Chapter 1-5

The Impact of Capacity Building Support for Emerging Regional States in Ethiopia: The Case
of BGRS
CHAPTER ONE: INTRODUCTION
1.1. General Background
The term, ‘capacity’ has many different meanings and interpretations depending on who uses
it and in what context. It is a concept closely related to education, training and human
resource development. This conventional concept has changed over recent years towards a
broader and more holistic view, covering both institutional and country-based initiatives
(Enemark, 2003). Hence, capacity-building is the process of increasing the abilities and
resources of individuals, organizations and communities to manage change (Matachi, 2006).
It is the elements that give fluidity, flexibility and functionality of a programme/organization
to adapt to changing needs of the population that is served. According to the World Bank
(2003), capacity-building occurs when relevant community of practice consciously uses their
stock of human and social capital and their access to financial, physical and natural capital to
improve a problematic situation, and improve the stock of capital in the process.
At the global level, capacity building is defined by the United Nations Development
Programme UNDP (2003), as a way of enhancing developmental activities. In order to
prevent international aid for development from becoming a perpetual dependency,
developing nations are adopting strategies provided by the organization in the form of
capacity building, based on UNDP, which also defined the concept as a long-term and
continual process of development that involves all stakeholders, including ministries, local
authorities, non-governmental organizations, professionals, community members, academics
and more. It stated that capacity building uses a country’s human, scientific, technological,
organizational, and institutional and resource capabilities (UNDP, 2003). According to this
view, the goal of capacity building is to tackle problems related to policy and methods of
development, while considering the potential, limits and needs of the people of the country
concerned.
However, the central aim of studying capacity building in this case is to deal with the actions
that the government has been taking to narrow regional disparities in the country. Since the
reform and open door policy of the late 1970s, China has achieved magnificent economic
growth. The fruits of this growth, however, have not been distributed fairly across China’s
regions. In the early stages of the reform, the Chinese government gave preferential policy
treatment to coastal regions and greatly promoted their development.
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China’s regional inequalities are to a great extent due to regional development policies by the
government. In order to control rising regional inequality, the country has shifted its focus
from the coast onto the interior regions. To this end, the central government put the “western
development strategy” into practice in 1998, with the “northeast revival strategy” beginning
from 2003. Most recently, the “rise of central China” strategy has been implemented (Zheng
and Chen 2007:1).
The central government has made enormous efforts to control regional disparities. For
instance, in 1998, the Zhu Rongji government launched the western development programme.
The programme was expected to boost domestic demands by promoting economic
development in the western part of the country. At the beginning of this century, the
government started to hep the economy to revive in some old key industrial bases, especially
the northeast region, in order to ease growing social conflicts caused by laying off workers.
Furthermore, under President Wen Jiabao government, the central government initiated the
“rise of central China” programme to balance regional economic development. It was hoped
that all these regional development policies will also support the development of minority
peoples, especially in remote areas. The interior regions of China have benefited substantially
from these regional development programmes. Inland China also gained from shifting
comparative advantages, as the land and labor prices in the east have raised significantly.
Interior China was, therefore, a potentially huge market for foreign and domestic investors
(Zheng and Chen, 2007).
In the last decades, inequality has prevailed in Southeast Asia due to various factors most of
which are country specific. The governments recognized that it requires policy interventions
to reduce such disparities because of its possible adverse impact on long-term economic
growth and social cohesion. Consequently, the governments have implemented capacity
building policies that aimed at reducing the excesses of the wealthy, strengthening the middle
class, and increasing opportunities for the poor. On the other hand, country circumstances
have been taken into account because since one size does not fit all (Yap, 2013).
The existence of economic disparities between countries is not a new phenomenon. Nor is the
fact new that disparities alter over time. In the 4th century, B.C., China, Persia, and India were
far better places to live than Greece or what is now Britain.A thousand years later, the Arabs
of Seville and Baghdad controlled much of the world’s wealth and commerce, while Rome
and Gaul had sunk into the Dark Ages (Khan and McNiven, 1990: p. 478).
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Regional inequalities and imbalances have increasingly become a source of political and
social conflict. For example, in 2007/08, Kenya experienced post-election violence that
predicated on extreme weaknesses of ethicized governance systems. These were rooted in
numerous cases of historical injustices and emergence of marginalization associated with the
previous regimes. Common of the three regimes were crises of marginalization and regional
imbalances that various communities of differing ethnic origin, class, generation and gender
have persistently experienced. Even though Kenya developed and promulgated a new
Constitution in 2010, the country still suffers from traditional power imbalances between
male and female, gender and resource distribution continues to entail a dark lining of
inequality based on region, ethnicity, and class. Infrastructural development also continues to
marginalize the already marginalized communities; and public service continues to exhibit
generalized ethnic imbalances in favor of communities whose members have occupied the
presidency (Stifing, 2012: 3).
Addressing regional disparities in Kenya calls for a fresh approach that provides a
multifaceted and multi-sectoral framework that fosters more balanced economic development
in the country. Such an approach could revolve around the formulation and implementation
of equity-oriented capacity building policies and programmes; the formulation and
implementation of integrated regional development framework; reforms in the legal
environment in order to create a more cohesive framework for addressing regional disparities;
and a robust monitoring framework that will develop and monitor the achievement of key
indicators and milestones of balanced regional development (Ibid, p. 4).
Many argued that the technical solutions to the problem of international disparities are fairly
simple according to orthodox economists. An abundance of cheap labor can be eliminated by
encouraging people to migrate to where the jobs are. Efficiency is best served by the mobility
of the factors of production: capital and labor. But the reason why the solution does not work
in reality is due to political variables which do not allow such easy mobility. Migration is
prevented by migration rules, though millions of illegal immigrants go into most
industrialized countries (Khan and McNiven, 1990: 476).
Since the downfall of the military regime, Ethiopia has followed a federal state structure in
which ethnic identity has become the main organizing principle of the constituent units.
Accordingly, there were 14 regional states during the transition period. These were reduced
into 9 member states, in accordance with the 1995 federal constitution. The member states
are: Tigray, Afar, Amhara, Oromia, Somali, the Southern nations, nationalities and people’s
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regional states (SNNPRS), Gambella, Benishangul-Gumuz and Harrari regional states (The
Ethiopian Federal Constitution, 1995:169). In the Ethiopian Federal system, all regional
states, regardless of their level of economic development have equal constitutional mandates
and provisions. However, past historic relations between the center and periphery has created
disparities which resulted in different level of development. For example, among the nine
regional states, Benishangul-Gumuz, Gambella, Afar and Somali, are considered as emerging
(developing) states compared to relatively developed regional states. Historically, the people
in the emerging regional states have been considered as peripheries. As a result, the nation-
state’s interest in these people had been focused on exploiting their resources rather than
developing them (Donham, 1985). This led the peripheral regional states to lag behind others
in all social, economic and development indicators.
The underlying point to demonstrate is that disparities can be solved through time not by
well-polished speeches, but by strong government commitment supported by well-designed
policies to intervene to reduce them. The Ethiopian government has been undertaking the
same thing for a couple of years with particular focus to building the capacity of the emerging
regional states. However, assessing the intervention that has been made thus far, it has not
captured the interest of many scholars. For instant as argued by Feyissa (2006), the
involvement of the EPRDF and the federal government in the internal affairs of the peripheral
regional states did not create regional capacities capable of realizing regional interests.
One of the contributing factors for this is that the ruling party and the federal government
focused on urgent security matters rather than capacity and development issues in the
regional states. The approach of the federal government and the ruling party has, therefore,
undermined the regional capacity for policy-making which, in turn, has contributed to greater
power competition between the political elites of the peripheries and to the instability of the
regional states (Mesfin Gebremichael 2011, p. 135 cited from Feyissa, 2006). Another
example is the views upheld by Omot. O. Olom who was the former president of Gambella
regional state, in his The Fate of the Emerging National Regional States under the Ethiopian
Ethnic Federalism (2016) described that: The constitution of the 1995 of the Federal
Democratic Republic of Ethiopia ensures equal rights and obligations to all member states of
the Federation to have self-rule and shared rule including the Emerging regional states […] in
the modern Ethiopian political system. However, the author witnessed that the four emerging
regional states […] were experiencing a number of challenges under the practice of Ethiopian
Ethnic Federalism. According to the author, some of the most outstanding challenges were
described as follows:
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Direct intervention of the National Government through the Ministry of Federal affairs and
the office of the political wing of EPRDF in the process of their administration and
poetical affairs against the interest of their respective Peoples; lack of equal opportunity in
the process of managing and administration of national affairs together with the EPRDF
led regional states; the Federal affairs Ministry being their night watching dog to oversee
their affairs through Federal Technical Assistance Development Board that promotes
unilateral accountability to the regions; indirect unitary rule by the Ministry of Federal
affairs and office of EPRDF over the regions that goes to the extent of dismissal of their
respective leadership out of the consent of their peoples; lack of Freedom and voice like
other member states rather their freedom is vested at the best interest of the National
Government or EPRDF leadership; and they are not yet consuming the products and
services of Federalism and in effect the present practice of Federalism becomes the solid
tool for domination over the interest of their peoples (p. 5).
Looking at the different views and the immediate aforementioned remarks, the researcher’s
motivation to conduct this study has become timely. Another theoretical and practical reason
that triggered the researcher to study the subject is his long time desire to systematize the
thoughts that have been rumbling in his mind starting from the recent past. It is an irony that
a region that is endowed with fertile soil, abundant water resources, natural forests, and a
wide variety of mineral resources such as Benishangul-Gumuz regional state is unable to
develop and to be known as ‘emerging’.
1.2 Problem Statement
Capacity building is an intervention that strengthens an organization’s ability to fulfill its

mission by promoting sound management, strong governance, and persistent dedication to
achieving results (Milèn, 2001). According to Potterfield (1999), capacity building involves
mobilizing people to gain the skills and knowledge that will allow them to overcome
obstacles in life or work environment and ultimately help them develop within themselves or
in the society. It also involves increasing educational, economic, social, political, gender, or
spiritual strength of an individual, group or society (Ebert and Griffin, 2015).
One can infer that capacity building is an indispensable activity to improve the wellbeing of
societies who especially had previously been marginalized. In line with this view, Blanchard
et al. (1993) noted that segments of societies who suffered from discrimination based on
disability, gender, race, ethnicity, religion, or economic status can be capacitated to attain
equal status with others that have been enjoying freedom. However, it is also important to
understand that the task of capacity building is not an easy one. To this end, Minjia Chen
(2007) disclosed the difficulties that China had faced in its effort to control regional
disparities in 2000. According to the scholar, the major cause for the difficulty was that
program implementation, which was designed to control disparities, was not as its intention;
there have been differences in the status of implementation among various leaders who come
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into power at different periods. In addition, since its independence, Kenya has been grappling
with the persistent problem of unbalanced regional development. Through various policies
and interventions, the government has tried to reverse the discriminative effects of colonial
policies that had created wide disparities and imbalances between regions. Nevertheless, the
government determinedly attempted to address inequalities, disparities and marginalization.
Despite such efforts, however, after decades of experimenting with different economic and
social policies, regional disparities and imbalances in economic, social and political
development still persist (Rajalakshmi, 2013).
Regional disparity in terms of economy, social, political and cultural aspects has been a
prominent feature of Ethiopia. As a result, Ethiopian regional states are commonly known
recently by two different namings: prosperous – to indicate relatively developed state and
emerging – to indicate relatively less developed ones. The causes for such differences and
inequalities may be many, but whatever the case there has to be policy actions which help to
narrow the socio–economic and political gaps between the regional states so that the nations
can assure equity through capacity building.
In recognition of the multifaceted inequality the country has faced, the government of
Ethiopia has launched fourteen national capacity building reform programs (NCBP, 2002).
These reform programs focus on strengthening the institutional, human capital and system of
the public institutions. The national capacity building program is one of the strategies for the
long term and state transformation agenda. Consequently and with great attention to the
emerging regional states, the government has put in place effective policy interventions to
address disparities through framework that fosters more balanced economic development in
the country. Such an approach mainly focused on the formulation and implementation of
equity-oriented policies and programs with capacity building final goal.
The Ministry of Federal Affairs (2007-2011), a focal ministry for supporting emerging
regional states in the country, has stated the following rationales to implement capacity
building programs in the emerging regional states:
The Emerging Regions of Ethiopia suffer from extreme poverty. There is a serious lack of
capacity to implement the decentralization program as a first step towards poverty
alleviation. The main causes of this situation include (a) the absence of clear and detailed
Regulations as an interpretation of national policy and law on decentralization, to
implement the assigned functions at Woreda and Kebele levels; (b) inappropriate
structures and processes to deliver the most rudimentary infrastructure and services; and
(c) an absence of the most basic infrastructure and services in the four regions to support
socio-economic development. This programme therefore seeks to address these issues
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through five interventions: New regulatory provisions; Policy reviews; Local government
capacity; Local development funding; and Local economic development (pg.1).
The main reason why disparities need to be narrowed is beyond equitable distribution of
resources as it has been experienced in next door Kenya. These were rooted in numerous
cases of historical injustices emergent of marginalization associated with the previous
regimes (Rajalakshmi, 2013). Consequently, it is quite intelligent for the Ethiopian
government to implement capacity building policies early that can prevent the arousal of
regional conflicts and that finally are believed to bring the disadvantaged regional states into
the life of the nation. The other important practical reason why emerging regional states need
to be given capacity building support is due to the fact that it will improve accountability,
responsibility and flexibility in service delivery and increase local participation in democratic
decision making on factors affecting the livelihood of the grassroots population.
Although the emerging regional states of Ethiopia are endowed with fertile soil, abundant
water resources, natural forests, and a wide variety of mineral resources, constraints against
the effective utilization of these resources to improve the livelihoods of people are numerous.
These include weak governance capacity, under developed agricultural and agro-pastoral
activities that result in food insecurity from low productivity and production methods that
employ outdated farming tools and traditional production techniques. Moreover, constraints
for livestock development in the regional states are the prevalence of killer diseases, the low
genetic potential of indigenous breeds, and poor livestock management systems, limited
access to financing and financial institutions and inadequate marketing facilities and
infrastructure (UNJP Programme document, 2010).
The Benishangul–Gumuz Regional State, which is the study area of this research, is one
among the emerging regional states of Ethiopia. Hence, the challenges and constraints
mentioned above are also common problems of the study regional state. Although there have
been slight changes, the human and institutional capacity is still limited, poor civil service
structure, the absence of the most basic infrastructure and services to support socio-economic
development, extreme poverty, serious lack of capacity to implement decentralization
programmes are the main problems (BGRS BoFED, 2015).
Moreover, lack of effective coordination mechanisms also keeps impeding efforts to promote
balanced regional development. The Ethiopian government has tried to give attention towards
even developing among its regional states over the last periods. Nevertheless, there are still
inadequacies, inconsistencies and centralizations (top-down) approaches of undertaking
activities. The capacity building interventions made in the emerging regional states, including
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BGRS were not also consistent with the objectives of bringing a sustainable development
solution mainly due to the federal government’s focus on urgent security matters rather than
capacity and development issues in the four emerging regional states (Feyissa, 2006).
Despite dynamics of regional disparities, economic inequalities and public policy

interventions for building the capacity of the emerging regional states in Ethiopia, these have
not attracted many scholars except few international organizations that came up with limited
findings and which show inconsistent interest in the area. Furthermore, there were only a few
scholars who were unable to show the underlying development challenges in the study area.
To the best knowledge of this researcher, there were no studies undertaken focusing on
assessing the impact of capacity building support provided for the emerging regional states
development program in general and that of BGRS in particular. Therefore, the key issues
that ignited this study are the need to fill the research gap and undertake an in-depth study
concerning the impact of capacity building activities with special attention to the
Benishangul-Gumuz regional state in order to come up with better understanding and further
policy ideas.
Therefore, in order to fill the above research gaps, the following research questions are put
forward to be answered by the study.
1) What were the main capacity building strategies put in place for the emerging regional
states?
2) What were the capacity building exit-strategies put in place to catch up with other
regional states in the country?
3) Did the capacity building interventions help to develop self-reliant attitudes in the study
regional state?
4) What are the possible policy ideas and options for the future?
1.3 Objectives of the study

1.3.1 General Objective
The general objective of the study was to assess the impact of capacity building support for
emerging regional states with particular reference to the BGRS. The study also create an
opportunity to explore into the impact of capacity building support and suggest alternative
policy ideas that will be the basis for a review of hitherto capacity building policies for the
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emerging regional states, which BGRS is a part and chart out future exit-strategies for the
study regional state.
1.3.2. Specific objectives

The specific objectives are:
1. To investigate the major capacity building strategies designed for the emerging
regional states;
2. To examine the capacity building exit-strategies put in place to catch up with other
regional states in the country;
3. To assess (point out) whether the capacity building strategies implemented in the
study regional state has developed a self-reliant attitude in public mangers and experts
alike; and
4. To come up with baseline research documentation and thereby suggest some policy
directions for future undertakings.
1.4 Significance of the study
Upon its completion, the study is expected to contribute primarily to BGRS to assess the
impact of the capacity buildings support provided so far. To the Members of the FDRE
parliament, it could also benefit to enhance their oversight legislative responsibilities.
Moreover, it is of great importance for federal focal institutions (e.g. education, health,
agriculture, water and mining, etc.) to review their apply building efforts in the last couple of
years. Similarly, the study can also help other state/governmental actors such as the
MoFPDA, MoFEC, and non-governmental organizations such as DRS - UN JP Partners and
others which are involved in the monitoring and implementation of the capacity building
efforts in the emerging regional states. Other emerging regional states also benefit from this
study as there are common challenges in the capacity building programmes implementation.
Finally, the finding of the study will also be used as a spring-board for further studies in the
area.
1.5 Scope (Delimitation) of the study

