Evaluating NGO-capacity development interventions: Enhancing frameworks, fitting the (Belgian) context

This paper defines concepts of capacity and capacity development for Integrated Water Resources Management (IWRM), and particularly the recent contributions made by a German government funded research programme in this area. Based on the theoretical framework of nested domains of capacity development, the multi-level approach, the paper reviews previous work in this field and then summarises four case studies in Ukraine, Jordan/Palestine, Mongolia and Uzbekistan, which each highlight key aspects of these different domains. These activities took place under completely different settings, allowing some generic lessons for conceptual and practical advancements to be derived. The paper notes the need to align IWRM processes and capacity development processes as much as possible. The multi-level approach was found to be an essential framework for the activities. The paper also recognises the need for continuous and long-term approaches in capacity development, particularly in processes for organisational and institutional change where no single set of guidelines or practices will fit every situation. Specific directions for future work are suggested, including a closer link to work on water governance, as well as monitoring and the evaluation of capacity development.

In central northern Namibia, challenges in water governance related to scarcity meet needs in capacity development on municipal levels. Reuse of treated water in agriculture forms a technical innovation in urbanizing arid regions, because it potentially contributes to both improving water availability and reducing pollution from waste water in arid regions. Governing this transformative approach entails a complexity of processes and actors at different levels and in a range of sectors. The aim of this research is to assess the potential of an informal municipal partnership to (a) support capacity development in implementation of innovation in urban water systems (here: water reuse), and (b) compensate for lack of coordination in governance. Establishing a municipal partnership for wastewater treatment was part of a living lab approach analyzing the potential for water reuse, in collaboration of an interdisciplinary team of researchers, municipal decision-makers, engineers and farmers. Findings show the potential and limitations in capacity development in municipal water governance by means of an informal partnership. The lessons learnt on establishing an informal municipal partnership for learning and capacity development in water governance provide valuable insights for water governance in both research and practice, in particular but not limited to the field of water reuse as means of transforming socio-hydrological relations toward sustainability. The research thus contributes to research on water reuse governance, and to transformative research on water in social-ecological systems.

There are sudden shift in Indonesia village law in 2014.The villages that usually "forgotten", now empowered fully by central government.Village organization have to make radical structural change in organization body, budget and accounting.This change will be analyses with qualitative approach using critical-postmodernism approach.Informants are village governments in Banyumas Region, Central Java, Indonesia.The analysis shows that there is hyperreality about village capacity, which the "flood" of the budget coming from higher government transfer fund not from village real income rises.Overall, the change in village organization is mostly about topdown not bottom-up like it used to be.If this change is not followed by capacity building for village people, the change only wasting money.Building villages' website is one innovative way to gather public participation and also disseminate public information between village governments to village people.

In spite of good health indicators and an overall good coverage of health services and universal insurance coverage, a number of problems have challenged Swedish health policy in recent years: demographic shift towards an elderly population, increased occurrence of minor mental illness, increased long-term sickness absence. As responsibility for these problems are shared by several sectors in society, increased efforts of collaboration between sectors and authorities have been made. The paper reviews some of these efforts: the reform of the care of the elderly, the mental healthcare reform and various reforms involving health services, social services and social insurance. Some of the reforms have had a major impact in shifting service utilization and increasing awareness within municipalities on groups in need of care and rehabilitation. It is more difficult to find effects on patient outcome. Also, while shared responsibilities may have overall positive effects, some groups risk falling between the stools. Thus, while housing and home care have been improved for large groups, critics have pointed out lack of medical attention and long waiting lists to health services. In addition to financial incentives and organizational changes, major efforts in training, leadership and capacity building are needed to achieve efficient and cost-effective health and social services while maintaining high quality and social equity.

