Capacity Building

Capacity-building is concerned with social and political relationships. It cannot also be viewed in isolation from the wider social, economic, and political environment-governments, markets, and the private sector as well as other institutions, right down to the community, household, and personal level (Eade, 1997, P.3). A capacity-building approach to development involves identifying the constraints that men and women experience in realizing their basic rights, and finding appropriate vehicles through which to strengthen their ability to overcome the causes of their exclusion and suffering (Eade, P.4). Oxfam is a strong capacity-building organization and has its strengths and weaknesses in this field.

According to Nick Roseveare, a deputy director at Oxfam, Oxfam is a 'thinking' agency. This tendency can also create conflict and lead to problems of balance (Jeremy, 2003). For example, Oxfam's understanding and analysis of humanitarian need becomes more sophisticated and incorporates principles like impartiality, codes of conduct, vulnerability reduction and gender awareness. There are inevitable costs in terms of intervention speed and scale. It means they tried to do too much and this simply became unmanageable in a rapid onset emergency.

The Anti-Racist Alliance in England is another organization that utilizes informal networking coordinated the Bristol Festival against Racism which created 100 events in a six week period, carried out by a broad range of organizations. (Gilchrist, 1998 p. 102) Four basic themes were complemented by four aims that were broad enough to create a framework that all organizations worked under. Each organization was encouraged and empowered to carry out their own event, based on what they could spend financially, and manage with their human resources. The strength of the festival lied in local knowledge; major communication channels were opened and the informal networking began. As researched by Gilchrist, "these personal contacts and relationships expedited access to funding, political support, expertise, and practical resources." (1998, p. 102).

This method helped break isolation and fragmentation among the groups of all kinds that wanted to stand up to racism. (Gilchrist, 1998, p. 103). The informal networking was a strength in this case and the other option, formalized structures "may have attempted to generate a unified homogeneity", (Gilchrist 1998, p. 107). Weaknesses in informal networking do abound. If organizations bring agendas not within the aim or framework, trust will dissipate. When juxtaposed with the involvement process listed by Anderson, which emphasizes securing an organizations commitment and their detailed course of action and doing so with organizations that you hold in "high regard", the great differences of the informal networking model can be seen. (Anderson, 1990 p. 137). The strengths of the involvement process, strict accountability and attention to detail, are more likely to be viewed as weaknesses in the informal networking model.

References: Anderson, R.C. (1990). Community cooperation and development. Sociological Practice, 8, 133-144. Eade, D. (1997). Capacity-Building: An approach to People-Centered Development. UK: Oxfam. Jeremy, S. (2003). Oxfam: Capacity-Building Profile. Retrieved on September 28, 2010 from http://www.fexennonline.net19/agencyprofile.aspx on Gilchrist, A. (1998). A more excellent way: Developing coalitions and consensus through informal networking. Community Development Journal, 33(2), 100-108.