We recently published a blog post about the importance of capacity-strengthening when working with public-sector institutions. Several of Khulisa’s long-term projects, including the the Measures for Countering Trafficking in Persons (MCTIP) in South Africa study and the Scaling Up Nutrition Learning and Evaluation (SUN LE) project in Zambia, include a significant focus on capacity-strengthening, and several Khulisa evaluators shared their thoughts and experiences on the topic.
Last week’s #EvalTuesdayTip was about translating data into action. This week’s tip is about strengthening internal systems and processes.
While training people is an important aspect of Khulisa’s capacity-strengthening work, that’s not all that capacity-strengthening is about. Capacity-strengthening is also about examining the internal design and function of public-sector institutions and looking for innovative ways to help those institutions operate effectively.
The SUN LE project’s bi-annual performance assessment is designed specifically to examine internal systems and organizational structures within the Zambian government, and to determine how these systems and structures can be capacitated to provide better services.
“The performance assessment is collecting evidence on the capacity gaps that exist within the program – looking at the program from the government side, the service delivery side, and looking at the capacity in terms of whether the policies exist, whether there’s collaboration within the government and outside the government, and to looking at how are services delivered,” said Matthews Onyango, Chief of Party for the SUN LE project. “We don’t just show where things have improved; we also show where gaps are. And then specific decisions are made on how to improve where the gaps are.”
The MCTIP project is also working to strengthen internal processes in the public sector. Khulisa’s MCTIP team is in the process of finalizing the Trafficking in Persons Provider Toolkit, which will help both the South African government and civil society organizations to strengthen the response to trafficking in persons.
To learn more about capacity-strengthening and how Khulisa has implemented it in our long-term projects, read the full blog post.
