue Kenny and Matthew Clarke 13 ity. Further it connects such debates with the concept of agency, the capacity for thoughtful action. In doing so it revisits debates, through Freire s awakening of critical awareness and Bourdieu s concept of habitus, concerning how human subjects acquire and sustain, or fail to do so, the capacity for action in complex, rapidly changing and adverse conditions. In Chapter 3, Craig argues that fifteen years ago, the term communitycapacity building (CCB) was not to be found anywhere within the policy literature in the developed world. Now it is used world-wide, particularly in the context of urban policy, regeneration and social development. The chapter argues that the term has been introduced as part of a political fashion but that in practice it is difficult to distinguish it from the practice of community development. Given this close link, Craig begins by highlighting the three meanings commonly assigned to community : 1) geographical community which is defined by a physical space or location; 2) community of identity in which different groups that cut across geographical locations assert their own specific needs based perhaps on ethnicity, sexuality, or gender; and 3) issues-based communities in which physical disparate groups or individuals may coalesce around a specific campaign or event or project. Once communities have been identified, efforts to enhance their circumstances were identified as community development. Craig then describes how this concept and set or practices was relabelled community capacity building. But simply rebranding this practice has not overcome the same tensions that impeded community development manipulation of communities, co-option of activists, conditional funding and state-controlled power games such as divide and rule continue to exist and hamper community capacity building. Therefore, community capacity building can be hijacked by those with influence and the use of the term can fabricate a false consensus about goals and interests. As with the original term community development community capacity building is not a neutral technical process but rather is about power and ideology and how these are negotiated through structures and processes. Chapter 4 by Ife examines the language of capacity building and the implications of a shift from talking about community development to talking about community capacity building. The word capacity carries with it an idea of what the community is supposed to accomplish. The outcome is implicitly defined, and the role of community work is then to help build the capacity for it to be reached. Without some implicit notion of that outcome, the idea of capacity is

27 14 Introduction meaningless, as every community has capacity for many different things, including self-destruction, exclusive border protection, fragmentation, oppression of minorities, presumably these are not the capacities to be built. Thus capacity building contains an implicit assumption of outcome, which it can be argued is contrary to the idea of community development. The use of the word building implies a linear, ordered activity, where one step comes after another, as a cumulative process and something is gradually but steadily built. This is in sharp contrast to the more post-modern experience of community development, which is characteristically messy, disordered and unpredictable, but rich in its diversity and disorder. It has a connotation of putting the pieces together, as if messiness and chaos the reality of community life is to be resisted and ordered if possible. The language of capacity building therefore carries with it certain assumptions about the world in which it is practised. To move from the language of community development to the language of capacity building thus involves a subtle shift to a language, and hence a world view, more consistent with the outcomes-driven, ordered, managerial approach of modernity, and carries with it the danger of betraying some of the most important characteristics of community development theory and practice. Part II of this volume includes a range of case studies from various countries. In Chapter 5, Abdullah and Young discusses three case studies from remote, metro, and regional Australia, to explore the ways in which capacity building is used in Indigenous communities. Adbullah and Young first note that persistent negative social, economic and health statistics drive the perceived need for capacity building for Indigenous families and communities by policy-makers. All communities have relationships with government, non-government agencies or business and industry who provide funds and resources under the banner of capacity building. This chapter argues that it is the approach taken by these donors to capacity building that is problematic. Rather than recognising Aboriginal people as resourceful and creative in responding to the many challenges they face, these external agents base their interventions on the deficiencies rather than on existing strengths, capabilities and resiliencies. The issue of power is also very important when addressing capacity building in Indigenous communities. Abdullah and Young discuss power over resources, power over relationships, power over information/knowledge, and power over decision-making. They note that unless these relationships are properly considered in light of the strengths of Indigenous communities, capacity building will fail to deliver its full potential. By way of case study, this chapter