As Hopkins and Reynolds (2001) have stated, school improvement as a field has gone through four main phases. The first phase is described as being characterised by unsystematic attempts at improvement and an emphasis on organisational change and school self-evaluation. Fragmented and weak implementation and a lack of connection to student outcomes were seen as problems with this approach. The second phase was characterised by a rapprochement between school improvement and school effectiveness. School effectiveness contributed its knowledge base and value-added methodologies, while school improvement had developed stronger implementation strategies. Hopkins and Reynolds then posit a third phase, which emphasises student outcomes, classroom processes, and capacity building, as well as sophisticated professional development approaches. Though successes can clearly be identified, the extent to which third phase approaches have led to systemic improvement is debatable, leading to a search for ‘fourth phase’ approaches. One thing that is clear in the description of the first three phases is that they are generally predicated on individual schools working with school improvers, buying-into school improvement programmes, or at most collectively participating in a programme.

As many crops are sensitive to changes in temperature and precipitation, agriculture is especially vulnerable to climate events. This may prove critical in tropical regions where most agriculture is in rain-fed systems and climate change may have a potentially large influence on productivity. By adversely affecting food and water resources, climate change thus threatens progress and efforts made in poverty reduction, economic growth, and achievement of further Millennium Development Goals, such as ending hunger on our planet and achieving environmental sustainability. The intensification of food production transformed formerly small-scale traditional systems to modern large-scale monocultures, e.g. in Latin America. However, banana monoculture production by smallholders is also found in many parts of the world, for example in countries such as St Lucia, which is a major banana-producing country in the Caribbean Windward Islands. Mono-cropping farmers increasingly need to deal with the fact that modern intensive agricultural systems which are characterized by increased need for fertilizers and irrigation, i.e. nutrients and water, may become more sensitive to climate change in terms of lower productivity, higher vulnerability, and reduced sustainability in the future. Moreover, food systems in developing countries are currently experiencing enormous organizational changes, reflected in the ongoing reorganization of supply chains, ranging from farm to fork. Being at the end of the chain, particularly the small-scale producers have to cope with global consumers’ demands, reflected in the necessity to deliver high-quality products on time and at competitive prices. These high requirements can represent a serious barrier to small farmers’ participation in higher value chains, e.g. in the Caribbean Island of St Lucia. St. Lucia’s farmers therefore need to diversify their production, e.g. by adopting fair trade production standards, and tap new domestic as well as niche markets by means of improved commercialization to sustain food security and poverty reduction endeavors. Considering that small island developing states like St Lucia, where agriculture still represents the backbone of a society increasingly have to face these two global challenges – globalized markets and climate change – and recognize their impacts already today, this paper will explore the future impacts of climate change on the Caribbean region, discuss the potential impacts of climate change for smallholder agriculture in St Lucia, and elaborate on the importance of information, training and capacity building, not only in terms of improved diversification and commercialization of agricultural produce, but also for raising the adaptive capacity of small-scale farmers in St Lucia by providing sustainable adaptation options for farm-level diversification in the light of climate change.

PurposeHealth-related issues are widely covered in news agencies by medical and health journalists. The quantity, format and quality of their coverage influence the general public as well as policymakers and professions. Current studies and observations suggest that news agencies are more dominated by medical topics (disease, symptoms, epidemiology, treatment and medicines) than general public health issues (risk prevention, health protection, education and promotion). This study explores the causes of the current situation in Iran and generates solutions for supporting health-promoting media that may also prove beneficial for other countries.Design/methodology/approachA qualitative study was conducted to explore the coverage of health-related topics in selected news agencies. Stakeholders, including health journalists, health professionals and public relations staff at the Iranian Ministry of Health and Medical Education were interviewed. Data were collected until data saturation was reached. The transcripts of all the 17 interviews conducted were analyzed using conventional content analysis.FindingsFour groups of causes were identified, including individual factors, organizational factors, socioeconomic factors and the different nature of medicine and public health. The participants proposed several solutions that were classified into three categories, including the empowerment of stakeholders through capacity development, organizational change and mutual communication and culture change.Originality/valueCreating health-promoting media is a complex but urgent task, and providing a comprehensive and deep understanding of the dynamic interdependencies of the multiple factors at play in it and developing and implementing the most effective interventions for it requires a systematic approach.