It would have been reasonably imperative and comprehensive if the study was conducted in
all emerging regional states of the country (nation-wide). Such broad scope would provide
everyone with convincing data sources and research generalizations. Nonetheless,
considering to time limit and insufficient logistics, the study was delimited to BGRS, one of
the emerging regional states of Ethiopia, in its geographical scope. Thematically, the study
emphasized the investigation of impact of capacity building support that have been rendered
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to the study area since especially 2001 as this period was a watershed for tightening the
commitments of governmental and non-governmental joint cooperation and partnership to
reverse past histories of underdevelopment and marginalization of the study regional state.
1.6 Limitation of the study
Limitations are potential weaknesses of the study and they are out of the control of
researchers. No research is free from limitations. Similarly, this research has limitations in
shortage of research inputs to support the study with prior research experiences in the country
as well as in the study regional state. Another big problem was difficulties in data collection
particularly in accessing the government chief officials as they were busy and most of the
times they did not available as per appointment (because of they were tightened with the
nationwide in-depth renewal evaluation programs during the data collection period). Hence,
the paper was not completed as planned with the time schedule. Furthermore, since the
sample was purposefully focused on the BGRS, it is not large enough to represent the
entire emerging regional states of the country or nationwide. Therefore, the finding of this
study may not have the capacity to generalize but to be understood within this limited scope
and perspectives.
1.7 Definition of Key Terms

a) Capacity: The ability of individuals, institutions, and societies to perform functions,
solves problems, and set and achieves objectives in a sustainable manner (UNDP, 2010).
b) Capacity building: “... the process by which individuals, groups, organizations, and
communities increase their abilities to: (1) perform core functions, solve problems,
define and achieve objectives; and (2) understand and deal with their development needs
in a broad context and in a sustainable manner”(UNDP, 1998).
c) Capacity development: The processes by which individual groups, organizations,
institutions and societies increase their abilities in order achieve objectives (UNDP,
1997).
d) Emerging Regions: In this study, emerging regions indicate the regional states of
Ethiopia, those who are relatively less developed among others. These are: Afar,
Benishangul-Gumuz, Somali and GambellaRegioalstates (MoFA, ERDP, 2007-2011).
e) Exit-strategies: a pre-arranged plan whereby one leaves an awkward or uncomfortable
situation with as much subtlety as possible (Urban dictionary) or An occasion when
someone stops being involved in a situation or activity, or are no longer in a particular
position (Macmillan Publishers Limited , 2009–2017).
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f) Impact: According to the Revised and Updated Oxford Dictionary (2005:378), ‘impact’
refers to an effect or influence. It also refers to the extent to which a programme causes
change in the desired direction. A common definition of impact is that used by Oxfam:
‘significant or lasting change brought about by a given action or series of actions’
(Roche, 1999:21). Assessing impact therefore involves ‘the systematic analysis of the
lasting or significant changes ‐ positive or negative, intended or not – in people’s lives
brought about by a given action or series of actions’ (ibid, p.21).
g) Self-reliance: is defined as relying on oneself or one's own efforts and abilities rather
than those exerted or supplied by other people. It includes independence, self-
dependence and self-support. It is the ability to do things and make decisions by
yourself, without needing other people to help you (Reverso-Softissimo, 2016).
h) Non-governmental organizations (NGOs): Even though there is no standard definition
for the term NGOs, in this study, the term NGO will refer to those nonprofit
organizations who are mission driven and their activities deal with building capacity to
address civil society and sustainable development projects. The mission of such an
organization is to create, promote and implement development programs and projects to
populations seeking assistance.
1.8 Organization of the paper
The study consists five main chapters. The first chapter described the background of the
study, a statement of the problem, research objectives, limitation and the likes. The rest of the
paper proceeds as follows. Chapter two discusses the review of literatures part including the
Theoretical (Historical) Discourse, Conceptual Discussion and conceptual framework of the
study. Chapter three describes methodology of the study undertaken throughout the study.
Chapter four presents the analysis, interpretations and discussions of the findings data. This
chapter presents the results with regard to each of the research questions raised in this study.
Chapter Five summarizes and concludes the paper.
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CHAPTER TWO: LITERATURE REVIEW
2.1 Introduction
This section mainly embraces the theoretical and conceptual discussion of the study. In this
regard, it presents a review of various theories and empirical studies that have been applied to
illustrate the reality of regional disparity in federal systems. It also deals with capacity
building strategies that aimed to create self-resilience among the regional states that assumed
to be lagging behind. Furthermore, it also demonstrates the conceptual frameworks that drove
to guide the research.
2.2. Theoretical (Historical) Discourse
Nature has created differences among people, among regions and among situations. These
differences are known as natural differences and are taken generally as granted. The
conditions of these natural differences are also called as constraints. However, man has
always made efforts to minimize these constraints to advance on the path of development. On
the other hand the differences created by man on account of social, economic, political,
religious and cultural aspects are called not as differences but inequalities or disparities.
These disparities are called respectively as social, economic, political, religious and cultural
disparities (Rajalakshmi, 2013, p.47).
Among all, the economic disparities are critical in nature and are the issues of great concern
in the modern world. Economic disparities help other disparities be widened. Therefore, if
economic disparities are mitigated, other disparities are automatically narrowed. An
economic disparity can be defined as a condition in which a person/persons though legally
having equal rights is/are but for economic reasons deprived to some extent from available
opportunities of fulfilling economic, social, political, cultural and/or religious needs. In
ordinary usage, the term disparity or inequality implies differences among units of
observation. Moreover, Regional disparity highlights differences in income and living
standards from one region to another (Tiepoh Dressler and Burns, 2004).
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In many countries, especially the developing ones, the economic disparities have become
widened on account of improper development plans and attained such a high level that not
only the economic growth is being badly hit but social and cultural fabric also has become
under tremendous pressure (Rajalakshmi, 2013).
Regional disparities are a feature of the world, particularly of low and middle income
countries. As Kanbur and Venables (2007) document, within country disparities are high and
have been growing in the past quarter of a century. As a result, one can give dozens of
examples. However, the point of discussion under this study is mainly confined to countries
efforts to narrow the gap between their administrative units.
In Ethiopia, the agenda for capacity building has been high on government programs for
some years now. Whether institutional, organizational or regional, capacity building is an
essential development intervention towards the strengthening of people to take advantage
over their problems (World Bank, 2005; DIP, 2011; USAID/HED, 2013). Being at the heart
of development practice, many governments in the world in general and developing countries
in particular recognized the importance of capacity building for creating regional resilience
(the core concept of this study). However, the concepts and practice of capacity building
often remain confused and vague. The greatest area of agreement appears to be that we do not
really know what capacity building is. In spite of all the rhetoric, there are few demonstrable
successes that we can point to (Li and Wei, 2010) as shown in experiences of different
counties. For instance, the Canadian experience was stated as follows:
The problem of rural and regional disparity in Canada has been a stubborn and persistent
one. Since the Second World War, both the federal and provincial governments have
struggled with how best to solve the disparity that exists between rural and urban areas as
well as that between the various regions of the nation. Since the 1930s, the federal
government has recognized the economic and social imbalances within the federation, and
has implemented a series of fiscal transfers to ameliorate these differences, though until
the late 1950s the problem was never recognized as one of systemic underdevelopment in
rural Canada. The first equalization payments from the national government to the
provinces were designed to share the wealth of the nation, and only recently have
governments come to realize that parts of Canada face serious problems that have
contributed to their poor economic performance and lower levels of income. Once this fact
became accepted, the search for solutions was on – a search that has continued for more
than half a century without any solution being found (Blake, 2003: 189).
As to Raymond Blake (2003), two observations can be made about the analysis that follows.
First, it is clear that there has been a ‘herd mentality’— how people are influenced by their
peers to adopt certain behaviors in the strategies adopted to foster regional and rural
development. Most of the provinces have followed models adopted elsewhere or have simply
accepted federal money for rural and regional development without being proactive, creative
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or courageous to the particular and peculiar challenges and opportunities in their own region
or province (Gerald Hodge and Robinson, 2001). The first rural and regional development
strategies focused on increasing productivity in farming and fishing in an attempt to raise
incomes and, hence, living standards in such areas. By the mid-1960s, the focus had shifted
to encouraging the urban-industrial and manufacturing model in underdeveloped areas. More
recently, the emphasis has shifted yet again to the development of local capacity through the
‘training’ of leaders and improving the social capital to enhance the social capacity of a
region so that it can find its own solutions to its own problems. Rural development specialists
and policy-makers are now all talking about ‘prosperity of place’—doing well financially a
new era of peace and prosperity.
According to the scholar, we are entering into an era where the rhetoric, at least, argues that
communities and local regions know what they want and have their own vision for the future
and it is up to the state to listen, to accept, and to support. This approach, its supporters
maintain, will bring the prosperity that has been slipping away from rural Canada for more
than half a century. Yet, one must recognize that this approach is just the latest in a long
series of strategies to solve the problem of rural Canada, and even this approach –
empowering rural citizens to solve their own problems – is being driven by governments and
others who reside outside the rural areas (Raymond Blake, 2003).
Second, development strategies have been largely unsuccessful at creating long-term

economic growth and prosperity in rural Canada and throughout the more remote and
sparsely populated regions of the country. One can make the case that most of the attempts at
rural development and rural revitalization in Canada have been an unmitigated disaster if we
were to apply a business model to the various initiatives. For all of the billions of dollars
spent on solving the problems of rural Canada over the past 50 years, we have a few success
stories to tell when it comes to the creation of sustainable economic development. This does
not mean, however, that there have been no social benefits from the vast quantities of
government expenditures on roads, water and sewer projects and a variety of social services.
There clearly have been improvements in services for citizens, and, moreover, the
expenditures on various rural and regional development strategies have helped to sustain
many rural areas. Without government spending, rural Canada would be in much worse shape
than it is (Ibid, p. 189).
China has been experiencing a gradual transition from a command economy to a market
economy, and has achieved tremendous economic growth in the last three decades. At the
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same time, the uneven process of economic development among regions has also been
intensified. Regional inequality has become a serious issue attracting considerable attention
from both the government and researchers (Li and Wei, 2010). Despite the diversity of data
and methods used, studies on the 1980s and 1990s have yielded rather consistent observations
about interprovincial and interregional inequalities; namely, interprovincial inequality
declined during the 1980s and showed signs of an increase in the 1990s, while inequality
between the eastern coastal region and the rest of China was on an upward trajectory since
the 1980s (Lyons and Tsui, 1991). Hence, regional inequalities became an important issue of
government policies (Wei, 2002). The Chinese government’s regional policies and strategies
have been changing in order to effect an economic transition and social development.
During the 1980s, following the strict intervention of the central government aimed at
building the capacity of the regional states, interprovincial inequality declined, primarily due
to a decrease in intraregional inequality in the eastern region. It was attributable to the
emergence of a new growth core of previously less developed provinces and the slow growth
of the old industrial ones. However, as indicated in different studies, the fact is interregional
and intraregional inequalities first became stable and then declined (Fan and Sun, 2008:14).
Similarly, after attaining its independence in 1963, Kenya has been grappling with the
persistent problem of unbalanced regional development. Through various policies and
interventions, the government has tried to reverse the discriminative effects of colonial
policies that had created wide disparities and imbalances between regions. However, after
decades of experimenting with different economic and social policies, regional disparities and
imbalances in economic, social and political development still persist (Khisa Oesterdiekhoff,
2012).
At independence, Kenya inherited a system with unequal distribution of services skewed in

favour of prosperous areas. Thus, addressing regional disparities in the country calls for a
fresh approach that provides a multifaceted and multi-sectoral framework that fosters more
balanced economic development in the country. Since independence, Kenya’s development
strategy has been anchored on Sessional Paper No. 10 of 1965 on “African Socialism and its
Application to Planning in Kenya”, and which has served as Kenya’s development Bible for
decades.
Sessional Paper No. 10 aimed to remove the inequalities inherited from the colonial period. It
stated as follows: “The state has an obligation to ensure equal opportunity to all its citizens,
eliminate exploitation and discrimination and (will) provide the needed social services such
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as education, medical care and social security”. Consequently, successive regimes have
attempted to address these inequalities with mixed results (Stiftung, 2012:12).
Certainly, one can draw lessons from the aforementioned experiences; that regional disparity
might occur due to various circumstances that might be country-specific. However, what
matters is not how much the countries scream about having such disparity, but how much
they are dedicated to solve it. The important lesson is how governments have tried to narrow
the gap through different policy strategies which intended to empower the regional
governments to be capable of managing their affairs.
The aforementioned countries’ experiences take us to the old wisdom, attributed to

Confucius: "Give a man a fish, feed him for a day; teach him how to fish, feed him for a
lifetime". This is a laudable sentiment, but it becomes more complex on two accounts. The
first we have known for some time - it does not help to teach people to fish when they are
denied equal access to the resource base. As a result, advocacy activities working towards a
"more enabling environment", or towards "a society in which more people have access to
resources and power over choices" (the Community Development Resource Association's
(CDRA) mission statement), become a necessary extension of development practice (Korten,
1990). But the second complexity is more intractable. What if those of us who claim to do the
teaching do not know how to fish? What if we have never really fished in our lives? This is
not at all far-fetched. Can we - as NGO, as donors, as governmental extension services -
honestly claim to have achieved that much capacity in our own organizations, we who strive
to teach others? Have we really mastered what we teach, have we been able to organize
ourselves sufficiently to achieve meaningful impact? (Li and Wei, 2010).
Hence, capacity building/development has become one of the leading issues in the current
development discussion. Many countries declare that they need more of it. Donors are in
somehow supplying, or at least, inducing it. But despite all the commotion, capacity
development remains a concept of enormous generality and vagueness. Discussion contains
more advocacy than operational advice. A host of concepts are included under its general
umber all such as participation, organizational development, technical assistance,
performance, institutional economics, empowerment and many others with no clear sense of
their interrelationships. What are we to make of this topic called capacity development? What
to do? Where to start? (Morgan, 1998).
Theories of regional inequality are mainly dealing with three problems: namely, the question
of whether regional equality increases or decreases over time, the causes of inequality, and
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the development strategy for reducing regional inequality (Lipshitz, 1992). Since the 1950s,
there has been a heated debate between the convergence and divergence schools. Li and Wei
(2010) pointed that, the neoclassical growth theory emphasizes equilibrium conditions and
the importance of the market in allocating resources, and considers regional inequality as a
transitory phenomenon and an inevitable stage for the final equilibrium. Scholars such as
Perroux and Hirschman (1958) advocate government intervention and promote the
development of growth poles. This idea is also known as top- down development, or
development from above (Wei & Ye, 2009). However, the persistence of poverty and
regional inequality in the 1970s prompted the development of alternative schools
emphasizing divergence and cumulative causation (Li and Wei, 2010).
During the 1990s, Barro and Sala-I-Martin (1991, 1992) provided a new explanation on
convergence which has renewed the discussion on regional inequality. The b-convergence
indicates the trend that poorer regions grow more rapidly than wealthier regions, while the
absolute difference may not necessarily decline over a period of time. Such a neoclassical
approach emphasizing convergence has once again been criticized and challenged (e.g. Silva,
2007; Venables, 2005). Krugman’s (1991) new economic geography, for example,
emphasizes geographic (locational) factors and integrates traditional location theories and
economic geography into this approach. However, these theories de-emphasize such
important factors as institutional effect, spatial scale, spatial hierarchy, and the time
dimension (Wei & Ye, 2009). These theories were also developed primarily to explain
regional development in Western capitalist countries. Though these theories have influenced
the policies and research on Ethiopia’s regional inequality, they have limited power in
explaining regional inequality in Ethiopia, which is under the developmental state economy.
Stemming from the above Western theories, the literature on Ethiopia’s regional inequality
have displayed their own characteristics and proposed some new analytical frameworks.
Some scholars such as Qaiser Khan, Jean-Paul Faguet and Alemayehu Ambel (2015), on the
policy research working paper “Blending Top-Down Federalism with Bottom-Up
Engagement to Reduce Inequality in Ethiopia” has developed new explanations and proposed
new processes that are responsible for regional inequality. And other studies also proposed
the multi-scale and multi-mechanism frameworks and argued that Ethiopia’s economic
reforms can be better understood as a triple process of decentralization, marketization and
globalization, and regional inequality in Ethiopia is sensitive to geographical scale and is
influenced by multiple mechanisms. Researchers have investigated the effects of fiscal
decentralization, foreign investment, policy bias, and globalization of science and technology
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(Yilmaz and Venugopal (2008); Word Bank 2013a; Jin-Sang Lee1991; Gudina, M. 2007;
PBEA 2015; and Tegegne, et al., 2007).
Based on the above review, two areas deserve more research efforts in Ethiopia. First, the
nature of regional inequality should be further studied, due to inadequacy of studies, little is
known about the relative importance of these contributing factors. Second, the spatial
hierarchy of regional inequality has not been completely examined, and a single-level
investigation might hide some important characteristics of regional inequality.
To this end, this paper maintains that capacity building action to narrow regional inequality in
Ethiopia is sensitive to the above two areas that call for further research. And this research is
conducted under the framework of capacity building based on multi-scale, multi-level, and
multi-mechanisms.
2.3. Conceptual Discussion

2.3.1. Definition and concept of Capacity
The literature related to capacity, capacity building, and capacity development is vast and has
interrelated definition and concept. Before defining the theoretical concept of capacity,
capacity building, and capacity development it is necessary to understand the meaning of the
words “capacity” and “capabilities”.
Capability is defined as the knowledge, skills and attitudes of individuals. In contrast,

capacity is defined as the general ability of individuals or organizations to carry out the
responsibilities required to achieve their goals. Baser and Morgan (2008) referred to capacity
as the collective skill and ability of organizations to achieve a particular process either inside
or outside the organization. Also (Fy, 2012) define capacity as the ability of individuals and
organizations or organizational units to perform functions effectively, efficiently and
sustainably. The concept of capacity includes institutional building, institutional
development, human resource development, development, management or administration and
institutional strengthening. These and other concepts related to development work such as
organizational development, community development, integrated rural development and
sustainable development have been subsumed as an umbrella for the general concept of
capacity (Morgan 1998).
Capacity building has consistently been identified as a critical component in development

policy and practices over the last two decades (Matheson, 2009 and Lucas, 2013). It is
mentioned in the Hyogo Framework for Action (2005), the Paris Declaration (2005), the
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Accra Agenda for Action (2008), and the Busan 4th High Level Forum (2011). However,
there is still no one universal definition for either ‘capacity’, ‘capacity building’ or ‘capacity
development’ – different donors and practitioners tend to use slightly differing definitions.
However, some of the most commonly cited include the following:
a) According to an Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD

