The book is organized into seven main chapters:
Chapter 1 provides essential background information on the project that gave rise to the book, the ECD Project. It introduces the six evaluation studies that formed the core of the ECD Project, and on whose insights this book is based.
Chapter 2 discusses basic concepts of organizational capacity, capacity development, and evaluation. It introduces a simple model for organizational assessment and identifies the various types of capacities that organizations need to learn and adapt to changes in their environment. It also explains how monitoring and evaluation can contribute to organizational capacity development.
Chapter 3 addresses two fundamental issues: why managers should be concerned with organizational capacity development and why they should evaluate capacity development efforts. The dramatic acceleration of technological, environmental, economic, and institutional change currently taking place in the world make capacity development more and more essential in research and development organizations. Some broad implications for designing capacity development efforts and for using evaluation as a tool to strengthen an organization?s capacity and improve its performance are discussed.
Chapter 4 discusses issues related to the ?how? of capacity development. It summarizes what the ECD Project team learned about how organizations develop capacities and how managers can facilitate and advance capacity development processes in their organizations. We note the limitations of traditional approaches and present an alternative holistic approach to developing organizational capacities.
Chapter 5 discusses partnerships for capacity development. We deal with a number of issues?at times thorny ones?relating to the potential roles and limitations of local organizations and external agents in capacity development processes. Ways to negotiate sound partnerships for capacity development are introduced, and their implications are discussed.
Chapter 6 outlines approaches and methods for evaluating organizational capacity development. It discusses the importance of evaluation principles as well as issues related to the preparation and the carrying out of evaluations. Guidelines are presented for dealing with these issues.
Chapter 7 discusses how to utilize evaluation processes and results to advance capacity development and performance in an organization. We identify utilization as the ?Achilles heel? of most evaluations. Potential users and uses of evaluation are identified and some strategies for enhancing use are provided.
Six evaluation studies were made:
- Exploring capacity development in a rural development NGO in Bangladesh;
- Towards strategic management in a Cuban agricultural research institute
- Understanding capacity development in a plant genetic resource center in Ghana
- Assessing organizational change in an agricultural faculty in Nicaragua
- Strengthening participatory research capacities in a Philippines root crops research center
- Expanding capacities in a rural development institute in Viet Nam