28 Sue Kenny and Matthew Clarke 15 examines activities in different communities (regional and urban) over time and demonstrates how strengths and resilience have contributed to building capacity in these communities. Finally, this chapter presents suggestions to development workers and policy-makers for a reconstructed conception of capacity building which works with the hopes and abilities of the people themselves. The second case study by Clarke considers the difficulties associated with capacity building within certain communities, specifically that of illegal Burmese migrants within Thailand. Clarke argues that the rhetoric of capacity building is now prevalent within all levels of development from international financial institutions and multilateral organisations to local government authorities to non-governmental organisations and local community-based organisations. Capacity building is now regarded as a central tenet of sustaining the impact of development interventions over the longer term. The premise of capacity building is based upon expanding community participation and enhancing local skills and expertise is areas of perceived deficit. However, in spite of its inherent strengths, capacity building may not be a possible (or optimal) outcome in all circumstances due to constraints on community participation in certain circumstances. This chapter is less interested in the debate of capacity building (deficit model) versus capacity development (asset model), which is discussed in other places in this volume, rather, it is interested in the prevailing assumption implicit in the approach to enhancing capacity overall that this endeavour is in fact appropriate in all circumstances. This chapter argues for the realistic expectation of capacity building (and indeed participation) of one specific sub-population within Thailand. Estimates of the number of illegal migrants within Thailand vary between 800,000 to 1.5 million. The overwhelming majority of these migrants are Burmese seeking to escape the political regime in Burma and improve their material standard of living. Working with these illegal Burmese migrants in Thailand is complex. The development needs that would be expected in any poor community, such as limited access to health services, economic insecurity, inadequate housing, etc. are added to by the precarious existence these migrants have in Thailand. This in turn hinders their ability to actively engage in the development process. This chapter reviews the lessons learned by one Thaibased NGO working with illegal Burmese migrants for over fifteen years. The unique strengths and weakness of these illegal communities are discussed, before the appropriateness of implementing traditional capacity building activities is explored and the implications for NGOs working with such communities are discussed. This chapter therefore argues that

29 16 Introduction capacity building must be reimagined in these particular contexts. A new typology that describes the unique role NGOs must play in these circumstances: that of advocate-guardians, is also briefly introduced. In Chapter 7, Wallace considers how capacity building occurs during periods of conflict and illustrates this by examining the recent civil strife in the Solomon Islands. Wallace picks up a common critique of many capacity building interventions, that the underlying assumption is that there is either a low level of capacity present in communities in the first place, or worse, that there may not be any existing capacity at all. She argues that instead of considering or applying a more positive strengths-based approach to capacity, aid donors have generally adopted a deficit approach to Solomon Islands capacity and its development prospects. The language used by donors to describe the Solomon Islands underscores this perception: failed, fragile, etc. By drawing on various case studies, Wallace is able to show that during the crisis in the Solomon Islands ( ) it was the non-government sector (or NGOs) which sustained and delivered many essential services to the community sector. Church-based organisations and women s groups played a vital role in not only supporting communities in need but also in actively playing a role in conflict resolution and in attempting to negotiate peace settlements. It was primarily the NGO sector that most aid organisations and donor governments such as Australia focused on to channel aid, given the breakdown of the government and its inability to function effectively during the crisis. Wallace further demonstrates that capacity building has been linked to rebuilding peace and reconstruction with funding flowing directly to community-based projects and bypassing the government in the process. The crisis in the Solomon Islands offered an opportunity to rebuild and reshape the relationship between civil society, the NGO sector and the government, but whether this will be successful is yet to be determined especially when outside interests are also determined to influence the process of development in the post-conflict period. Finally, Wallace argues that the conflict in the Solomon Islands revealed layers of strength especially located in community-based networks such as women s groups and that capacity building will be as effective as it can unless the strengths and capacities of those who are at the centre of these processes are properly acknowledged and used as the basis for any interventions undertaken. Chapter 8 by Ismet and Rebecca Fanany and Sue Kenny focuses on the meaning and application of capacity building in Indonesia. While the term is now part of the lexicon of government institutions, NGOs and the media alike, in the Indonesian context it is largely an empty