EVALUATING ORGANIZATIONAL CAPACITY strongDEVELOPMENTstrong.pdf

The Canadian Journal of Program Evaluation Vol. 17 No. 2 Pages 121–150 LA REVUE CANADIENNE D ÉVALUATION DE PROGRAMME 121 ISSN 0834-1516 Copyright © 2002 Canadian Evaluation Society EVALUATING ORGANIZATIONAL CAPACITY DEVELOPMENT Ronald Mackay Concordia University Montreal, Quebec Douglas Horton International Service for National Agricultural Research The Hague, The Netherlands Luis Dupleich Government of Bolivia La Paz, Bolivia Anders Andersen Danish Ministry of Foreign Affairs Copenhagen, Denmark Abstract: While substantial sums are being invested in the development of organizational and institutional capacities, the design and management of capacity development efforts leave much to be desired. Few capacity development initiatives have been sys- tematically and thoroughly evaluated. This article describes the conceptual frameworks and methods used to evaluate a multi- site, regional capacity-development project in Latin America and the Caribbean undertaken to strengthen planning, monitoring, and evaluation in agricultural research organizations. The ar- ticle discusses some of the challenges facing capacity develop- ment and its evaluation, outlines the procedures employed, and illustrates these with some consolidated findings in response to four evaluation questions: What were the main contributions of the project to agricultural research management? How were the results achieved? What factors facilitated their achievement? and What lessons can we learn to improve future capacity de- velopment efforts and their evaluation? Résu