Lots of humanitarian agencies say they want to build local partner capacity.
Some even mean it. But most don’t get results. Why?
There are four big reasons that are under their control.
1 – Running training that isn’t specific to the actual challenge.
INGOs do provide training – often as capacity building workshops.
But almost all of it is broad education on issues like humanitarian standards, accountability, gender or donor standards. What helps more is specific training on how to actually do work tasks. Being specific is critical.
INGO capacity building deals in generalities – leaving busy partners to try and work out how to apply the concepts.
The issue they have is not “why transparency in procurement is important”, it’s “how do I construct a fair set of bid assessment criteria”? Or it’s “what questions can I ask to uncover a woman refugee’s needs and aspirations?” and not “standards for women’s participation”.
Make the training more specific and you’ve got a chance to change things.
2 – Not taking specific barriers in the environment into account.
Local organisations face different barriers to international ones (and have different opportunities).
They might not be able to travel because they don’t have vehicles, they might face legal sanctions for some kinds of advocacy, or they might have nowhere to work from. Some – but far from all – of these can be fixed with core funding support. Money helps, but by itself it won’t overcome the barriers.
You need to find the specific challenges for that organisation, at that time, and see what needs to be done.
Until you do that, you’re wasting your efforts, because the foundations are not in place. Not everything needs to be perfect. But you can’t expect to see capacity grow when the environment doesn’t permit it.
Trying to build capacity without addressing – or at least mapping – these challenges is like building castles on sand.
Pretty soon, what you try to build will collapse. Money and time will be wasted. You won’t make progress because these barriers in the system and the environment are still there.
3 – Priorities don’t align
The main example of this I’ve been exposed to recently is when women’s rights organisations are brought into humanitarian work.
Many are interested in political change, not humanitarian relief.
The INGO might try to grow their “capacity” to deliver large quantities of assistance – but the local organisations aren’t really interested. The capacity won’t grow because they want to do different things. But it’s not easy to talk about those different priorities.
There’s lots of reasons why it’s hard for partners to discuss the differences frankly.
Maybe the INGO funds some other activity that the partner really does like – and they don’t want to jeopardise that . Maybe they’ve already gone down the path, and are stuck needing the money to cover costs. Maybe they’re being polite and want to maintain a relationship for the future.
Without the alignment of priorities, they won’t fully buy in to it, so they won’t put as much effort and focus on it – and any results will be limited.
4 – Trying to create a mini-INGO
Systems that are appropriate for a country office of an INGO are not appropriate for a local organisation with 3 staff and 30 volunteers.
But the INGO staff only know their systems – so that’s what they try to create in the partner.
The systems break down because they’re not right for that organisation. You really need your teams to be like consultants, finding the best fit for the partner’s individual situation. That’s not easy, and most teams struggle to do that.
Working in partnership requires a very different approach.
I really hate the way the humanitarian sector talks about this. Yes, teams might need to change the way they think about things, to change their mind or act humbly. But it’s just not as straightforward as that – and that already sounds hard to me.
There are a million practical implications.
And these implications are not removed by goodwill and commitment. They are business model decisions, with financial and HR impacts. And skills implications.
INGOs need a completely different set of skills to do that.
Partly that is capacity building skills. Partly it is soft skills. But it’s also organisational design, financial modelling, defining goals and finding gaps in a competitive landscape.
In short – skills that most INGO workers don’t have.
It’s hard to help different organisations grow in their own way. But it’s necessary. Trying to recreate INGO processes will smother a local partner, and they’ll never have a chance to grow.
Local partner organisations aren’t INGOs. And you shouldn’t treat them like they are. They’ve got their own structure, priorities and constraints. You need to help them get to their real, practical challenges – and design specific ways to overcome them.
Not one-size fits all training, which will not get the results you want.