(2006)), (also now adopted by Asian Development Bank [2007], SIDA [Salomonsson
et al., 2011)), the term capacity is the ability of people, organizations and society as a
whole to manage their affairs successfully (OECD, p. 12).
b) To Swedish International Development Cooperation Agency (SIDA), capacity is an
overall concept for the conditions that must be in place – for example, knowledge,
competence, and effective and development orientated organizational and institutional
frameworks – in order to make development possible. These conditions can change
and the concept must therefore provide concrete content from case to case (SIDA,
2000, p. 21).
c) The United Nations development Program (UNDP) defines capacity as the ability of
individuals, organizations, and societies to perform functions, solve problems, and set
and achieve goals (UNDP, 1997, p. 3).
d) Finally, the World Bank: No definition of capacity (World Bank, 2010).
Despite these differences in definitions of capacity, there are many common elements. For
example, the concepts and phrases such as skills and capabilities; self-reliance/sustainability
over the long term through an ability to respond to challenges; and its application to
individuals, communities, organizations and even societies are captured in the OECD‘s
(2006) definition that capacity is “the ability of people, organizations and society as a whole
to manage their affairs successfully”. This simple and widely (though not universally) is an
accepted definition used in this research.
2.3.2. The Concept and Essence of Capacity Building
Given that there is no single definition of capacity, it is not surprising that there is not a single
and internationally recognized definition of capacity building. A term capacity building is
generally used loosely across the literature, and tends to be used interchangeably with
‘capacity development’. Some authors maintain that there is a difference between the terms.
For example, Capacity for Disaster Reduction Initiative (CADRI) argue that Capacity
Development has a broader scope, focuses on enhancing resident capacity, is nationally
owned and is longer-term than Capacity Building (CADRI, 2011:14). However, below are
some of the multiple definitions of CB or CD:
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a) The Australian Agency for International Development (AusAID) the process of

developing competencies and capabilities in individuals, groups, organizations,
sectors or countries which will lead to sustained and self-generating performance
improvement (AusAID, 2006, p. 2).
b) To OECD [also adopted by Asian Development Bank (2008); Austria (2011); the
process whereby people, organizations, and society as a whole unleash,
strengthen, create, adapt, and maintain capacity over time (OECD, 2006, p. 12).
c) The United Nations development Program (UNDP) defines Capacity
development as the process through which individuals, leaders, organizations and
societies, obtain, strengthen and maintain the capabilities to set and achieve their
own development objectives over time (UNDP, 2008, p. 8).
d) Finally, the World Bank: There was no corporate wide definition for capacity
building in 2005 (World Bank, 2005). By 2010, they adopted the definition: The
locally driven process of learning by leaders, coalitions and other agents of
change that brings about changes in socio-political, policy-related, and
organizational factors to enhance local ownership for and the effectiveness and
efficiency of efforts to achieve a development goal. (World Bank, 2010, p. 3).
In the end, it seems that the three term capacity building, capacity development and capacity
enhancement bases of common understanding emerged to be as capacity building was the
first of these terms and from its introduction, there was a great breadth in its
conceptualization. Consequently, as early as 1993, the literature had been identified through
inconsistent use, and the term had already lost its analytical power to be, established as an
agreed definition could not be possible (Cohen, 1993). Since then, despite the growth in the
use of capacity building as a descriptor of development approaches, there remains no agreed
definition.
Despite this, common across all definitions is the inclusion of the word, “process”; the
concept that capacity captures ability at a point in time and capacity development captures the
process by which this changes. For example, an individual’s capacity may refer to their
ability to develop an outcomes budget for a government department. In this case, capacity
development would refer to the process used to enable the person to develop an outcomes
budget to the required quality. This process may involve various forms of training,
development of procedures or introduction of a database that captures the data required to
inform the budget. Thus, the objective of a capacity development initiative: “is not to supply
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a product or service, but to foster the development of specific individuals and organizations”
(Horton, 2002, p. 5).
In general, Capacity building is an important function in any public organization as without

capacity; institutional/organizational objectives cannot be achieved. However, capacity
building means different things to different people. To some, it solely means training and
development of human resources implying that the emphasis is on human capacity, while to
others it means more than human resource development. It includes institutional development
and financial management. However, according to some scholars (e.g. Brown, LaFond &
Macintyre, 2001; UNDP, 2002; Horton et al., 2008), capacity building is also an abstract and
multidimensional concept. Definitions range from an external intervention description
(traditional top-down approach based on financial and physical resource provision and
technology transfer) to a discussion of a process of change (bottom-up development with a
holistic approach). Moreover, Enemark & Ahene (2002) extend the area of focus as the
development of human resources (knowledge, skills, individual and group attitudes) for the
purpose of developing and managing certain areas in society. Brown, LaFond & Macintyre
(2001) offer some definitions from the International NGO Training and Research Center,
focused on the activities to increase the abilities to carry out efforts to improve the lives of
the poor, and capacity of implementing organizations in order to strengthen the position of
organizations in their society.
2.4. Operationalization of capacity and capacity building concepts

As a multidimensional and abstract concept, many attempts have been developed to describe
capacity and capacity building in terms of their components, strategies, dimensions, or
interventions in order to operationalize the concepts (Goodman et al., 1998; Brown,
LaFondand Macintyre, 2001). Some scholars such as Merino and Carmenado (2012)
disclosed that, practically, most capacity building interventions focus on the organizational or
human resources/ personnel level and the literature and measurement experience is
dominated by experience in these areas. The measurement approaches usually come more
from field experiences than from theoretical literature (Brown, LaFondand Macintyre, 2001).
A summary of all the indicators found in the literature review is shown in table (1).
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Table 1: Organization capacity characteristics
Level Competence & authors Level Competence & authors
Individual Leadership (2, 3, 4, 5, 8, 9, 10, 11, 14, Social Participation and cooperation (2, 9, 10, 12,
capacity 15, 16, 17) capacity 15, 17)
Entrepreneurship (2, 7, 11)) Commitment (4, 12, 17 Economic literacy (2,
Financial skills - 3, 5, 12, 14, 16, 17) Trust (2, 4, 7, 10, 12)
Technology skills (2, 14) Communication (5, 7, 8, 9, 11, 14, 15, 17)
Political skills (Communication; Network building (1, 3, 4, 5, 6, 8, 9, 10, 11,
Organizational; Electoral) (2, 5) 12, 14, 15) Entrepreneurship (2, 7)
Planning skills (2, 9, 10, 12, 14, 17) Norms (9, 12, 17)
Management skills, changes Team work (7, 9, 11, 17)
management (9, 12, 14, 16, 17) Group process skills (Problem/ conflict-
solving skills; consensus building, decision-
making) (1, 2, 4,
9, 10, 14, 17)
Sense of community, shared values (3, 4, 9,
10, 12, 14, 15)
Vision and Strategy (8, 9,
1Armstrong et al. (2002); 2Aspen Institute (1996); 3Brown et al. (2001); 4Chaskin (2001); 5Cheers et al.
(2005); 6Coleman (1988); 7Diallo (2005);8Flora et al. (1999); 9Foster-Fishman et al (2001); 10Goodman et al.
(1998); 11Innes &Booher (2003); 12Kwan et al. (2003); 13Liou (2004);14Lusthaus (1995); 15Maclellan-Wright
et al. (2007); 16UNDP (1998); 17WRI (2008)
Source: Adapted from Capacity building in development projects (Merino and Carmenado, 2012, p. 963)
Moreover, Brown, LaFondand Macintyre (2001) have described four components to analyze
capacity at different levels: inputs, process, outputs and outcomes. The inputs represent the
resources that are required for producing capacity related outputs and outcomes and the
processes represent the functions of each level that transform resources into capacity outputs
and outcomes. Maclellan-Wright et al., (2007) also with a focus on health, develop an
instrument with 9 domains and 29 items that provides quantitative and qualitative information
on community capacity within the context and scope of community-based funding programs:
participation; leadership; community structures; asking why; resource mobilization; links
with others; role of external supports; skills, knowledge and learning; sense of community.
Goodman et al., (1998) propose a set of indicators based on a symposium of experts on
community capacity: participation and leadership, skills, resources, social and inter-
organizational networks, sense of community, understanding of community history,
community power, community values, and critical reflection.
Lusthaus et al., (1995), propose a framework for institutional assessment to strengthen

organizational capacity based on four dimensions: forces in the external environment;
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institutional motivation; institutional capacity; and institutional performance. The WRI

(2008) proposes a set of dimensions for assessing the strength of local organizations and their
potential to drive local development: vision and strategy, leadership, inclusiveness and
gender balance, physical participation, process participation, internal processes, technical
capacity, administrative capacity, financial control, and funding. Also Kwan et al., (2003),
summarize the most common themes in people’s conceptualization of community capacity as
knowledge and skills, public participation, functional organizations, community
infrastructure, and collaboration (Merino and Carmenado, 2012).
In addition to this, other scholars have established a distinction between micro, meso and
macro level analysis (Enemark and Williamson, 2004; Foster-Fishman et al., 2001; Liou,
2004; UNDP, 1998). The micro level is related to individuals and families, and their skills,
education, job training and social cares. The success or viability of a capacity initiative is
invariably linked to the capacity of leadership and management. Increasingly, the dimensions
of accountability, performance, values and ethics, incentives and security are becoming ever
more important in individual level capacity assessments and technical assistance development
programs (UNDP, 1998). The entity/organizational level are also called the meso level (Liou,
2004). At this level, successful approaches to capacity building go beyond the traditional
capacity development, and include the role of the entity within the system, and the interaction
with other entities, stakeholders, and clients (UNDP, 1998). The dimensions considered
within this level are: mission and strategy, effective leadership, relationships, and vision to
transform individual interests into a dynamic collective force; culture/structure and
competencies, processes; human resources; financial resources; information resources; and
infrastructure (Liou, 2004; UNDP, 1998; Foster-Fishman et al., 2001). The macro level is the
highest level within which capacity initiatives may be considered and it refers to the action
environment (socio-political, government/public sector, economic/technological, physical).
This level includes both formal and informal organizations within the defined system. The
dimensions of capacity at the systems level include: policy, legal/regulatory, management or
accountability, resources and process (Liou, 2004; UNDP, 1998).
2.5 Forms of capacity building and capacity building interventions

2.5.1 Building diverse organizational capacities
There is a large range of capacity-building approaches—a continuum—that includes peer-
to-peer learning, facilitated organizational development, training and academic study,
research, publishing and grant-making. Adding to the complexity, capacity building also
takes place across organizations, within communities, in whole geographic areas, within
the non-profit sector, and across the sectors. It involves individuals and groups of
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individuals, organizations, groups of organizations within the same field or sector, and
organizations and actors from different fields and sectors. Capacity building takes place
amid everything else that is going on in a nonprofit’s experience, and it is very difficult to
isolate a capacity-building intervention from all the factors that lead to it, happen during it
and proceed afterward (Linnell, 2003, p. 13-14).
In the capacity building (CB) literature, there are many case-study examples that offer lessons
about what to do, based on particular local experiences of CB interventions. INTRAC (the
International NGO Training and Research Center) provides a typical example in a recent
(2011) newsletter ‘Empowered to influence: capacity building for advocacy’ contains more
than one list of what to do, based on reporting experiences in national, people-centered, and
extractive industries advocacy. Amongst the suggested actions are: access credible data, raise
public awareness, involve communities, influence governments, create collaborative
networks, ask good questions, develop a model of change (such as ‘innovate, advocate,
replicate’), understand hidden or invisible power, and develop staff with facilitation and
diplomacy skills.
2.5.2 What is an intervention?
The CB literature doesn’t have much to say about this explicitly, but organizational
development (OD) does. From an OD perspective, a capacity building intervention is viewed
as a change management intervention, focused on organizational effectiveness. Scholars such
as Whittle, Colgan and Rafferty (2012) forwarded that, Cummins and Worley (2001)
incorporate the National Training Laboratories sets of knowledge and values in their four-
fold typology of OD interventions. They define an intervention as, ‘a set of sequenced and
planned actions or events intended to help the organization increase its effectiveness’. They
describe four main types of interventions in OD:
a) Strategic Interventions: that aim to address concerns about Organization

Environment relationships and whole-system transformations. For example, strategic
and business planning and culture change.
b) Techno-Structural Interventions: that aim to address concerns about the
organization and work design, technology changes and employee involvement; for
example, through downsizing, out-sourcing, in-sourcing, mergers, partnerships,
divestment, quality management, and process re-engineering.
c) Human Resources Management: Interventions that aim to address concerns about
organizational performance and individual needs and development; for example,
through reward and recognition policies and practices, personnel and career
development, workforce planning, diversity, and wellness practices.
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d) Human Process Interventions: that aim to address concerns about interpersonal and
group processes and the design and impact of organizational processes; for example,
through mentoring, coaching, counseling, morale raising, conflict resolution, and team
building (Whittle, Colgan and Rafferty, 2012,p. 17-18).
In general, any capacity building intervention can be examined as part of a wider system by
“zooming in or out” to the outer or inner level or layer. Capacity building had been compared
to throwing a stone into the water - its effects begin with the individual and then spread
through the organization, the community it serves, the organizations in other sectors and
eventually all of the society (Connolly and Lukas, 2002).
2.6 Barriers and Enablers of Capacity Building

Effective capacity building obviously has enormous advantages for its purpose; however, it
depends on enablers/barriers (Wooster, et al, 2014), which include climate change adaptation,
Public administration/governance, resource, Fragile states, and Monitoring and evaluation
among other things. They indicated that often the enablers are the converse of the barriers,
but not in every case. The following statements highlight those explanatory variables.
2.6.1. The CB programs must be locally ‘owned’
In principle, CB is most effective when it is a country-led and owned and has commitments
from country actors with a limited role of external pressure (Lucas, 2013 and OECD, 2006).
Despite the principle, the reality is recognized as differently (Keijzer 2013, Matheson 2011).
Therefore, the practice needs political commitment from government and other actors
(Penalba et al., 2012; Lafontaine et al., 2012; European Commission, 2012). In line with this,
Teskey (2005) also emphasized that the recipient country should lead in identifying and
articulating demand for CB, and be jointly involved in the design and implementation of the
program. This is because CB should be aligned with receipt government priorities and plans
(Hagelsteen and Becker, 2013; Sisgaard, 2011). The Local First initiative (Peace Direct,
2012) is a peace building movement that argues for a strong focus on local-led capacity
development. In addition, it is also argued that CB activities prosper where there is a local
champion for the program (Baser 2008, Pearson 2011a, and Evans et al., 2009).
2.6.2. The CB should relate to the local context
It is argued that a major problem in CB programs is lack of understanding local contexts-

resident capabilities and skills (Hagelsteen and Becker, 2013, Baser and Morgan, 2008;
Lucas 2013; Pritchett et al., 2010; Matheson, 2011). These authors showed the significant gap
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between the theoretical best practice (which strongly argues against ‘one-size-fits-all’
approach) and the reality. As to Wooster, et al., (2014), most CB programming is still not
well rooted in a strong understanding of the local context. Careful analysis is required to
shape the design of CB interventions because CB projects affect power and the distribution of
resources. This means factors that can disrupt programs are often hidden, informal or take
time and careful analysis to fully understand (Evans, 2009). In some developing countries
informal institutions and political systems can be stronger than the formal, therefore it is
particularly important to understand the informal context. Communities should provide a
significant contribution alongside any outside support as much as possible (Evans et al.,
2009).
2.6.3. Contextual political factors strongly affect CB success
As mentioned above, having local partners who fully ‘own’ the CB interventions are critical
for sustainability. However, in fragile states there may be a lack of history or culture of
citizen engagement with the state as there may have been state repression and thus a
weakened civil society due to a legacy of violence towards the politically active (Brinkerhoff,
2007). In highly politicized environments the real location of power and control may be
hidden (Evans et al., 2009), so political economy analysis is needed to understand the context
and to analyze for unintended consequences from interventions (UNDP, 2011, Brinkerhoff
2007; OECD, 2006).
2.6.4. The CB requires a multi-stakeholder, multi-dimensional approach
It is indicated that all CB is inherently complex, multi-dimensional and involves multiple

actors (for example CADRI, 2011). This is particularly true for DRM CB which straddles
many scales, sectors and disciplines. Different levels of government have to be engaged
simultaneously including communities and community institutions in CB interventions.
Daniel et al., (2013) emphasized the importance of building mechanisms for coordination
across scales, especially between government and communities. It is advised for creating
multi-stakeholder coalitions between government and NGOs, along with community based,
demand driven CB approaches wherever possible (Evans et al 2009, UNDP 2011). This may
prevent the lack of communication and considerable gap in capacity and information flows
between upper levels of government, implementers and local actors on the ground (Walker et
al., 2011).
2.6.5. High staff turnover impedes sustainability of CB
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Major barrier to the sustainability of CB is identified as high staff turnover (Hagelsteen and
Becker 2013, Tadele and Manyena 2009; van Riet and van Niekerk, 2012). High staff
turnover, especially in government departments and other public sector, causes a loss of
institutional memory (European Commission, 2012). This is a particularly prevalent problem
in fragile states as recruitment tends to be harder and project turnover is higher, particularly
with the arrival of larger INGOs and donor agencies paying higher salaries (Brinkerhoff,
2007).
2.6.6. Donor practices can create perverse incentives for CB

Several authors argue that the practices of donor agencies in the field create perverse
incentives for CB interventions. Keijzer (2013) and Teskey (2005) argue that there is a
mismatch between the short time frames of donor funding and project management cycles
(including those of INGOs), and the reality that CB is a slow process with institutional
change taking many years. Projects are under pressure to operationalize and spend money
quickly, and evaluations are conducted before outcomes and impact can be fully assessed
(Wooster, et al., 2014). Country systems tend to be bypassed and parallel structures created
because that is often quicker and easier for the donor. Further, because CB funds and
activities come in many different forms, they are hard to track and manage which uses up
valuable core government staff time in donor negotiation and liaison. These problems tend to
be more pronounced in fragile states where work is higher profile with an associated
increased pressure to deliver results in a short amount of time. This time pressure can lead to
a lack of sensitivity to the context, a tendency towards imposing standardized approaches,
and a ‘squeezing out’ of local partners (Brinkerhoff 2007; Centre for Peace and Conflict
Studies, 2012). Several authors note the importance of donor agencies providing continuity in
funding and strategic direction (Sisgaard 2011, Brinkerhoff 2007, and REGLAP, 2012).
Sisgaard (2011) also notes that poor coordination and a lack of harmonization between
multiple donor agencies can cause confusion, making it difficult to track and coordinate CB
programmes (Wooster, et al., 2014).
2.6.7. Pay attention to the timing of CB interventions