연구목적: 개도국 사업실행에서 국제기구와 NGO 파트너십의 형성요인과 과정을 분석하고, 국내 개발NGO들이 국제기구 협력사업의 실행 파트너 참여를 활성화하기 위한 실천적ㆍ정책적 시사점을 고찰하고자 한다. 연구의 중요성: 오늘날 국제개발협력 분야에서 개발NGO들의 국제기구와의 사업 실행 파트너십이 확대되는 실존적 현상을 학술적으로 재구성하고 이론화하는 탐색적 연구로서 학문적 기여를 한다. 또한 실천적 측면에서는 한국의 다자개발원조에서 국내 개발NGO의 참여 확대를 위한 참고자료를 제공한다. 연구방법론: 국제기구의 파트너 선정 기준과 절차 분석을 위해 개별 UN기구가 발간하는 보고서 및 파트너십 가이드라인 등과 NGO 파트너십 관련 선행연구에 대한 문헌조사를 실시하였다. 또한 총 74명을 대상으로 국제기구 협력사업 사례 관련 이해관계자 인터뷰와 관계자 심층면담을 진행하였다. 연구결과: 국제기구들은 일반적으로 공식적인 공개 선정 절차를 공유하는 경향을 보인다. 국제기구의 NGO 파트너 선정 조건은 ① NGO의 비전과 미션 및 활동이 국제기구의 전략목표 그리고 우선순위와 부합하는지의 여부, ② 국제기구 협력사업 수행 경험과 사업 수행 역량, ③ 투명한 재정관리 및 회계보고 절차 준수, ④ 민주적이며 윤리적인 조직 내부 거버넌스 구축, ⑤ 사업계획 실행 역량을 갖춘 인적자원과 조직 내부의 재정자원 확보 등 5가지 기준으로 요약된다. 결론 및 시사점: 한국 개발NGO들의 국제기구 파트너십 참여 활성화를 위해 요구되는 한국 정부 차원의 정책적ㆍ제도적 개선 방향은 다음과 같다. 첫째, 한국 NGO가 국제기구 협력사업 발굴 단계에서 활용할 수 있는 자금 지원의 기회를 확대하도록 한다. 둘째, 다자성양자원조 사업에서 한국 NGO, 기업, 학계 등 다양한 민간 행위자들을 국제기구의 실행 파트너로 우선 고려하는 정책 방향을 수립한다.Purpose: This study aims to analyze the processes of international organizations and NGO partnerships in the project implementation in developing countries, and to examine practical and policy implications to activate participation in IO’s projects. Originality: Academic contributions are made as exploratory research that reconstructs and theorizes the existential phenomena in which development NGOs extend their partnerships with international organizations. Methodology: To analyze the criteria and procedures of partner selection for international organizations, we conducted a literature survey of prior research on NGO partnerships. We also conducted stakeholder and in-depth interviews. Result: International organizations generally tend to carry out formal open selection procedures. The criteria for selecting an NGO partner are: ① whether the NGO’s vision, missions, and activities are in line with the strategic goals and priorities of the multilateral organizations, ② experience in carrying out international organization projects, and field performances, ③ transparent financial management and accounting reporting procedures, ④ building democratic and ethical internal governance, and ⑤ ensuring human resources with the ability to implement project plans and securing internal financial resources. Conclusion and Implication: First, the Korean government should expand opportunities for funding that can be utilized for Korean NGOs in the process of developing international organization cooperation projects. Second, in the multilateral aid project, we will establish a policy direction that considers various private actors such as Korean NGOs, businesses, and academics as implementing partners of international organizations.

