The Development Practice and Management project have made great strides in the last year, in developing outcomes based approaches to capacity building for community based organisations. The success of the project lies in its real, honest, bottom-up approach to capacity building. The project conducted 50 interviews with development practitioners in the community to ascertain their best-practice methods on 10 competence areas.
Justine Jowell, the development practice researcher and materials developer, visiting practitioners in Johannesburg with the AIDS Consortium
These interviews, combined with an initial appreciative Inquiry in Cape Town, Durban and Johannesburg and our on-going discussion with our subject experts in our partner organisations (WC-NACOSA, AIDS Consortium, Community Connections and Keystone) created enough input to develop competency standards for 7 of the 12 competence areas.
The project has also developed learning materials with our partner organisations to complement our competency standards:
Materials on Money Management (Level 2 – Facilitators Notes, Level 2 – Participant Materials, Level 4 – Facilitators Notes, Level 4 – Participant Materials)
Project Planning and Management (Facilitators Notes, Participant Materials)
Basic Development Practice (Facilitators Notes , Participant Materials )
These are all available for comment. Respect for the copyright of the partner organisations is requested.
An evaluation on the project, completed in December 2007, reviews the project implementation thus far, highlighting key project risks and making recommendations.
2008 seeks to pilot a methodology on Assessment of Competence. Words of encouragement, wisdom and practical advice would be appreciated.
When visiting the Sustainability Institute, please feel free to visit our office. We are on the ground level, behind the Green Cafe, facing the Helderberg Mountains. Our conversation is stimulating and the complementary biscuits, legendary!
Till then…
Mariette and Manda