The section above emphasizes the importance of having long time horizons in mind when
designing CB interventions. New mechanisms and knowledge needs to be institutionalized,
developed, facilitated and mainstreamed which is a long-term undertaking. However, several
sources argue that there is a key window of opportunity and momentum immediately post-
disaster that can and should be used to learn about people’s behavior, assess response
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capacity, support public discussion and provide recommendations for improvement for CB to
those in charge (Wooster, et al., 2014). This is more likely to be successful if CB activities
were in operation before the disaster occurred (for example, Spahn et al., 2010).
2.6.8. Careful design is required

Inadequate design of CB interventions is commonly cited as a barrier to effective CB
(Pritchett et al., 2010). According to Teskey (2005), CB should be based on needs
assessments, with a precisely defined objective with a well thought and realistic theory of
change. Practitioners need to develop a credible change process that matches expectations
with immediate capacity and ensures that all actors share a common vision of the desired end
state (Wooster, et al., 2014). This prevents premature over-loading and unrealistic
expectations about the level and rate of possible improvement. Some authors argue for small-
scale, incremental CB interventions rather than ‘big-bang’ programs (Teskey, 2005). Starting
small and widening out creates an opportunity to adjust the design more easily as the program
progresses, and it is easier to garner political support with any quick wins gained early on. In
designing CB, greater flexibility needs to be built into interventions (Baser and Sisgaard,
2011). When actors are given scope and freedom to design CB programs they are more likely
to be in a position to take context as their starting point and adapt to the local context (Rosen
et al., 2013).
2.6.9. Beware of barriers to participation in CB activities

Hagelsteen and Becker (2013), emphasize the importance of using participatory approaches
for DRM CB that are grown from interest. One key concern is that the success of the CB
initiative is compromised if it further marginalizes or the needs of affected communities
leading to less effect (Allen, 2006).
Similarly, with regard to the study regional state, effective capacity building obviously has
various advantages for its purpose; however, it depends on enablers/barriers as mentioned
above. Furthermore, from my own experience and reports made at different periods, there are
various factors that influence effective and efficient implementation of capacity building
activities. For example, the design of facilities, Location factors such as transport costs,
labour supply, and financial resources are also important. Product or service design also can
have an important influence on capacity. The quantity capability of a process is an obvious
determinant of capacity. A more subtle determinant is the influence of output quality, the
training, skills and experience required to perform a job all have an impact on potential and
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actual output. Employee motivation has a basic relationship to capacity, as do labour

turnover.
In addition to this, capacity building is influenced by various factors from both the internal
and external environments of the organizations that range from poor incentives, performance
standards, availability of skills, knowledge and expertise to carry out a job to weak leadership
and ineffective management style. It is thus important to take these various factors into
consideration when coming up with capacity building plans.
2.7 Capacity building exit-strategies on sustainability of development Programs
An exit-strategy for a project/program is a specific plan describing how a sponsor intends to

withdraw from a region while ensuring that the projects achieve development goals are not
jeopardized and that further progress towards these goals will be made (Rogers and Macias,
2004a). "Exit" refers to the withdrawal of externally provided program resources (material
goods, human resources, technical assistance) from the entire program area. The term is
relatively new in development discourse (Davis and Sankar, 2006). As a concept, according
to the Institutional Learning and Research (ILR) division, exit-strategies were firstly
conceived in the business community, moved to political, military and recently into
humanitarian, relief and development discourse (ILR, 2005). External evaluations and
reviews of development programmes have been identifying exit strategies as a crucial
component for sustainability of development programmes and projects, hence their recent
prominence in development discourse (IFAD, 2009; Davis and Sankar, 2006).
Proponents of exit strategies (IFAD, 2009; Gardener et al., 2005; Rogers and Macias, 2004b)
note that the goal of an exit strategy is not only to maintain the benefits achieved, but also to
enable further progress toward the programs/projects development goals. Ideally, an exit
strategy puts in place a system whereby the benefits expand beyond the original beneficiaries
and their communities (Rogers and Macias, 2004b). Having an exit-strategy, it is strongly
argued, provides clarity, focuses programming work, enables better planning of available
human and financial resources and gets people to think about the end at the beginning of the
programme (Davis and Sankar, 2006 Rogers and Macias, 2004b). Moreover, the scholars
pointed out that, in order to qualify a strategy, the exit strategy must contain: Criteria for
exiting; measurable benchmarks of progress in meeting the criteria; a timeline for the exit
process; action steps and responsible parties; and mechanisms to assess progress (Davis and
Sankar, 2006, Rogers and Marcia, 2004b).
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2.7.1 Approaches in exit-strategies

Literature on exit-strategies, identify three approaches to exit: Phase down, phase over and
phase out (Levinger and McLeod, 2002; Davis and Sankar, 2006; Gardner et al., 2004;
House, 2007). The decision to use the phasing over or the phasing out approach depends
largely on the nature of the programme activities and different conditions in the programming
environment. Other factors include the time frame for exit, available funding and available
human, institutional, financial and physical resources in the area where the programme is
departing (Davis and Sankar, 2006).
2.7.1.1 Phase down

Phase down refers to gradual reduction of programme activities, utilizing a local organization
to sustain programme benefits while the original sponsor deploys fewer resources (Gardner et
al., 2004). Local stakeholders are equipped to sustain the benefits generated while, at the
same time, enabling the sponsor to become increasingly more strategic bout its deployment
of scarce resources (Batchelor et al., 2000). Phasing down is often a preliminary stage to
phasing over and/or phasing out.
2.7.1.2 Phase out

Under this approach a sponsor withdraws from involving in a programme without turning it
over to another institution for continued implementation. Ideally, a programme is phased out
after permanent or self-sustaining changes are realized; eliminating the need for additional
external support (Gardner et al., 2005). This is because the programme/project outcomes are
already firmly established and there is no going back to the circumstances that led to the
inception of the project (Batchelor et al., 2000).
2.7.1.3 Phase over

Under this approach, a sponsor transfers programme activities requiring continued inputs to
community-based organizations (CBOs), informal groups or networks or key individuals
(Rogers and Macías, 2004 a, b; Gardner et al., 2005). During programme design and
implementation, emphasis is placed on institutional capacity building so that the services
provided can continue through local organizations (Gardner et al., 2005). The process of
transfer may be very gradual and need to be coordinated with a capacity-building strategy
that is designed to help the taking over organizations acquire the skills and resources required
to implement the programme successfully. Over time, the role of project management should
be reduced to advisory and, finally, to no role at all. The activity level may be reduced or
maintained. Ideally, however, the benefit stream should remain relatively constant (Batchelor
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et al., 2000).
However, the choice of a specific approach to program exit depends on the nature of the
interventions. One possibility is that changes brought about by the program may be
permanent and self-sustaining, so that continued impact requires no further program inputs
or activities, allowing for phase out. Examples include behavior change (if results are visible
and beneficial so that the change is maintained and others emulate it), livelihood
interventions (if their perceived profitability assures the continued use and expansion of
livelihood strategies) and the creation of permanent infrastructure such as roads (recognizing
that maintenance will be required). Other interventions require community take-over of
activities. Successful community take-over may be achieved through the creation or
strengthening of community groups, which can include community-based organizations
(CBOs) or community networks, such as mothers' self-help groups, farmer cooperatives, and
watershed associations, or key individuals within the community. A third approach is to
transfer responsibility for program activities to a government entity or other permanent
organization. These approaches are often used in combination.
Exit after a permanent and self-sustaining change requires (by definition) no further program
input. However, continued inputs from the community or government may be needed to
assure the maintenance of changes. For example, water systems and roads are permanent
infrastructure, but the maintenance of these assets requires continued activity over time.
Community take-over by means of a community group is the most commonly documented
exit approach and there are many examples of such activities still functioning effectively
years after program exit.
An exit strategy relying on community take-over requires appropriate training and capacity
building and gradual transfer of responsibility from the PVO to the community group, so that
prior to exit the community group has a track record of independent functioning. Success
depends on individual motivation, which can be increased by community appreciation and
the individuals' own sense of effectiveness. Economic incentives may also be effective, but
after exit these must come from within the community or from a local or national entity.
Vertical and horizontal linkages among individuals or organizations in the community
increase commitment and sustainability.
2.7.2 Elements of Successful Exit-Strategies

From the outset of a programme/project, identification of anticipated benefits and the
development of an exit-strategy that will maintain them should be incorporated in planning
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discussions, and such benefits, together with the strategy, should be monitored in
programme/project activities (WFP/EB, 2003/4-C).
Moreover, on the same document (Exit-strategies on School feeding: WFP’s Experience)

pointed out that, a successful exit strategy is one that is developed in coordination with
implementing partners, beneficiaries and the relevant government authorities, and is based on
six key components: the setting of milestones for achievement; government commitment;
community contributions; technical support; management and communication; and the
involvement of the private sector (ibid, pg.5).
In addition, Gardner et al. (2005), commenting on Levinger and McLeod’s approach to exit
strategies, set forth three measures to determine the success of an exit strategy:
i. If the program impact has been sustained, expanded or improved after program end;
ii. If the relevant activities are continued in the same or modified format, and
iii. If the systems developed continue to function effectively (pg.12).
2.8 Capacity Building for Sustainable Development and self-reliance

Self-reliance is one of the bases of effective community/society development in most of Sub-
Saharan Africa (Fonchingong and Fonjong, 2003). In fact, the concept of self-reliance is
located centrally within the discourse of community development and is connected to related
concepts like self-help, mutual-help, indigenous participation and rural development. It
advocates the need for people to improve their condition using local initiatives and resources
in their own hands. The concept is fast being accepted as a new formula for community
development. Its widespread acceptance in the development planning of most African
countries has the tendency to give greater stimulus and cohesiveness to community
development in these countries (Anyanwu, 1992).
Anyanwu(1992), contends that in most African countries community development has

depended significantly on voluntary cooperative efforts. This follows a traditional trait that
clearly underscores the virtue of self-reliance. This explains the emerging trends in
community development, which sees it as an important point of take-off for better living
(Fonchingong and Fonjong, 2003). The emphasis is to involve groups of people in planned
programmes from which they may gain skills that will enable them to cope more successfully
with the problems of their everyday life. Self-reliance is thus “development on the basis of a
country’s (region’s) own resources, involving its populations based on the potentials of its
cultural values and traditions” (Galtung, 1980). Communities and individual people define
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their own development according to their own needs, values and aspirations (Preiswerk,
1980).
Local-level development provides a major force in activating the utilization of local resources
(land, water, labour) and therefore constitutes one of the most effective methods of promoting
people’s participation in determining their own development. The needs for local alternatives
and self-reliance have been voiced in more explicit terms by other scholars. For example,
Brett (1988) has called for cooperative and voluntary alternatives, while Sandbrook (1985)
has emphasized the need for “small-scale community solutions”. In its fundamental sense,
self-reliance is defined as a state of mind that regards one’s own mental and material
resources as the primary stock to draw on in the pursuit of one’s objectives, and finds
emotional fulfillment not only in achieving the objectives but of having achieved them
primarily by using one’s own resources (Fonchingong and Fonjong, 2003).
According to Jull (2002: 18), for Australian Aboriginal people, for example, sustainable
development has been “a daily lived reality, an organic part of evolved and evolving
Indigenous economies, societies, cultures, and self-identifying political communities” and
“integral to indigenous oral knowledge and sheer survival”. The basis of this traditional
knowledge is the ability of local populations to rely on their natural environment and their
own efforts for food and any other needs. Self-reliance implies not only a healthy social
environment, but also a healthy natural ecology where people can be independent and
creative. The existence of healthy eco-systems allows human economic activities and a self-
reliant lifestyle allows for a healthy natural environment (Wooltorton and Marinova, 2006).
Wooltorton and Marinova (2006), argued that for developing self-reliant practices and
knowledge, in Bangladesh and Aboriginal people in Australia, the living conditions and
education standards of some of whom reflect the failure of western development to deliver
better health standards, meaningful employment and social opportunities. Aboriginal people
have been self-reliant for millions of years, but recently some have almost lost this ability and
with it the prospects for a sustainable future. Achieving self-reliance could be potentially
beneficial in the case of both Bangladeshi and Aboriginal people as it builds capacity and
skills within the community and emphasizes culturally and environmentally appropriate
practices that develop relationships of trust and partnerships.
A country that makes development plans which utterly depend on the receipt of substantial
foreign aid is doing much damage to the spirit of self-respect and self-reliance of its people.
Even in the narrowest economic terms, its loss is greater than its gains (Willoughby, 1990:
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88). Carmen (1996: 46) also notes that development aid is tied to the power of money and the
power of money is identified with the right of interventions. Such interventions generally
impact negatively on traditional systems within society causing a breakdown in its integrity.
Wooltorton and Marinova (2006) pointed out that external interventions, as witnessed by the
rule of colonial power in Bangladesh or Australia, often destroy traditional power structures
creating their own institutions and dependencies. There are numerous unanswered ethical
questions on what ground such a right is based. The case of the CDEP (Community
Development Employment Project) for Aboriginal Australia shows that a western model of
development has contributed to widespread misunderstanding and loss of hope in
communities where preservation of Indigenous culture, self-determination and building of
self-reliance have not been a major focus (Ngiya Think Tank, 2005).
Moreover, the movement for (re)achieving self-reliance in Bangladesh mainly focused on

food items – rice, wheat, vegetables, pulses, oil seeds, fruits, herbs, milk, fish and eggs. The
rural economy of Bangladesh, where the majority of the population still lives is basically not
money-based. Most rural people live predominantly on their own produce and only enter the
money economy via excesses of this production. Productivity-oriented self-reliance leads to
health, health begets happiness, and happiness welcomes modest poverty in terms of (a lack
of) material possessions. It is the case that the synergies between economic and food security,
health and happiness set people free to live in a sustainable way (Wooltorton and Marinova,
2006). Self-reliance however, can be achieved with culturally appropriate economic and
technological security systems which can lead to better health, care for the environment,
more meaningful lives and happiness.
2.8.2 Understanding Self-reliance in Terms of Sustainability

According to (Wooltorton and Marinova, 2006), the following five characteristics or core
principles of self-reliance show that the concept is closely related to sustainability:
(1) Simplicity– this concept comes from the original idea of the value and pride in the things
and ideas that are presented. On the surface, this can be seen as conflicting with sustainability
which is understood as a way of caring for future generations, but in essence the care for the
future is built in the glory of the present and the acceptance that the future is secure if we do
the right things today. Gandhi’s philosophy argues for modest consumption and material
possessions and he resents consumerism (“The more I have, the less I am”, Gupta, The
Hindu, 2005 and Joshi, 1993: 53). Another implication from simplicity is the nature of
technology that a community uses or in Gandhi’s word technology has to be “home-scale”.
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This allows full control by people over the technology, avoids technological determinism,
dominance and dependence and most importantly protects the natural environment. The
negative social and environmental impacts of large-scale centralized industrialization can be
avoided. In most non-western communities, human resources are abundant and the aim
should be to provide a meaningful way of life for the satisfaction of the fundamental human
needs, hence for simple living. For example, organic agriculture, including urban agriculture,
can provide a high level of satisfaction as well as a means to guarantee a better future
(Wooltorton and Marinova, 2006).
(2) Responsibility– the obligations that a community feels to itself, other communities as well
as the natural world transcends the boundaries of time. They require any activities (e.g. Waste
management) to be undertaken in a thoughtful manner that should also be responsible for any
consequences. A self-reliant community takes the responsibility for its actions in creating and
using goods as much as possible in a self-sufficient circle. Related to the technology used
responsibility translates in reduced dependence on fossil fuels, rejection of nuclear power and
introduction of renewable energy (solar, biogas) alternatives (Wooltorton and Marinova,
2006).
(3) Respect – this characteristic talk about respect for fellow human beings as well as for the
living and non-living natural world which is the source of enjoyment and inspiration for the
community. Respect is practiced in a culturally appreciable framework without harming the
environment, and this link to the environmental and social aspects of sustainability.
In many traditional societies respect is built around knowledge and experience. Knudston and
Suzuki (1992), talks about the “wisdom of the elders” and the “sacred ecologies” which can
provide the foundation for a new global environmental ethics. The Baul philosophers in
Bangladesh are deeply respected and people are prepared to follow their advice. Respect of
social cultural norms and traditions is also an important component of self-reliance and the
long-term sustainability of Indigenous societies.
(4) Commitment– a community needs to be committed to working and should not rely on
help from outside to guarantee the provision of its needs and economic security. From an
economic point of view, the long-term equitable access to resources needs to be guaranteed
by replenishing of any resources used. Hence, consumption on its own, be it moderate, is
unsustainable unless there is commitment to ensuring resources are being replaced or
renewed. An implication from this characteristic of self-reliance is the choice of resources
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used and the preference for renewable resources that can be replaced in a reliable way
(Wooltorton and Marinova, 2006).
Another implication of commitment is that the time outside productive work can be allocated
to performing rituals, educational and cultural activities which are equally important for
maintaining the capacity to work. For the last two centuries, international development has
created a lot of environmental and social damage. Changing the direction of development to
self-reliance implies commitment and work on capacity building to achieve this. The spirit of
sustainability is what has helped Indigenous and traditional societies to survive and it needs
to be encouraged.
(5) Creativity– sustainability requires a change of course as to how things have been done
during western industrialization and development. New innovative solutions are the key to
success for implementing such a change. The concept of self-reliance implies that a
community is a constant source of creativity and ideas how the present can be made better.
People are, as they always have been and ought to be, the real protagonists of their own
development and future. The search for sustainable solutions should involve the people who
are affected by these solutions.
According to (Wooltorton and Marinova, 2006), the above five characteristics have been
manifested in the self-reliant lifestyle of rural families in Bangladesh. Similarly, the five
characteristics of self-reliance existed in the Australian Aboriginal communities despite their
geographic isolation from other civilizations. Bourke et al., (1998) maintain that Aborigines
did not exhaust the resources of an area. They had spiritual attachment to country, a sense of
bonding to the land. The various Aboriginal groups utilized the edible plants, worked their
mines, developed the use of drugs, medicines, and had new manufacturing techniques and a
large range of resources which ranged from raw materials for cosmetics and paints to hidden
supplies of water (pg. 220).
The overall objective of capacity-building, formulated by the UN Rio Declaration, is “to

develop and improve national and related sub-national and regional capacities and
capabilities for sustainable development, with the involvement of non-governmental actors”
(UNCED, 1992, Chapter 37.3). There are a number of institutions and stakeholders
mentioned which should be involved in efforts for more capacity-building: all government
levels, NGOs, universities and research centers as well as businesses and other private
institutions. Hence, Janicke (1997, 1-2) argues that “a country’s capacity for environmental
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protection is not and cannot be restricted to government policies. Increasingly, it depends on

societal forces of all kinds”.
One must add that much of the debate on capacity-building for sustainable development –
and especially the UN Rio Declaration – is mainly focused on developing countries.
However, despite the fact that in some industrialized countries, there has been a remarkable
increase in capacities for sustainable development, the restrictions to effective policy
integration and implementation on the ground should not be ignored. As was argued above,
much has been conceptualized and talked about, but what has been achieved in practice
remains rather unclear.
The UN Commission on Sustainable Development (1998) in its sixth session gave an

overview report on the development of capacity-building for sustainable development. Two
developments are prevailing: First, there is slow but steady progress. Second, attention is
suggested to be given to the implementation stage. Furthermore, regarding implementation of
capacity-building, the document argues, there is a need for effective monitoring and
evaluation to provide learning and lessons of experience. This requires approaches to
monitoring and evaluation, which are “less donor driven, less defensive and more attuned to
the learning needs related to capacity-building” (UN Commission on Sustainable
Development, 1998).
2.9 Monitoring and Evaluation for general capacity building