One of the goals of FIGO is to support capacity building within its constituent societies. While this includes professional society capacity building,1, 2 it also embraces the development of skilled and highly competent obstetrician/gynecologist clinicians and credible obstetrics/gynecology researchers and academics. Given the importance of developing faculty to fill academic positions and teach and train future obstetrician/gynecologists and reproductive healthcare providers, one of the stated missions and goals of IJGO, FIGO's official journal, is to provide publication opportunities for authors from low- and middle-income countries (LMICs). The World Association of Medical Editors (WAME) has published detailed “Recommendations on Publication Ethics Policies for Medical Journals”,3 but it is becoming increasingly clear that successful capacity building in LMICs requires attention to more than the general ethical principles enunciated in classic clinical ethics theory4 and in specific international ethical guidelines such as the WAME Recommendations. Collaborations and capacity building in LMICs require attention to an additional set of ethical principles including such important considerations as: trust, mutual respect, open communication, accountability, financial transparency, leadership development, and sustainability.5 It is the general policy of the IJGO to ensure that papers from individual low- and middle-income countries include local co-authors and collaborators. These research and academic colleagues should be identified early and be involved in research question development, Institutional Review Board approval, data collection and analysis, and manuscript preparation. Principles of community-based participatory research should be strongly considered. Co-authors should satisfy generally accepted requirements for authorship. The Editorial Board believes this supports FIGO priorities for capacity building and prevents any perception that data or research is being co-opted by scholars from high-income countries. Multicountry studies or analyses of internationally available databases do not necessarily have to meet this requirement and will be considered individually by the Editors, as are all submissions. Any questions or issues can be addressed to the Editorial Office prior to submission or may be raised during the editorial process. The intent and purpose of this requirement is as described. We believe this is only a first step and first attempt to address historic, developmental, and economic disparities and inequities between LMICs and the privileged and developed North. Since instituting this policy, every year submissions have been returned to the authors for failure to follow the stated policy. Many have been resubmitted with descriptions of roles played by LMIC-resident colleagues/collaborators and their names appropriately added to authorship with recognition of how they fulfilled generally accepted international parameters for authorship. This policy also highlights IJGO's belief that well-established researchers have a responsibility to ensure that they are actively involved in developing new researchers wherever they work and independent of world region. We believe that this policy has served the missions of FIGO and IJGO well, and that the policy or modified versions of it should be adopted by other international journals and its principles considered by WAME and ICMJE7 for future recommendations on editorial ethics and best practice. All authors contributed to the manuscript, and reviewed and approved the final version. RA is the Editor of IJGO; TJ is Editor Emeritus of IJGO. CA and AC are IJGO editorial staff.

The thesis reports an investigation of the effects of the complex, evolving relationships between organisations and their environments. This examination is a case study of the responses of an Australian energy company to effects of climate change, and aims to enhance understanding of how organisational responses to climate change develop and evolve over time. <br> The impact of climate change on the contemporary organisational environment has multiple aspects – natural, economic, technological and competitive. A vast body of literature on organisational responses to these impacts has emerged in recent decades, in the form of normative stage models and typologies. However, most of this literature is static and descriptive, with a focus on antecedents and outcomes rather than processes. How and why organisational responses to impacts of climate change develop and change over time has rarely, if ever, been investigated. Furthermore, this literature has treated organisational climate change responses in isolation, separately from their socio-economic system, and hence failed to address the interactions between organisational and environmental (or response regime) climate change responses. <br> This thesis adopts a co-evolutionary theoretical perspective to investigate the processes through which organisational responses to climate change develop and evolve over time. In so doing, it examines the systemic embeddedness of the responding organisation in its socio-economic system. The co-evolutionary perspective adopted here encompasses the interactive, interdependent and mutually constitutive nature of organisations and their environments. By exploring the dynamic nature of organisational responses to climate change in this way, the <br>study explores the micro-foundations, generative dynamics and organisational interactions underlying the development of organisational climate change responses. <br> <br> The project includes a single qualitative case study of an instrumental Australian energy company (GENTAILER). The analysis is conducted at two levels. The macro level studies <br>organisational and response regime interactions, while the micro level focuses on interactions within the organisation. The key findings show how organisational climate change responses co-evolved with the response regime in this case. <br> The study proposes a co-evolutionary model to explain the development of organisational climate change responses. The model illustrates co-evolutionary interactions and mutual influences between organisational climate change responses and the response regime. <br> Moreover, it was found that organisational climate change responses developed as a result of symbiotic, interdependent co-evolution between GENTAILER and the response regime. This co-evolutionary process represents a mutual-causal, deviation-amplifying, positive feedback <br>cycle between response regime and GENTAILER. <br> By examining the ways in which GENTAILER and its environment were able to influence aspects of each other’s evolution, the thesis extends current co-evolutionary theoretical perspectives and explains how co-evolution takes place. Also, by exploring the dynamic nature <br>of organisational responses to climate change through a co-evolutionary perspective, it investigates the micro-level generative dynamics and interactions underlying organisational climate change responses. Three micro-level generative processes (risk management processes; <br>capacity development processes; and sense-making processes) are identified as drivers of the co-evolution taking place in this study.