The general literature on Monitoring and Evaluation (M&E) and on capacity building
emphasizes that there is no commonly accepted, universally used set of capacity indicators.
In fact, several authors identify M&E for CB as a problem area (Lucas 2013, Keijzer 2013)
for a variety of reasons, for example indicators are hard to identify, baselines are often
missing and there has generally been a low level of investment in CB evaluation, which has
hampered learning. In particular, Simister and Smith (2010) argue that most evaluations and
most approaches to evaluating CB/CD are written from the vantage point of a donor
concerned with demonstrating their accountability rather than a society, a ministry, a city, a
province, a private company or an ethnic or religious group seeking to become less
vulnerable, or more capable and informed on what works and what does not (Wooster, et al.,
2014). They suggest that M&E designed for accountability to donors and supporters not the
same as M&E designed to learn and improve.
According to the scholars, many resources emphasize that outcomes and impact should be
monitored in addition to the assessment of operational inputs or outputs as has traditionally
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been the case with CB, for example the number of persons attending training (OECD, 2006).
In addition, some argue that M&E should include tangible and intangible elements (e.g.
Resilience, sustainability and legitimacy) and should focus on processes of learning (Baser,
2011). Ideally, monitoring systems should aim to capture change across the whole complex
system, including the individual, organizational and institutional levels (OECD, 2006; Lucas,
2013).
2.10 Conceptual framework

In this section, a framework to analyze capacity building in development projects/programs is
presented. The framework attempts to guide the mapping of capacity at individual and social
levels and the role of development programs as tools for building capacity and hence, for
increasing success and sustainability of interventions. It is based on a multidisciplinary
approach, taking advantage of various theoretical perspectives, including: social and human
capital theory, social capacity, capacity building, and competences evaluation methods from
psychometric perspectives, methodologies from the logic of participation (Merino and
Carmenado, 2012 cited from Korten, 1980; Oakley, 1993; Chambers, 1997) and social
learning processes (Friedmann, 1993; Cazorla, and Friedmann, 1995).
Context
Development
Program
Capacity
characteristics Outcomes
CB Program
Individual
DimensionsSocial interventions
Capacity changes
Dimensions
Capacity functions Sustainability increase
Technical (performance)
Program success
Behavioral Capacity
transformations Self-reliant
Contextual
Formulation/Design Planning Evaluation
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Figure 1: Conceptual framework

Source: Adapted from Capacity building in development projects (Merino and Carmenado, 2012, p.
965).
Merino and Carmenado (2012) displayed that, the framework is a base to analyze the critical
elements of capacity at each level (individual and social) that promote success over time
(understood as sustainability, adaptability and robustness as economic organizations related
to global markets), dividing them in three dimensions: technical, behavioral and contextual
elements. The changes in capacity can be analyzed by looking at changes in performance
(functions) and outcomes. The context is another important element to take into account in
the analysis, as it is unique of every program/project (Lusthaus et al., 1995; Brown, LaFond&
Macintyre, 2001). The framework could be used at different points of the program cycle.
First, it would serve in the diagnosis included in the design phase to assess the community or
organization capacity and hence to better define the planning phase in order to build on
existing capacity and improve the weak elements. Then it could be used in the monitoring
and evaluation phase to check the changes in capacities and the effects of the program (fig 1).
Moreover, capacity characteristics found in the literature have been divided into two main
groups, related to individual or social capacity. Individual capacity can be characterized by
two main dimensions: technical and behavioral capacities. Technical capacity is needed in
any organization to perform all the required activities involved in a business. It can be
divided in financial skills, technology skills, political skills, planning and management skills.
Behavioral capacity is related to personal attitudes and skills needed in the relationships
between people and groups of stakeholders (IPMA, 2009), such as leadership or
entrepreneurship. Social capacity is required to promote many capabilities that enable a
community based enterprise or organization to succeed in the long term aside from technical
capacity (WRI, 2008), and it can also be divided mainly in behavioral and contextual
capacities. The first include capacities such as commitment, trust, network building,
entrepreneurship, norms, teamwork, group organizing, sense of community, shared values,
negotiating and political skills; and the second includes among others, vision and strategy,
legal and financial skills or institution building.
2.11 Conclusion
This chapter presented the review of various literatures, theoretical (historical) discourses and
studies that dealt with regional inequalities (disparities), capacity building strategies
intervention areas, self-reliance attitude and exit-strategies. Moreover, the chapter briefly
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described the conceptual frame work of the study that was developed on the basis of the
literatures reviewed.
CHAPTER THREE: RESEARCH METHODOLOGY
3.1 Introduction
This chapter contains a description of the research methods that are pertinent to an empirical
study on the theme that the researcher used in collecting and analyzing data. The Chapter
outlines description of the study area, research design, research methods, data collection
instruments, as well as data analysis strategies and ethical considerations. According to Brian
(1999), research methods are the philosophical basis on which research is based. He also uses
the term ‘method’ to refer to particular techniques that are used to collect and analyze data.
According to Turbian (1992), in order for a researcher to come up with desired and reliable
data, more than one research method or approaches should be used.
3.2 Description of the Study Area
Benishangul-Gumuz Regional State (BGRS) is one of the nine regional states established in
1994 by the new constitution of Ethiopia that created a federal system of governance.
Previously the southern part of BGRS belonged to the former Wollega sub-region while the
area above the Abay River belonged to Gojjam. The regional state is located in the western
part of the country between 09.170 - 12.060 North latitude and 34.100-37.040 East longitude.
It has an international boundary with the Sudan and south Sudan in the West and is bordered
by the Amhara regional state in the north and northeast, Oromiya in the southeast and south.
The regional capital, Asossa, is located at a distance of 687 km west of Addis Ababa, the
capital city of Ethiopia. The state has a total area of approximately 50,380 km2 with altitude
ranging from 580 to 2,731 meters above sea level (m.a.s.l.). The Benishangul-Gumuz
Regional State is divided into 3 administrative zones and 20 ‘Woderas’ (administrative unit
equivalent to district). Based on the CSA (2007) data, the total population of the region is
about 670,000 people, and the total population of the regional state is projected at 711, 702
people in 2009. The population composition of the region has diverse ethnic groups, five of
which are indigenous. Based on their languages, the five indigenous ethnic groups in their
order of population number are Berta (26.7 %), Gumuz (23.4%), Shinasha (7.0%), Mao (0.6
%) and Komo (0.2 %). Moreover, significant numbers of Amhara (22.2 %), Oromo (12.8 %),
and others (7.1 %) also reside in the state. The religious affiliation of the population of the
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region is Muslims (44.1 %), Orthodox Christian (34.8 %), traditional religions (13.1%),
Protestant Christian (5.8 %), Catholic (0.5 %) and others (1.5 %).
Figure 1: Administrative map of BGRS
Source: BG-BoFED, 2012
Agro-ecologically, it is classified into Kolla about 75 % (lowlands below 1500 m.a.s.l.),

Woina Dega about 24 % (mid land between 1,500-2,500 m.a.s.l), and Dega about 1 %
(highland above 2,500 m.a.s.l.).
Benishangul-Gumz Regional State is endowed with fertile land suitable for high value crops,
livestock, apiculture, fishery, minerals such as gold and marble, and economically important
forests such as bamboo and incense. Livestock production is an important means of
livelihood in the region next to crop production. It is important sources of food, cash income,
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and assets to buffer against shocks. In general, a mixed farming system, involving both crop
production and livestock rearing activities, is the dominant type of production system.
Currently, the state is attracting the attentions of the Federal government and other
stakeholders’ intervention because of the Grand Renaissance Dam of Ethiopia, which is
under construction in the regional state.
3.3 Research Design and Approach

According to Kothari (2004), research design refers to the plan or procedure for gathering
information, indicating the steps and how the research is going to be carried out in the search
for the answers that the researcher is seeking, guided by a conceptual structure. A research
design may use mixed study methods. As to Creswell and Clark (2007), mixed approach
focuses on collecting, analyzing, and mixing both quantitative and qualitative data in a single
study or series of studies. Its central premise is that the use of quantitative and qualitative
approaches in combination provides a better understanding of research problems than either
approach alone (p. 5).
Besides, this study employed a mixture of descriptive and explanatory types of research
designs, and a qualitative dominant research approach was used in the study. The descriptive
design was selected in order to accurately describe basic information about the respondents as
well as to provide a precise and valid representation of the aspects that relate to the research
questions. Whereas, the explanatory one as to analyze systematically the impacts of capacity
building support for emerging regional states of Ethiopia in general and BGRS in particular.
Furthermore, In terms of logic of reasoning, it followed a deductive approach. Besides, the
research focused on collecting, analyzing, and mixing both quantitative and qualitative data
in order to provide a better understanding of the research problem and research questions.
Moreover, it was a cross-sectional study in which the samples of the population were studied
at a given point in time.
Despite the ongoing arguments between the methodological traditions of qualitative and
quantitative research (Gage, 1989), combined methods represent a fast developing field of
social science methodology. As all methods have specific margins and particular strengths,
many discussants propose that qualitative and quantitative methods should be combined in
order to compensate for their mutual weaknesses (Tashakkori &Teddlie, 2003). Therefore, it
is emphasized that the use of a mixed-method design provides an important tool in
overcoming the limitations of both qualitative and quantitative mono-method research.
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of BGRS
By using either quantitative or qualitative research data alone, studies often fall short of
providing findings with applicability to real life situations, and at best, incomplete. Hence, in
this study, the researcher has employed both qualitative and quantitative approaches, since
they have the potential to provide a more comprehensive picture of a phenomenon and can
produce findings that answer a broader scope of questions, often with greater depth.
Moreover, mixed research approach opens door to multiple methods of data collection and
helps to generate the findings to a population and develop a detailed view of the meaning of a
phenomenon or concept for individuals (Creswell, 2003, pg. 12-22).
3.4 Data Types and Sources

Quantitative data were used for variables which can be measured with numbers and analyzed
with statistical procedures (Creswell, 2013). In particular the study utilized a questionnaire
that consisted both close-ended and open-ended questions. Besides, the qualitative data were
expected to provide a more realistic feel of the research findings which cannot be calculated
or quantified. For this reason qualitative data were gathered through interviews, FGDs, and,
to some extent, from the questionnaire’s open-ended part. In addition, with regard to research
question one; both types of data were collected carefully and systematically thorough
document reviews.
In addition, Chef Officials (Ministers, Bureau Heads, Directors), the study regional states
equivalent development Advisors, Beneficiaries/Elders and key stakeholders were used as the
major primary data sources for the study. Also, relevant literatures and empirical studies,
governmental policies, laws, guidelines, minutes and other published and unpublished
materials which relate to capacity building support programmes were used as a secondary
data sources.
3.5 Data Collection Instruments and Procedure

In this study, four types of data gathering instruments were applied. These are
Questionnaires, Interviews, Focus group discussions (FGDs), and document review/analysis.
Moreover, the researcher has used pilot-testing of instruments to enhance validity and
reliability of collecting data. Triangulation approach was used to analyze the multiple sources
of data collection instruments (interview, questionnaires, and document review). These
techniques help for cross-checking the accuracy of information collected by different
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of BGRS
methods and data collection instruments. The details of the instruments are discussed as
follows:
3.5.1 Questionnaire
3.5.1.1 Design and Rationale
In this research, a questionnaire that had four parts, and a total of 24 (20 close-ended and 4
open-ended) questions as well as additional demographic data of respondents were designed
on the basis of various literatures and empirical studies that oriented towards development of
the capacity building strategies, processes involved and implementation of the strategy.
Specifically, the questionnaire dealt with the objectives of capacity building strategies,
problems with the implementation of capacity building strategies (input phase), assessment of
the exit-strategies of building and the attitude of self-reliance (output phase) on the part of the
beneficiary's regional state (BGRS). The questionnaire was developed in English after
reviewing relevant literatures and then translated into Amharic (the working language of the
study regional state). Moreover, the questionnaire was administered by the researcher for the
purpose of enhancing respondent understanding and improving the return of response rate.
The instrument was selected for the following reasons. Firstly, as Gray (2013), revealed they
are efficient in terms of both time and money; they allow getting quick inflow of data from
many people at a time; and they further give a chance for respondents to complete the
questionnaire at a time and place that suits them. Secondly, they offer the best methodology
to make the coding and data analysis of, especially, close-ended questions relatively simple
and quick.
3.5.1.2 Pilot Study and Data Collection
Before undertaking the data collection, a pilot study was conducted so as to enhance the
reliability, validity, and practical application of the questionnaire as well as to rate the
relevance and appropriateness of each item and to recommend any comment. And then, it
was distributed to ECSU graduating students. As a result, their feedbacks were used to make
some modifications. Through this way, 4 items were rejected and the questionnaire was
further improved, and got approval. Hence, the final questionnaire having a total of 20(17
closed-ended and 3 open-ended questions, excluding demographic data) set for use.
Furthermore, during the data collection period, it was also made an amendment in the sample
size of the study where it was proposed to fill the questionnaire by the MoFPDA senior
experts but this was rejected mainly because they are not the direct subjects for the
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of BGRS
programme (they are responsible to give support for the emerging states). However, they
were one of the sample units of the study so that instead they were interviewed and made
FGD with them. In this regard, for the quantitative data, the sample size of this study was
amended from 290 into 209.
During the data collection period, as can be seen below in figure 2, a total of 209
questionnaires were distributed among the sample population. Of which 188 (89.95%)
questionnaires were returned, and 178 (85.2%) were taken as valid responses and the
remaining 9 (4.7%) were rejected (discarded) for many items were not filled.
Distribute Distributed
Used; 178
d; 226 Returned
Dicarded; 9
Returned; 188 Dicarded
Used
Figure 2: Questionnaire: Distributed, Returned, Discarded, and Used
3.5.2 Interview
According to Kothari (2004), interviews involve a set of questions, intended to collect
information through oral or verbal communication in a face to face contact between the
researcher and the respondents. Cresswell (1994) holds that personal interviews are the most
common and most effective means of obtaining detailed information in a survey.
In this study, interview was used to gather qualitative data from purposefully selected chief
officials to strengthen the validity of the finding from other instruments and for effective
triangulation of the instrument as well as the data obtained. A total of 10 unstructured
interviews were carried out with the chief officials of the study regional states such as
agriculture, water, education, health, and rural road authority bureau heads. Most of the
interviews were recorded and each interview lasted on average of 35 minutes.
3.5.3 Focus Group Discussions (FGDs)

The FGD is one of the qualitative data collection instruments. It is used to obtain in-depth
information on concepts, perceptions and ideas of a group (Varkevisser et al., 2003). The
discussion will be “… more than a question-answer interaction” (Ibid, p. 182). This was
enabled participants to express their views and perceptions about the subject matter without
45
of BGRS
undue interference by the moderator. Besides, it could enable the researcher to gain more
insights about issues that may not be clearer (Varkevisser et al., 2003; Bryman, 2008).
Therefore, in this study, the researcher has employed two FGDs: one with advisors of
equitable development in the study regional state (lasted 1hr and 40 minutes) and another was
with purposefully selected local elders that lasted 1hr and 20 minutes.
3.5.4 Official Documents Review/Analysis

According to Mohapi (2011: 88) “successful researchers depend on a well-planned review of
the available literature. A review of the literature is the way information about what is already
known and not known is learned. It is important for the researcher to organize the search of
literature around the key concept to be studied”. As to Best and Kahn (1993), document
review is a method for data collection, which involves deriving information by studying
written documents.
In this study, this tool was used by the researcher in order to get the information that already
existed. The document review as a method of data collection was employed through
reviewing relevant literatures, empirical studies, government policies, laws, guidelines,
strategies and annual plans, performance reports and legislative documents that are related to
the study. Though it required painstaking effort, this data collection instrument was employed
for it allows to obtain information in the participant`s own words, as well as its
appropriateness to provide adequate and objective data that helped a lot to particularly the
first research question of this study.
3.6 Sampling Design

3.6.1 Population
A total population is the entire collection of cases that meets a designated set of criteria and
data. However, populations vary in size (Wisniewski, 1994:76; Lipsey, 1989:294).
In this research, the total population was the total number of chief officials, Bureau/
Commission/Agency/Department/Office heads or directors, case process owners, performers,
officers and other role-players such as experts and support personnel, as well as all
beneficiaries in the study regional state. However, it is clear that the total population is too
big to include all of them in the study. Neuman (2006: 224) claims that a target population is
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of BGRS
required in order to get a significant pool of elements from a larger population. The target
population is smaller than the total population and includes only those sampling units with
characteristics that are relevant to the stated problem (Wegner, 1993:4). The target population
was thus limited to only chief officials, selected bureau heads, case process owners, senior
experts and selected elders who were directly involved in decision making for and
implementation of capacity building activities in the study regional state.
3.6.2 The Sampling Unit

The sampling unit is made up of the respondents to the survey. Deciding who will be
included in the study requires that the boundaries of the sampling area, from which data are
sought, to be clearly described and explained (Schiffman and Kanuk, 1997:36).
In this study, the sampling unit were the Ministry of Federal affairs and pastoralists
development(MoFPDA), the BGRS Bureau of Public Service and Human resource
Development(PSHRD), Bureau of Education(BoE), Bureau of Health(BoH), Bureau of
Agriculture and Rural Development(BoARD), Bureau of Water, Mining & Energy
Development(BoWMD), and Rural Road Authority(RRA) plus non-governmental
organizations such as UNDP, UNICEF and WFP as a case study for the relevant impacts of
capacity building supports. Therefore, respondents in the study were selected from the
population comprising of 7 governmental and 3 non-governmental organizations. Besides, the
total target population encompassed 915.
The reasons for the purposively selection of the aforementioned organizations were; one, they
are implementing Agencies of the program (e.g. MoFPDA)—It’s the ministry responsible for
the Emerging Regions and is also a coordinating agency at the center. It provides overall
coordination and facilitates relations with regional offices and other government agencies. In
addition, the selections of the organizations were due to the fact that the agencies are key
social, economic, administrative and general service sectors for the program (capacity
building supports). Furthermore, the DRS - UN JP Partners such as UNDP, UNICEF and
WFP are also actors and targeted to support the emerging regional states technically,
financially as well as other relevant development programmes in the area.
3.6.3 The Sampling Methods

In this study, probability and non-probability sampling methods were applied. From
probability sampling method, simple random sampling techniques and from non-probability
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of BGRS
sampling purposive sampling techniques were used. In addition to this, concurrent procedure
was employed to triangulate the quantitative and qualitative data in order to provide a
comprehensive analysis of the research problem. Moreover, the researcher has collected both
forms of data at the same time during the study and integrates the information in the
interpretation of the overall results (Creswell, 2003).
The sample, sampling method and the instruments that were used for collecting data are
explained below.
Study area, sample Sampling Technique Instruments Justification

frame and sample unit Probability Non-probability
Study area Purposive Familiarity with community
and study area
MoFPDA, PSHRD, BoE, Purposive Questionnaire Based on their responsibility
BoARD, BoH, Interview, of vision, mission
BoWMED, RRA FGD
UNICEF, UNDP and Purposive Interview Based on their responsibility
WFP of vision, mission
Chief-officials Purposive Interview Based on their knowledge and
(ministers, bureau responsibility
heads)
Case process Purposive FGD Based on their area of
owners/Regional states expertise and responsibility in
equitable development program implementation
advisors Can get common impressions
quickly
Can be an efficient way to get
a breadth and depth of
information in a short time
frame
Senior experts Quota Closed/Open- Their experiences, knowledge
ended and familiarity in the study
questionnaire area
Elders Purposive FGD Selected elders from the

community based on long
time residence in the area
Table 1: Sampling technique and Procedures
3.6.4 The Sample Size

The correct and adequate sample size is dependent upon the nature of the population and the
purpose of the study (Bailey, 1982:100). The larger the sample, the more likely the responses
will reflect the total population under study, although sometimes a small sample can often
provide highly reliable findings, depending on the sampling procedure adopted (Schiffman
and Kanuk, 1997:36).
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of BGRS
In this study, for the qualitative data, 25 respondents (10 from chief officials an in-depth
interview, 8 from case process owners/advisors and 7 from elders FGDs) were selected
purposefully. Here, the purposive sampling technique has been made it easier for the
researcher to select key informants based on important characteristic features like position,
knowledge, experience, stakes and research characteristics of interest in the study area.
Overall, the choice of study participants has been highly dependent upon the research
questions and specific aims that could addressed by this study simultaneously taking into
account the issue of representativeness of the sample. As the main aim in qualitative inquiries
is to explore the population, sample size and sampling strategy do not play a significant role
in the selection of a sample. If selected carefully sample can be extensively and accurately
described on the basis of information obtained even from one individual (Kumar, 2011, p.
212).
For the quantitative data, the study participants were selected from the 915 total target
populations. Hence, the sample size was estimated using sample size determination formula.
Accordingly, the researcher used the formula set by Kothari (2004, p. 179) in the case of
finite population, to calculate sample sizes of the study as follows:
Where,
 n = the required sample size

 z = the abscissa of the normal curve that cuts off an area α at the tails (1-α equals
the desired confidence level. The value for z is found in statistical tables. For
instance, the value of z is = 1.96 at 95% confidence level; and z2 = 3.8416).
 N = target population size (915)
 P = the population proportion (assumed to be 0.5 since this would provide the
maximum sample size)
 q = 1-p
 e = the desired level of precision or margin of error (5%)
Thus, using the formula;
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of BGRS
(1.96)2 x 0.5 x ( 1−0.5 ) x 915

n= = 209.071 ≈ 209 is the desired sample size.
( 0.05 )2 (915−1)+ ¿ ¿
In general, the sample sizes and the sample distribution for each sample unit were
disaggregated as follows in table 2.
Sample unit Target population Sample size

PSHRD 110 110/915)209=25
BoE 143 (143/915) 209=33
BoARD 173 (173/915) 209=40
BoH 201 (201/915) 209=44
BoWMED 130 (130/915) 209=30
RRA 95 (95/915) 209=22
UNICEF 30 (30/915) 209=7
UNDP 20 (20/915) 209=5
WFP 13 (13/915)209 ≈ 3
Total 915 209
Table 2: sample distribution for each sample unit
Generally, senior experts from the education, agriculture, health, water, road and HRD
government sectors and from NGOs were selected to fill the questionnaire. Therefore, the
total sample size of the study was 209. Besides, other 25 respondents were chosen
purposefully for the interviews and FGDs. Altogether, 209+25=234 sample respondents
were taken for this study (for quantitative and qualitative data).
3.7 Method of Data Presentation and Analysis

After collecting the required data, first the data were classified on the basis of their similar
characteristics before analyzing of the raw data. Then, the Statistical Package for Social
Science (SPSS) version 21 and Microsoft excel were used for processing the tabulation of
quantitative data to make the quantitative data analysis more efficient. In addition, they
served to encode data, calculate, and generate some graphs. The quantitative data were
analyzed using descriptive statistical techniques such as percentages, graphs and tables,
whereas the qualitative data was analyzed using narrative form from interviews, FGDs, open-
ended questionnaire and document analysis. Besides, the analysis of the quantitative data was
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of BGRS
accompanied with the qualitative data, and vice versa, since a concurrent mixed method was
applied in this study.
3.8 Ethical Considerations

Nurses face ethical dilemmas in their daily duties, so do the researchers. When humans are
used as study participants in a research investigation, care must be exercised that the rights of
those individuals are protected (Polit & Hungler 1999:132-134). Necessary preparations were
made to conduct this study in an ethical manner. An official letter was collected from the
Ethiopian civil service university by the researcher to be used during the data gathering
period and to explain the purpose and objectives of the study. Moreover, the researcher was
responsible not only for ensuring the confidentiality of the respondent’s information, but also
for maintaining the confidentiality of information with regard to the privacy and dignity of
the same.
Furthermore, except the researcher and his advisor, no one can access to hear specific
information provided by participants. In general, professional and ethical approaches were
implemented during the overall process of this study.
3.9 Chapter Summary

This chapter described the methodology adopted to meet the research objectives. Hence, the
research approach, the sampling design, data types/sources and methods of data Collection
and data analysis were presented in detail.
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of BGRS
CHAPTER FOUR: DATA ANALYSIS AND INTERPRETATION
4.1 Introduction
Impact assessment, as a measurement of whether longer-term and sustainable change has
occurred from a development intervention, is evidently a complex process. The complexity of
impact assessment increases when trying to measure the impact of intrinsically intangible,
fluid and iterative processes. One such process is capacity building (John Hailey, Rick James
and Rebecca Wrigley, 2005). There is therefore a corresponding interest in the dynamics and
effectiveness of different types of capacity building interventions, as well as an appreciation
of the need to find ways to assess their long-term impact.
The main objective of this study was to assess the impact of capacity building support for
emerging regional states with particular reference to the Benishangul Gumuz Regional State
(BGRS). The study created an opportunity to explore into the impact of capacity building
support and suggest alternative policy ideas that will be the basis for a review of hitherto
capacity building policies for the emerging regional states, which BGRS is a part and chart
out future exit-strategies for the study regional state. In the preceding chapters, the researcher
has considered the general background of the study, the relevant literature reviews, and the
methodology undertaken in gathering the research data. In this chapter, both the quantitative
and qualitative data that were collected through questionnaire, interview, focus group
discussion and document review are presented and analyzed with a view to answering the
research questions of the study.
4.2 Characteristics of Respondents

The respondents of the study came from diverse posts and organizations relevant to Ministry
of Federal Affairs and pastoralists development, Bureaus of Benishangul-Gumuz Regional
52
of BGRS
state (public service and HRD, education, agriculture, health, water and rural road authority)
and from NGOs (UNICEF, WFP and UNDP) in the study regional state (BGRS). A
demographic analysis was used in the study for two main reasons. First, it was important to
identify population characteristics to draw basic information about the respondents. Second,
it was also important to provide identity information about the respondents, such as their
gender, education, age, and years of service of the respondents (Okubena, 2010:146). The
demographic details are based on a quantitative analysis, which is described as the
manipulation of numerical data through statistical procedures (Polit and Hunger, 1993:444).
The demographic details of the respondents are discussed as follows:
Table 1: Demographic Data of Respondents
Variables Frequency Percentage

Sex Female 44 24.7
Male 134 75.3
Total 178 100.0
Age 20-25 13 7.3
26-30 34 19.1
31-35 49 27.5
36-40 51 28.7
41 and above 31 17.4
Not mentioned 0 0
Education level Diploma 18 10.1
Bachelor 117 65.7
Masters and above 43 24.2
Total 178 100.0
Source: Survey Data, 2017
The above Table one illustrates that the total number of respondents in this study were 178,
of which 24.7% are females and the rest (75.3%) are males. This is evidence that the majority
of the sample respondents are male. This has affected the gender combination of the
respondents. Nevertheless, the gender distribution effects are moderated through the nature of
the questions posed, which are gender neutral. Besides, most of the respondents included in
the study are in the age category of 36 to 40 (N= 51, 28.7%) followed by those who were in
the age category of 31 to 35 and in the age category of 26 to 30 (N= 49, 27.5%; N=34,
19.1%) respectively. There were 31 respondents who were in the age bracket of category 41
and above who constituted 17.4% of the sample population.
Furthermore, as indicated in Table one, the highest and the lowest academic qualification of
the respondents was a bachelor’s degree and diploma (N=117, 65.7%; N= 18, 10.1%)
respectively. Furthermore, 43 (24.2%) of the respondents had masters’ degrees and above.
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This shows that almost all of the respondents were with a good educational background.
Finally, as can be seen from the table, of the total respondents, 20.8% of them are from
agriculture and health sectors; 17.4% of them from Education sector; 15.7% from water
sectors; and 14.6% from Public service & HRD bureau followed by respondents from the
rural road authority which was 10.7% of the sample population, respectively. In addition, 7.6
% of the sample population was composed of key respondents who were selected based on
their day to day interaction with the BGRS capacity building support programs, and other
criteria. The summarized results of table one, therefore, indicates that the inclusion of
different sample groups was more likely to make the probability of getting diversified and
pertinent data to come up with balanced results.
4.2.1 Respondents Year of Service
In this survey, it was found important that the years of service of the respondents to be
interpreted as well to ensure the richness and quality of the data. This is because the years of
experience of the respondents helped in identifying the challenges that have been faced in the
implementation of the capacity building policies/strategies in the aforementioned sectors.
Table 2: Respondents Year of Service
Years of Service Frequency Percent

<5 15 8.4
5-10 25 14.0
10-15 53 29.8
15-20 51 28.7
>20 34 19.1
Total 178 100.0
Source: Survey Data, 2017
From Table 2 above, 8.4% of the respondents have less than five years’ work experience, and
this balance with the fact that the other 19.1% of the respondents have more than 20 years of
experience in the aforementioned sectors. This validates the findings to a higher extent due to
the fact that those with less than five years of experience have just joined the organizations as
there is a high rate of labour turnover. As for those who have served for less than twenty
years, the majority of them is nevertheless senior experts and hence has vast knowledge of
the capacity problems that the sectors are experiencing, thereby enriching the results of the
study. Approximately, 14% of the respondents have served for five to 10 years, 29.8% have
10 to 15 and 28.7% 15 to 20 years of work experience. It can be deduced that the
respondents’ wide range of work experience enabled the researcher to obtain divergent
54
of BGRS
responses to the implementation of the capacity building strategies, thereby enriching the data
collected.
Based on the aforementioned explanation, the following deductions can be made. First, the
majority of the respondents came from the senior expert positions who are able to influence
the study findings as they are the actual implementers of the capacity building strategies in
the study organizations, thereby providing the reality on the ground. Second, the female
representatives are much less than males are in the majority. Third, the years of service and
thus experience are evenly spread with the majority of the respondents falling in the 10 to 20
years’ box (i.e., 10-15 years and 15-20 years of services; altogether accounts for 58.5%). The
respondents are sufficiently experienced to be able to complete the questionnaire and to
provide reliable data for analysis and evaluation. Lastly, the research shows that most
respondents are undergraduate and postgraduate levels, well qualified to act as respondents in
the survey. Data analysis and evaluation, dealing with the findings of the study, are discussed
in the succeeding sections.
4.3 THE FINDINGS OF THE SURVEY RESEARCH. THE ASSESSEMENT OF THE

IMPLEMENTATION OF CAPACITY BUILDING STRATEGIES
The discussion in this section starts with an explanation of the nature and place of capacity
building. Capacity building means different things to different people. It was therefore
important to know the perceptions of the respondents. They were asked to explain the
meaning and objectives of capacity building in their own words. Through an open-ended
question, most of the respondents describe capacity building as “providing training aimed at
development of employees or workers in a specific field to build the skill base considered
critical for the overall performance of an organization”. It is obvious in this viewpoint that
respondents looked at capacity building from the human resources perspective. This
supporting evidence shows the inclination of the strategic framework of Ethiopia’s capacity
building strategy, which focuses on three major policy pillars: human resources, institutional
development and systems and processes (MCB, 2001). These frameworks are largely people-
centered, multi-sectoral and multi-dimensional and focused on the abilities of the human
resources to perform identified functions and create a critical mass of skill, technical and
institutional capability needed for the economy to go beyond mere marginal change.
Nonetheless, few respondents expanded the meaning to include the working environment,
financial resources and materials that facilitate good performance of human resources in
organizations and help the organization meet customers’ or clients’ expectations. The
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of BGRS
respondents’ view towards the nature and place of capacity building agrees with the view of
UNDP (2005:3) and that of Conrad and Kamanga (2010), which also extended the area of
focus in capacity building to include systems within which the individuals work and interact.
Conrad and Kamanga continue to define capacity building in four domains; where human
resources, strategic alignment, management and administration are looked at as critical areas
that are mutually inclusive (pg. 18). This infers that strategizing capacity building implies an
in-depth analysis of these domains.
4.3.1 PROBLEMS OF THE IMPLEMENTATION OF CAPACITY BUILDIN

STRATEGIES (INPUT PHASE)
In this part, the researcher attempted to find out whether the implementation of the existing
capacity building strategy impacts negatively on the provision of education, agriculture,
health, water, road and HRD services in the BGRS. Responses are given in Figure 4.2 below.
100
Strongly Agree Agree 89
90 Neutral Disagree
80 Strongly Disagree
70
60
50
38
40
30 26
19 20 18 21
20 13
12 9 10 12
10 4 5 3 320 5 3 2 7 2 4 2 72 6 44 4
0 0 0 0
0
o n re th er ad ... t al
ati l tu al at Ro ce To
uc cu He W rv
i
Ed ri se
Ag ic
bl
Pu
Figure 4.2: RESPONSES ON THE IMPLEMENTATION OF CAPACITY BUILDING STRATEGIES
In response to the question on whether the implementation of the existing strategies has had
any negative impact on the provision of education, agriculture, health, water, road and HRD
services in the study regional state, majority of the respondents 89 (50.0%) and 38(21.35%)
of them are agreed and strongly agreed respectively with the assertion. They have added the
following common reasons for their answers in the open-ended questions:
a) Centralized control of resources and decisions in the implementation of the capacity

building strategies in BGRS aforementioned sectors is a major problem. There is a
56
of BGRS
tendency to focus on central or Federal needs without an appropriate view of needs at

decentralized levels within the regional state (It created dependency on the federal or
central government).
b) There are not enough financial resources to sustain the capacity building programmes,
hence leading to failure to meet the targets in terms of trained human resources.
c) There is still an increased demand for each of the aforementioned services while lack
of equipment (e.g., machineries, drugs, school facilities just to mention a few) are still
prevailing in the sectors of the regional state.
d) There is increasing dissatisfaction with the education, agriculture, health, water, road
and HRD services (in terms of access, quality and equity) being provided amongst the
citizens in the regional state.
On the other hand, 26(14.61%) and 4(2.24%) of the respondents disagreed and strongly
disagreed respectively with the assertion that effective and efficient education, agriculture,
health, water, road and HRD services provision are still possible with the implementation of
the existing capacity building strategies. But they noted that the qualities of the services being
provided are still undesirable to the citizens. Still, 21(11.8%) of the respondents were non-
committal (neutral). It is believed that they have little information on the capacity building
strategies of the aforementioned sectors being implemented. Therefore, it can be deduced that
the implementation of the existing capacity building strategy is, indeed, impacting negatively
on the provision of education, agriculture, health, water, road and HRD services in the study
regional state as there is greater dissatisfaction with the services being provided mainly due to
the centralized control of decisions on capacity building strategy implementation by the
central or federal government.
4.3.1.1 Quality of the provision of education, agriculture, health, water,