This narrative review investigates the evolving role of digital leadership in facilitating transformation within IT-driven organizations. The study aims to explore how digital leadership shapes strategic and operational changes amid accelerating technological advancements. A structured literature search was conducted across Scopus, Web of Science, and Google Scholar using key terms including "digital leadership," "organizational transformation," and "IT-driven management." The inclusion criteria emphasized peer-reviewed articles discussing leadership models in digital contexts across multiple sectors. The results reveal that transformational and collaborative leadership styles positively influence digital innovation, organizational agility, and employee engagement. Nonetheless, systemic barriers such as cultural resistance, bureaucratic inertia, and limited digital competencies impede successful implementation. International comparisons demonstrate that advanced economies benefit from robust digital infrastructure and policy frameworks, while developing countries face unique institutional and resource-related challenges. Case studies from education and healthcare sectors further underscore the critical role of leaders in aligning digital technologies with stakeholder needs. This review concludes that effective digital leadership is a cornerstone for driving sustainable change in modern organizations. Strategic policies focusing on cultural transformation, stakeholder communication, and capacity building are vital for overcoming institutional barriers. The findings contribute to the growing discourse on digital leadership by providing a foundation for further empirical and sector-specific research in this rapidly evolving domain

This study reviews the theories of action that advocates of performance funding have espoused for higher education in three states that are leaders in performance funding: Indiana, Ohio, and Tennessee. The authors found that espoused theories of action are incompletely articulated, with significant gaps in the specification of policy instruments, desired institutional changes, and possible obstacles and unintended impacts. Performance funding is conceived largely as stimulating changes in institutional behavior and student outcomes by providing financial inducements and securing institutional buy-in. Less attention is paid to other policy instruments, such as providing information on institutional performance to the colleges and building up the capacity of institutions to engage in organizational learning and change. The authors of this paper argue that insufficiently articulating the theories of action for performance funding makes it less likely that it will be successful and avoid undue harm.