Road and Public Service and HRD services
The ultimate aim of capacity building is to be capable; that is to have the ability or quality to
render public services as effectively and efficiently as possible, under prevailing
circumstances. As a result, capacity building is directly linked to the utilization of available
resources (such as financial and skilled human resources) and other means such as policy,
strategy, structures, procedures and control measures and standards, required to render public
services. Hence, it was asked to senior experts whether lack of quality is prevailing in the
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of BGRS
provision of the aforementioned services in the study regional state. The next Figure 4.3
demonstrates the responses of the respondents.
Strongly Disagree Diagree Neutral Agree

Strongly Agree
100% 0 3 1 2 0 0 6
80% 9
60% 17 21 20 13 94
40%
10 14
20% 9 8 8 7 44
2
0%
re
n
er
th
ad
al
tio
HR
t
at
tu
al
Ro
To
ca
He
W
ul
e&
u
ic
Ed
ic
Ag
rv
se
ic
bl
Pu
Fi
gure 4.3: RESPONSES INDICATING WHETHER LACK OF QUALITY IS PREVAILING IN THE PROVISION OF SERVICES
Looking at Figure 4.3 above, it is clear that problems with the implementation of capacity
building strategy affect the quality of education, agriculture, health, water, road and HRD
services being provided in the BGRS. They are caused by irrelevant and often insufficient
implementation of the capacity building strategies. Hence, 24.72% of the respondents
strongly agreed and 52.81% of them agreed respectively that there is lack of quality which
affects the services being rendered to the communities in the aforementioned sectors in the
BGRS. They justified their responses in the open-ended questions as follows:
a) Shortage of skilled professional personnel in the most of the sectors affected the
quality of services.
b) Lack of working materials and equipment
c) Inadequate human and material resources compromise quality services to have been
provided.
As a result, they proposed a re-examination of the quality assurance in the recruitment and
motivation of education, agriculture, health, water, road and HRD professionals which
requires focusing on to improve the situation and bring about reasonable efficiency and
effectiveness in the delivery of each service in the study regional state. On the other hand,
10.67% of the respondents disagreed with the statement, whilst 3.71% of them strongly
disagreed with the statement and gave the following reasons for their answers in the open-
ended questions:
a) There was more to the provision of quality services than the implementation of
capacity building policies or strategies. For example, motivation of the health
58
of BGRS
professionals and political will to ensure that financial resources are adequate for
delivering the health services.
b) Implementation of capacity building strategies alone cannot guarantee the provision
of quality education, agriculture, health, water, road and HRD services.
It can thus be inferred from this finding that lack of quality service provision is the main
prevalent challenge in the education, agriculture, health, water, road and HRD services in the
BGRS due to shortage of skilled professional personnel, lack of working materials and
equipment.
4.3.1.2 Causes for Lack of quality services

Figure 4.4 below illustrates the responses from the senior experts of the aforementioned
sectors on the causes for lack of quality services and often insufficient implementation of the
capacity building strategies.
Strongly Disagree Disagree Neutral Agree

Strongly Agree
200
180 6
160 15
140
13
120
100
80
108
60
40
20 36
0
o n re th er ad D t al
ati l tu eal at Ro HR To
uc r i cu H W
e&
Ed Ag v ic
er
i cs
bl
Pu
Fig
ure 4.4: LACK OF QUALITY SERVICES IS CAUSED BY IRRELEVANT AND OFTEN INSUFFICIENT IMPLEMENTATION OF CB STRATEGIES
In response, 36(20.22%) of the respondents strongly agreed with the assertion that there is
lack of quality in the aforesaid services caused by irrelevant(not need-based) and often
insufficient implementation of the strategies, whereas 108(60.67%) of the respondents agreed
to the same and indicated the following justifications for their responses in the open-ended
questions: lack of monitoring and evaluation, poor staff recruitment process that also affects
the delivery of services to the citizens. In addition, the implementation of capacity building
strategies took place without sufficient consultations with relevant stakeholders, such as
woreda and rural area officers, and inadequate resources.
59
of BGRS
On the other hand, 15(8.42%) of the respondents disagreed, whereas 6(3.37%) of them
strongly disagreed respectively and gave the following reasons for their answers, namely,
lack of quality education, agriculture, health, water, road and HRD services results due to
various factors such as: lack of motivation due to poor reward/payment packages; lack of
political will to adequately fund the education, agriculture, health, water, road and HRD
sectors, and lacks of commitment – some professionals are not committed to offering their
services. Furthermore, 13 (7.3 %) of the respondents remain neutral, indicating that they did
not know anything about the implementation of capacity building strategies in the
aforementioned sectors/organizations.
In line with this same point, the researcher also reviewed different official government
reports that helped to corroborate or support the above analysis and found it similar. They
include low institutional capacities to produce qualified professionals through local training
institutions, lack of sustaining those in services and accessing technical assistance to fill in
the human resource gaps in the sectors. The reasons behind these limiting factors varied from
personal rewards, working environment to other related challenges that the public education,
agriculture, health, water, road and HRD sectors face. For example, poor infrastructure and
access to drugs for humans and equipment make it difficult for health workers to perform
their jobs properly, thus contributing to a low motivation of the health workforce (MoFPDA,
2010 and BG-BoFED, GTP1 report, 2015/16).
It can thus be concluded that in spite of the little progress or improvements in the above-
mentioned sectors, in past several years, the implementation of capacity building strategies
has led to lack of quality services due to poor planning, inadequate resources and poor
monitoring and evaluation of the strategies being implemented. This has compromised the
quality of each service being delivered. It has also led to a situation where the study regional
state is unable to meet the ever-increasing demand for each of the services.
4.3.1.3 Institutional experience in the implementation of capacity building

strategies for efficient and effective the provision of services
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of BGRS
Never Sometimes Regularly Continuously

120
97
100
80
60
38
40 21 25 23 25
13 13 15 8 18
20 4 24 5 43 4 55 5 55 006 0 3
0
Fi
gure 4.7: WHETHER THE INSTITUTIONS EXPERIENCES PROBLEMS IN IMPLEMENTING THE CAPACITY BUILDING STRATEGIES
The responses provided to the question in Figure 4.7 of the survey reflected that 10(10.11%)
of the respondents stated that they have never identified problems with the implementation of
the capacity building strategies in the education, agriculture, health, water, road and HRD
sectors of the study regional state. On the other hand, the majority 97(54.49%) of the
respondents noted problems with the implementation of capacity building strategies and
plans. In other instances (sometimes), 25(14.04%) of the respondents noted common
(regular) problems with the implementation of capacity building strategies and plans, whilst
38(21.35%) of them noted continued problems with the implementation of capacity building
strategies in the above-mentioned sectors of the BGRS. They gave the following reasons for
their responses in the open-ended questions:
a) Inadequate financial resources

b) Poor staffing levels.
c) Political interference (influences)
d) Corruption and
e) Demotivation and non-commitment of skilled human resources who could implement
the capacity building strategies.
As regards on financial resources, respondents noted that centralized financing mechanisms

done at national level are skewed towards the immediate needs at the local level, thereby
disregarding critical and pressing capacity needs identified in regional, zonal and woreda
community capacity building plans. In consequence, the challenges being faced have
increased at these levels. Secondly, political influence at the federal level is reported and even
minor traces are identified at a regional level. It was also reported that experts/implementers/
have undue influence on regional chief officials, on the identification of donors/supporters/ in
the implementation of the capacity building strategies and plans, in allocating of resources for
education, agriculture, health, water, and road facilities [E.g. Provision of inputs required for
education service delivery; and formulation of related policies on the implementation of
61
of BGRS
capacity building strategies]. These problems have resulted in inequitable access to capacity
building strategy and plans interventions and related impacts in the study regional state.
This being the case, respondents however suggested that decentralizing the formulation,
control mechanisms, monitoring and resourcing of capacity building strategies to local
communities could have been more helpful. The suggestion is made on the grounds that
implementation of capacity building strategies and service delivery are better made at local
levels effective with the exception of policy related capacity building at the federal level. In
addition, respondents suggested the strengthening of political systems at decentralized level
to guide and empower regional chief officials and administrators with systemic mechanisms
that will aid decision making on input-related factors in the implementation of capacity
building strategies.
It can thus be inferred that the vertical implementation of the existing capacity building
strategies is impacting negatively on the provision of the aforementioned services in the
BGRS, which is evidenced by a widespread lack of quality in the services that are delivered
to the citizens. Furthermore, even though the aforesaid sectors are rated (as fairly) relatively
efficient and effective, they faced an acute shortage of skilled human resources which made
even worse with the problems that are being experienced in the implementation of capacity
building policies/strategies. Such problems include the following: inadequate financial
resources, political interference, poor understanding of organizational objectives, poor
planning of the capacity building strategies and lack of monitoring and evaluation. It is also
worth mentioning that the current legislation is insufficient for carrying out capacity building
interventions for effective and efficient educational, agricultural, health, water, road and
HRD service delivery. This is due to the fact that supports given by the federal government
have limited the supply of meaningful inputs over local decision making made in regard to
capacity building strategies thereby leaving decision making to those whose interests are
bound by constituencies’ interests.
4.3.3. ASSESSMENT OF EXECUTIVE POLICY/LEGISLATION FOR CAPACITY

BUILDING (INPUT PHASE CONTINUED)
In order for the capacity building initiatives to be appreciated and comprehensively

implemented, there is a need for legislation to hold the chief officials, experts and politicians
accountable to this role. Currently, the legislature that is in place is not comprehensive
enough to support the capacity building activities that are implemented in the aforementioned
sectors/ organizations.
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of BGRS
4.3.3.1 Legislative Measures for Capacity Building Strategies and its

Implementation
In addition to the Constitution of the FDRE (1995), there is also an Act of Parliament, the
Proclamation NO. 471/2005 as amended, which provide assistance, for the support deserving
regions by the Ministry of Federal Affairs. Besides, The Public Service Act 29 of 2002 was
enacted to make provision for the human resource management of the BGRS public service
focuses on management and capacity building in the public service to which the
aforementioned organizations are get-togethers.
Besides, it was indicated that monitoring and evaluation of the progress of implementation of
the planned capacity building strategies so that appropriate changes are made to the capacity
building plans if they are not meeting the set objectives. Based on this, the researcher
attempted to know whether the existing capacity building legislation for education,
agriculture, health, water, road and HRD services in BGRS are followed up by the regional
council/standing committees. The responses are illustrated in Figure 4.9 below.
120
100
80
60
40
20
0
Figure 4.9: WHETHER THE CAPACITY BUILDING LEGISLATION IS FOLLOWED BY THE REGIONAL COUNCIL
From the above Figure 4.9, majority 114 (64.04%) of the respondents indicated that the
existing capacity building legislation for education, agriculture, health, water, road and HRD
services were sometimes followed up by the regional council/standing committees, whereas
22(12.36%) of them stated that the capacity building legislation for the aforementioned
services were never followed up by the regional council. Furthermore, 30(16.85%) of the
respondents indicated that the legislation is regularly followed up by council committees. On
the other hand, asked if the followed up is made by state’s council committees 12(6.74%) of
the respondents indicated that the existing capacity building legislation for each service are
always followed up by the regional council committees.
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of BGRS
It can therefore be concluded from the finding that whilst local chief officials are not playing
a meaningful role in following up, evaluating and advising the performance of the experts or
implementers on the capacity building strategies, the experts also do not comprehensively
examine carefully the legislation before presentations and enactment by regional council, and
implementation of capacity building policy in the study regional state. These findings
therefore suggest that capacity building legislation and strategies that have been implemented
do not undergo through requisite evaluation or follow up and may not be reflective of
expectations and interests of the public education, agriculture, health, water, road and HRD
sectors clients or beneficiaries in general. In other words, the absence of performance or
implementation evaluation of the strategies could not be possible to know whether it’s now
up to the satisfaction of services stakeholders on one hand, and the federal agency behind the
strategy on the other.
4.3.3.2 Institutional Financial Resource capacity to implement CB programme
Capacity building as a function involves management of the organizations’ resources

including financial, material and human resources. It also entails planning for the future
capacity of the organization by implementing strategies that would ensure that the sectors
have the right quantity and quality of capacities to enable it to render its services efficiently
and effectively. Thus, respondents were asked whether their institutions have sufficient
financial resources in order to implement the CB programmes. The following figure
illustrates the responses from the respondents.
160
140
120
100
80
60
40
20
0
re
...
on
ad
l
h
er
ta
alt
ice
at
tu
To
Ro
ati
He
W
ul
rv
uc
ric
se
Ed
Ag
ic
bl
Pu
Figur
e 4.10: WHETHER THE INSTITUTIONS HAS SUFFICIENT FINANCIAL RESOURCES
In the above Figure, a greater majority (82.58%) of the respondents indicated that financial
resources are insufficient to implement the set capacity building programmes in their
respective institutions and gave the following reasons for their answers in the open-ended
questions.
64
of BGRS
a) Budgetary allocation to their departments, sections and grassroots level is

inadequate to implement the capacity building strategies. Therefore, the capacity
building strategies and plans are simply developed, but not effectively
implemented due to financial constraints. This has led to inadequate skilled human
resources in education, agriculture, health, water, road and HRD facilities.
b) There is always increased demand for capacity building while financial resources
would never be enough.
On the other hand, 17.42% of the respondents reported that the financial resources are enough
for implementing the capacity building programmes. However, trends in the aforementioned
sectors show that over the past years, the sectors have been allocated more monetary
resources than originally planned. From the responses, it can be deduced that the financial
resources are not enough for implementing the capacity building activities which puts the
effectiveness of the program under question and the achievement capacity building goals to
be a far distant from plan and wishes put in the document.
4.3.3.3 Sufficient trained and skilled personnel to implement the capacity

building policy/strategies
160
140
120
100
80
60
40
20
0
re er .. l
on alt
h
at ad &. ta
cati ultu He W Ro ce To
u ric vi
Ed Ag se
r
il c
b
Pu
Figure 4.11 whether Institutions have sufficient trained and skilled personnel
In the above Figure, 79.78% of the respondents indicated that there are deficiencies in the
training of skilled personnel to implement the capacity building strategies. On the other hand,
20.22% of them indicated that the trained human resources are enough to implement the
capacity building programmes.
65
of BGRS
It can thus be deduced from the above analysis that although the sectors/organizations have
put in place mechanisms to ensure that there would be enough trained and skilled human
resources to carry out its capacity building activities, they are still not adequate, more
especially that those who are implementing the capacity building initiatives lack the requisite
skills.
4.3.3.4 Institutions’ Work procedures and methods to ensure effective service provision
The researcher attempted to point out whether the public institutions have sufficient work
procedures and methods in place to ensure effective service provision. The Figure below
illustrates the responses from the respondents.
No Yes
138
29 33 40
21 20 15 20
10 8 4 8 4 6
n
lth
ad
er
...
re
l
ta
tio
tu
at
Ro
i ce
To
a
He
a
ul
W
uc
rv
ric
se
Ed
Ag
ic
bl
Pu
Figure 4.12 whether Institution have sufficient work procedures and methods
From the above Figure, it can be seen that 138(77.53%) of the respondents indicated that the
institutions/organizations have supportive and well- defined work procedures and methods to
ensure effective service provision, whilst 40(22.47%) of the respondents indicated that they
did not have any. However, the stated sectors in BGRS are regulated through the BGRS
Public Service Proclamation (Act 29 of 2002) and programmatically through essential
packages which clearly stipulates work procedures and methods to ensure effective service
provision. It can therefore be deduced that the organizations/institutions have sufficient work
procedures and methods in place to ensure the effective implementation of capacity building
strategies. However, they haven’t used properly to implement the capacity building strategies.
4.3.3.5 Monitoring and Control measures and standards to ensure the

effective Implementation of capacity building strategies
To ensure effective capacity building implementation, it is required not only that each
implementers knows exactly what is expected, according to what standards the work
66
of BGRS
performance will be judged and what criteria will be applied, but that each supervisor should
also know what control measures and standards are to be applied and how to exercise control.
Control is exercised to ensure that the work is properly done and carried out in accordance
with the policy and procedures laid down (Stoner, 1982: 17). Control can only be exercised if
reliable control measures are in place, such as inspections, auditing, reporting and statistical
returns, and control standards, such as hospital, school, college etc., standards have been
determined and approved (Meiring, 2001:164). The measures used to exercise control have
two main characteristics or components, namely to check the work of subordinates and to
demand accountability for an irregularity or deviation from the existing policy or procedures
(Meiring, 2001: 165).
Capacity building activities are carried out to ensure that the organization has the right
quantity and quality of capacities to render services effectively and efficiently. It is thus
important that these activities be controlled so that they are implemented according to laid
down policy and procedures. In this regard, it can be deduced that controlling of capacity
building activities cannot be avoided as it helps in ensuring that the correct and required
standards are maintained and where possible corrective measures are put in place so that
resources are not wasted but are used in improving performance and service delivery.
No Yes
140 127
120
100
80
60 51
40 28 26 22
20 20
20 11 9 11 6 11 8 6
0
er ... l
on re lt h at ad ta
c ati ultu ea W Ro vi ce To
H
Ed
u ric se
r
Ag l ic
b
Pu
Fig
ure 4.13 whether Institutions have sufficient control measures and standards to ensure effective Services
In response to the above issue, 51(28.65%) of the respondents answered in the affirmative.
On the other hand, 127(71.35%) of the respondents stated that the departments and sections
that they are working in do not have sufficient control measures and standards in place to
complement organizational structures and ensure the effective implementation of capacity
building policy/strategies and delivery of quality in education, agriculture, health, water, road
and HRD services to the citizens. This is mostly due to poor planning of the capacity building
activities which results in compromising the set standards to be realized or achieved.
67
of BGRS
Based on the above analysis, it can be concluded that the policies/strategies for capacity
building are outdated (old-fashioned) and not sufficient to meet the current capacity needs in
the aforementioned sectors due to lack of institutional follow up and control system. Further
to this, financial and skilled human resources are inadequate to implement capacity building
strategies despite having in place well-defined work procedures and organizational structures
aimed at supporting the implementation of capacity building strategies. However, the control
measures and standards that are in place are not enough for the enforcement of effective
implementation of capacity building policies, plans and strategies and therefore require
strengthening.
4.3.4 ASSESSMENT OF CAPACITY BUILDING STRATEGIES FOR THE PROVISION OF