Click to increase image sizeClick to decrease image size Notes 1. This article outlines material from a longer study of the World Intellectual Property Organisation prepared for the Global Institutions (Routledge) series, and I thank the series editors for permission to draw on that study for this Global Monitor. 2. All membership figures are drawn from the WIPO Treaties – Contracting Parties database. 3. This period of the history of intellectual property is covered at length in Christopher May & Susan Sell, Intellectual Property Rights: A Critical History (Lynne Rienner, 2005), ch. 5. 4. Ruth Gana, ‘Has Creativity Died in the Third World? Some Implications of the Internationalisation of Intellectual Property’, Denver Journal of International Law and Policy, Vol. 24, No. 1 (1995), p. 137. 5. Craig N. Murphy, International Organization and Industrial Change: Global Governance since 1850 (Polity Press, 1994), ch. 2 and passim. 6. As a result of the time constraints, none of the original members was able to ratify the Convention Establishing the World Intellectual Property Organization before 1970, but in that year 20 states completed the process. 7. Arpad Bogsch, The First Twenty-Five Years of the World Intellectual Property Organization from 1967 to 1992, WIPO Publication No. 881 (International Bureau of Intellectual Property, 1992), p. 28. 8. Ibid. 9. Agreement between the UN and the WIPO, available at http://www.wipo.int/treaties/en/agreement (accessed 19 December 2005). 10. World Intellectual Property Organization, Introduction to Intellectual Property Theory and Practice (Kluwer Law International, 1997), p. 30. 11. Ibid., p. 42. 12. Technical assistance and capacity building for intellectual property is explored at considerably more length in Christopher May, ‘Capacity Building and the (Re)production of Intellectual Property Rights’, Third World Quarterly, Vol. 25, No. 5 (2004), pp. 821–37. 13. Ibid. 14. Stephen Gill, Power and Resistance in the New World Order (Palgrave Macmillan, 2003), p. 132. 15. Ibid., p. 196. 16. Ibid., p. 177. 17. Much of this section draws on the work of William New at IP Watch and Sisule Musungu, both of whom have been keen observers of the political debates underlying the development of the Development Agenda. I am grateful to them both for their extensive reportage, little of which is explicitly cited here but has informed much that set out in this Global Monitor. 18. Brazil's previous major attempt in 1961 to raise these issues (at the UN) is discussed at length in Andréa Koury Menescal, ‘Changing WIPO's Ways? The 2004 Development Agenda in Historical Perspective’, Journal of World Intellectual Property, Vol. 8, No. 6 (2005), pp. 761–96. 19. Sisule F. Musungu, ‘The WIPO Assemblies 2004: A Review of the Outcomes’, South Bulletin, No. 89 (15 October 2004), pp. 1–5. 20. The Development Agenda was reproduced in the South Bulletin, No. 88 (30 September 2004), and all quotes are taken from this source. 21. Sisule F. Musungu, ‘A Review of the Outcomes of WIPO Discussions on the Development Agenda Proposal’, Bridges, Vol. 8, No. 9 (October 2004), pp. 21–2. 22. See the elaboration reproduced in South Bulletin, No. 101 (15 April 2005). 23. May & Sell, Intellectual Property Rights, ch. 7. 24. Space precludes a full discussion of all the various proposals, but an overview can be found in Sisule F. Musungu, Rethinking innovation, development and intellectual property in the UN: WIPO and beyond, TRIPS Issues Papers: 5, Quaker United Nations Office, 2005, section 3.2.1. 25. Sisule F. Musungu & Graham Dutfield, Multilateral agreements and a TRIPs-plus world: The World Intellectual Property Organisation, TRIPs Issue Papers: 3, Quaker United Nations Office, 2003, p. 19. 26. Ibid., pp. 19–20. 27. Musungu, ‘The WIPO Assemblies 2004’. 28. William New, ‘Industry Concerned About Development Agenda at WIPO’, Intellectual Property Watch, 4 November 2005, http://ip-watch.org/weblog/wp-trackback.php/125 (accessed 24 November 2005).

Programs supporting the necessary combination of digital, organizational, and cultural transformational change, motivating and engaging the workforce, are scarce. This discussion paper reports on the initial experiences from a competency development program aiming at building capacity within the workforce, leaders, and organization in secondary healthcare to navigate and facilitate digitally transformative healthcare systems. The program aims to support employees and leaders who i) understand digitalization in and of practice, ii) reflect and approach digitalization in a critical and ethical way, iii) are curious and maintain a growth mind-set, iv) engage in development and implementation of digitalization, and v) can convey and communicate digitalization. The insights from the prototype can be useful in further promoting sustainable digitalization within healthcare and supporting leaders in their conduct and management of digital health initiatives.

Planning the future of plant systematics: Report on a special colloquium at the Royal Netherlands Academy of Arts and Sciences.