EDUCATION, AGRICLTURE, WATER, HEALTH, ROAD AND HRD SERVICES
(OUTPUT PHASE)
Any capacity building strategy implemented is supposed to enhance capacity in the

organizations and therefore improves the service delivery for which the program is targeted.
4.3.4.1 Community Satisfaction with the provision of services by the targeted

sectoral institutions
Figure 4.14 reflects the responses as provided by the respondents in the study.
Strongly Agree Agree Neutral Disagree Strongly Disagree
120
100
100
80
60
40 31 25
23 22 17 17
20 1212 9 15
2 2 3 5 3 4 2 5 35 2 8 30 0 8 20 0 3 24 0 7
0
n re er l
tio alt
h
at ad D ta
ltu Ro HR To
uca icu He W &
Ed r e
Ag vic
s er
b lic
Pu F
igure 4.14 COMMUNITY ASSESSMENTS ON THEIR SATISFACTION WITH THE PROVISION OF THE SERVICES
From Figure 4.14 above, the majority (56.18 %) of the respondents agreed, and 17.42% of the
respondents strongly agreed that the aforementioned services being provided by the
institutions/organizations in the study regional state do not fully satisfy the needs of the
communities. On the other hand, a minority of 3.93% of the respondents were strongly
disagreed, whilst 14.04 % of the respondents disagreed and indicated or justified their reasons
that the aforementioned services cannot be provided effectively without suitable and
sufficient human and financial resources. It can be deduced that education, agriculture,
68
of BGRS
health, water, road and HRD services being provided or supports given to the study regional
state do not wholly or exclusively satisfy the needs of the communities.
4.3.5 IMPACT OF CAPACITY BUILDING POLICY/STRATEGIES THROUGH PUBLIC

EDUCATION, AGRICLTURE, WATER, HEALTH, ROAD AND HRD SERVICES AND
THE CITIZENS (IMPACT PHASE)
The impact of implementing capacity building strategies is established by assessing or

evaluating the quality of education, agriculture, health, water, road and HRD services being
delivered to the citizens and the high level of satisfaction with the services in the study
regional state. Thus, it was important to assess the impact of the capacity building strategies
for the aforesaid services revealed in the survey.
4.3.5.1 Sectoral Institutions’ Conviction on the Impact of CB Strategy

In this regard, the researcher examined the opinion of the respondents of sectoral institutions’
of their belief that the CB strategy has brought about positive changes. The next Figure 4.15
illustrates the responses as provided by the sectoral institutions’ respondents.
120
100
80
60
40
20
0
re
ice ad
D
Ag tion
l
er
ta
alt
HR
at
tu
To
He
R
a
W
ul
&
uc
ric
Ed
rv
se
ic
bl
Pu
Fi
gure 4.15 Responses on Sectoral Institution Conviction on the Impact of CB Strategy
Figure 4.15 above shows that (12.36%) of the respondents indicated that beneficiaries in the
study areas have no (never) access to education, agriculture, health, water, road and HRD
services. On the other hand, the majority (63.48%) of the respondents indicated that
citizens/beneficiaries are sometimes accessing the aforementioned services in general,
whereas 13.48% of the respondents stated that the citizens are regularly accessing the quality
services they would want to access from the public, education, health, water and road
facilities in the study area. Moreover, 10.67% of the respondents indicated that citizens
69
of BGRS
(beneficiaries) always have access to the mentioned-above services in the study regional
state. In general, it can be said that 87.63% of the respondents confirmed that citizens
(beneficiaries) have access to the aforementioned services in the study regional state. The
reasons behind the reservations of the respondents (12.36%) in the study area included the
following:
a) Hospitals, schools, and health center distances are far from the communities
b) Shortage of qualified professionals (e.g. Medical doctors, specialists, Engineers)
c) Inadequate and not updated guiding implementation of capacity building strategies.
It can be deduced that the citizens (beneficiaries) generally have access to the education,
agriculture, health, water, road and HRD services in the study area, although the quality of
such services is sometimes affected by long distances to the hospitals, schools and shortage
of qualified professionals and adequate resources in the study area.
4.3.6 CAPACITY BUILDING STRATEGIES (INTERVENTIONS), EXIT-STRATEGIES

AND SELF-RELIANCE ATTITUDE
In this broad section, other than the questionnaire, the researcher made in-depth interviews
with chief officials and FGDs with the study regional state (equitable) equal development
directorates and advisors as well as elders (beneficiaries). The main objectives of the
interviews were to get answers for the research questions. Furthermore, note must be made
that the responses are combined together with the responses of open-ended questions and
FGDs.
4.3.6.1 Capacity building strategies (interventions)
According to the MoFPDA regional states’ equivalent development document (2010), the
following are the critical intervention areas that were designed to support the emerging
regional states, of which the BGRS is one. (1) Governance, decentralization and capacity
building; (2) Agriculture and rural development; (3) Water resource development; (4) Health
development; (5) Education development; (6) Revenue development; (7) Road development;
(8) Basic infrastructures development (e.g. telecommunications, power and electricity); (9)
Gender(cross-cutting issues); and (10) Environmental protection/sustainability developments.
Likewise, the response of both chief officials and advisors of the study regional state
corroborated with the above-mentioned ten critical intervention areas.
However, of the critical intervention areas, the themes for the researcher to assess the impacts
of support are education, health, water, road, agricultural and public service and HRD sectors.
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of BGRS
4.3.6.2 Themes: Trends, prospects and constraints of the CB interventions

A. Education Sector
The Ethiopian Education service was characterized by low educational quality, relevance,
efficiency, equity, and coverage. To curb these problems the Federal government of Ethiopia
introduced the national education and training policy in 1994. To implement the 1994
national education and training policy, the government also launched a twenty-year education
sector indicative plan. The main goal of the plan is to improve educational quality, equity,
and relevance emphasizing on primary education for all by 2015, i.e. goal 2 of MDGs,
universal primary education. To this end, successive five-year nationwide education sector
development programs (ESDPs) have been implemented. For instance, the ESDP I-IV was
designed to achieve the MDGs and to meet the objective of the National Development Plan
through supplying a qualified and trained workforce of the necessary quantity and quality to
meet the country’s human powers demand at all levels.
Nevertheless, Educational opportunities were extremely limited in the BGRS before the
establishment of the regional government in 1995 by the new constitution of Ethiopia. In
particular, the development efforts during the past regimes had greatly marginalized the
indigenous population of the regional state. According to the 1994 census, the illiteracy rate
was as high as 82.1%. Within the framework of the 1994 Education and Training Policy
(ETP) and the national ESDP, the BGRS has prepared its regional ESDP, as its indicative
plan. The main thrust of the regional ESDP is to improve educational quality, relevance,
efficiency, equity and expand access to education with special emphasis on primary
education, as well as the promotion of education for girls and indigenous nationalities. It aims
to achieve universal primary education by 2015.
With regard to educational status, the study regional state has 410 elementary schools (grade
1-8) during the year 2013/14 including 138 first cycle primary schools (grade 1-4) and 209
second cycle primary schools (grade 5-8). Out of the total 410 primary schools, 297 schools
(about 86%) and 50 schools (14%) are located in rural and urban areas of the Region,
respectively. The Regional Bureau of Education report reveals that there are 47 secondary
schools (grade 9-10) and sixteen preparatory schools (grade 11-12) in the Region. There are
also one Teachers Training College and three Technical & Vocational Education and
71
of BGRS
Training (TVET) College in Benishangul-Gumuz Regional state (BoE, 2013/14). These are
gains after the change of government since mid-1995.
However, interviews and FGDs made by the researcher (the Survey) identified various
constraints, problems and challenges in the education sector in study regional state. Among
others, the major ones include, but are not limited to, the following:
a) Financial constraints compounded by poor absorption/utilization capacity at different

levels.
b) Poor access to and equity in education, such as prevalence of wider gender gap for
girls, indigenous people and children with special needs.
c) Low enrollment and high dropout rate of children of indigenous people, especially in
secondary schools.
d) Prevalence of high level of education wastage, including high dropout rate and high
repetition rate.
Furthermore, According to the gap(need) assessment made by MoFPDA and BG-BoFED

(2010), in all of the 20 Woredas of BGRS, there have been identified various constraints, and
challenges in education sector which are grouped into five major categories including poor
human resource management and poor governance at various levels; poor school and
educational performance in terms of enrollment and quality; shortage/lack of educational
materials, equipment and supplies; shortage/lack of educational facilities and poor rural
infrastructural development and budget and logistical constraints.
Consequently, the study regional state could perform just below the national average on key
access to education indicators at primary level and above the national average at secondary
level (National Statistical Abstracts, MoE, 2008/09). However, access to education is not
good for everyone living in the state; 11% fewer girls of school going age enroll in
Benishangul-Gumuz than nationally and, while indigenous ethnic groups in regional state
constitute about 57.5% of the total population in the Region, Hence, the share of enrollment
of indigenous children in primary schools (grade 1-8) and secondary schools (grade 9-12) is
only 52.3% and 30.1%, respectively. The regional state does not perform well on key
indicators of quality at primary level; there is 32% less classroom space for students, 30 more
students for every teacher and 31% fewer qualified teachers.
Likewise, as to “Education for All 2015 National Review Report: Ethiopia”,
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of BGRS
The emerging regions of Ethiopia lag behind other regions in terms of access to education
and school enrollment. Accordingly, a Special Support Program has been developed with
the aim of (a) increasing educational access, especially of indigenous children, to primary
education; (b) reducing the gap access and quality between the emerging regions and other
regions; and (c) strengthening capacity of educational managers (EFA, 2015). For
example, as can be seen from the table below, although improvements have taken place,
the pre‐primary education participation for both sexes still appears to be relatively low in
the study regional state.
The rate of participation in 2013/14 was still found to be the least in BGRS (next to Ethiopian
Somali regional state followed by Afar regional state.
Region GER in 2001/02 GER in 2013/14

Benishangul-Gumuz M F Total # of KGs M F Total #of KGs
1.8 9 30.40 84.60 45.26 75
Therefore, it can be deduced that even though the regional state has achieved considerable
progress towards the education sector, it has not led it to the intended outcome in terms of
access to and equity as well.
B. Health Sector
The BG-BoFED performance report (2011) revealed that, until 2007, health service coverage
of the regional state was 41% and since then efforts have been made to improve the health
situation in the same. Thus, health service coverage was improved successively: 50.4% in
2000, 52% in 2001, 52.4% in 2002 and 62% in 2011 compared to the national average
(BGRS-GCA, 2012). Major problems of the sector are lack of trained health personnel,
uneven distribution of health infrastructure (e.g. health centers, hospitals, etc.), increasing
diseases spread, traditional beliefs and low level of education (BoFED, 2011).
Besides, the report has identified many constraints, problems and challenges of the coverage
health sector in the study regional state, among others, the major ones are summarized below:
a) Shortage/Lack of Health and related Services and Facilities
(i) Obsolete health facilities such as an old hospital in Assosa (capital city of BGRS) was
built many decades ago (during the Italian invasion of Ethiopia) which need
maintenance;
(ii) Lack of water facilities and services at some of the existing health centers; and
(iii) Shortage/lack of drug supply in the regional state. Recently, the Ethiopian
Pharmaceutical Enterprise has constructed its branch and started working in the
regional state in 2016/17.
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b) Shortage/lack of Financial Resources and Logistics
(i) The Health Sector at different levels was constrained by shortage of financial
resources to implement various health related interventions ( i.e. the annual budget
allocation is low);
(ii) Shortage of capital budget for the construction of health post in all Woredas of the
state;
(iii) Not taking the scattered settlements and vast area coverage in to account, (the
villegization programme would have been solved the problem) which affected the
effectiveness of health service interventions such as vaccination, etc.; and
(iv) Most donors engage in the provision of training with little or no attention for the
building and provision of health facilities in the study state.
c) Human Resource and Managerial Constraints
(i) Poor/lack of commitment of health workers and Woreda/Zonal and Regional

Authorities;
(ii) Shortage of trained health professional working at health facilities;
(iii) Sometimes, it was difficult to recruit and hire health workers due to
lack/shortage of budget in all woredas of the state;
(iv) Poor capacity of the executives of local/Woreda Offices; and Frequent staff turnover.
Various documents also revealed that currently, the volume and distribution of health
workers is not proportional to community needs. According to the recent MoH figures, the
physician to population ratio is much lower than the WHO minimum standard where one
physician is for 10,000 people. In addition, there is poor human resource management,
deployment and retention; poor quality of training due to frequent changes in the method of
training; lack of standard to assess the competency of trainees; and irregularities of
continuing education and on the job training. The HRH policy and implementation strategy
are not also clearly articulated. There are no clear guidelines such as strategic interventions,
cost, financing mechanisms, management and coordination, and monitoring and evaluation to
help to make the policy become operational (MoFA & BG-BoFED, 2010).
C. Water Sector
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of BGRS
Access to Safe Water: The BGRS has potentially rich surface and sub-surface water
resources. However, little was done to utilize these resources. In 2004 it was only 19% of the
population that gets potable water, while it was about 29.11% and 34.21% in 2012 and 2013
respectively. Irrigation is not well developed in the regional state despite high availability of
potentially irrigable land and rivers. Major problems of the sector are absence of feasibility
studies on the utilization of surface and sub-surface water resources, lack of trained
manpower, shortage of budget and necessary equipment and absence of water sector
development program.
It was noted that despite having ample potential irrigable lands (about 205,674 hectares of
land) in BGRS, only 298 hectares of land (0.14% of the total potential) is currently under
irrigation. In terms of access to potable water, the state was below the national average in
urban (84.7%) and rural areas (51.5%). The BGRS also performed poorly in terms of access
to excreta disposal (BG-BoFED, GTP1 report, 2015). Moreover, the survey revealed that
large percent of the total water supply schemes found in the regional state were non-
functional and needed maintenance. The major constraints, problems and challenges in water
and sanitation sector of the sector were mainly related to lack of capacity (budget, materials,
trained human resources and logistics); poor organizational set up of the Water sector; poor
rural infrastructure; and low level of awareness and capacity of local communities.
In addition, it was also evident that the Regional Bureau of Water, Mines and Energy
Resource Development identified various constraints and challenges in the water sector.
Among others, the major ones include constraints related to skilled human resource
management and development; low level of attention by the Regional government for water
sector including allocation of low budget; poor organizational structure especially at Zonal
and Woreda levels; poor rural infrastructure (such as roads); lack of proper assessment, study
and survey in water supply related activities; and the need for relatively higher cost of water
supply scheme construction due to various reasons including poor infrastructure and
remoteness (BoWMERD, 2010).
D. Agricultural Sector
The people in the BGRS derive their livelihood from agriculture (cultivation of crops and
rearing of livestock), hunting and gathering wild foods. Agriculture accounts for about 93.2%
of the people’s livelihood. The Benishangul Gumuz regional state data from the bureau of
agriculture reveals that an overwhelming majority (63%-71%) of the total cultivatable land in
the state are covered by cereals (sorghum, maize, finger millet, teff, barley, wheat, rice and
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oats) during the year 2011/12. Cultivated land under oil crops (sesame, groundnuts, neug,
linseeds and rapeseeds) constituted about 23%-28% of the total land during the same year.
In terms of crop types cultivated in the region the major crops grown in the Region consists
of sorghum, maize, sesame, finger millet, teff, neug, groundnut and haricot beans, in their
order of importance. These crops accounted about 93%-95% of the total crops grown in
BGRS (BoARD, 2012). Besides this agricultural production, the livelihood of the population
of the region, mainly indigenous, depends on petty trade, traditional cold mining which serve
as livelihood of majority of the indigenous people of the regional state.
Though the regional state is blessed with various potentials and opportunities mentioned
above, it has remained one of the least developed regions in the country and it is food
insecure. There are many factors contributing to this. To begin with, the region was
marginalized and was not given due attention by past successive governments. Consequently,
the socio-economic conditions are very poor. Crop production and productivity is very
limited due to use of rudimentary labor-intensive farm tools, prevalence of crop diseases,
pests and weeds, declining soil fertility, inadequate use of improved inputs, erratic rainfall,
human diseases such as malaria, poor rural infrastructure facilities like market and road,
absence of credit services and poor working culture of the indigenous communities largely
due to use of labor-intensive farm tools and low awareness (BG-FSS, 2005). Despite the
availability of huge unexploited agricultural land potential in the region, there is a problem of
arable land particularly among the resettlers. Both the size and quality of land that they are
currently using is low.
E. Road Sectors
Road is one of the critical constraints to development in the region. The potential for
development is hampered by the poor infrastructure. The region has very few roads and most
of them are inaccessible during the rainy season. According to interview with a representative
from the Rural Road Authority, out of the 20 Woredas only one – Belojegonfoy - has all
weather roads. The road density at national level is estimated to be 32 km per 100km2 while
the road density of BG is 15.6 per 100km2. The region is bisected by the Abay (Nile) river,
over which there is no bridge (although it is currently under construction) linking Assosa, the
regional capital, with Metekel zone. In addition to lack of financial resources, lack of enough
contractors, low capacity of the rural roads authority (both human and material) low
participation of the community has been identified as the main problems of the sector.
Improving the road infrastructure of the region and the capacity of the regional sector
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of BGRS
responsible for road construction could make significant contribution to social and economic
development of the region.
The Road network is also not well developed and the majority of the existing roads are not in
a position to function in wet seasons. Due to this problem the movement throughout the
region is restricted and the development effort is hampered. Until the year 2000, there were a
total of 1784 km of roads in the region out of which 546 km were RR50 and 1238 km were
RR10 standard roads. The regional government allocates about 50% of the capital budget for
road construction each year.
Furthermore, the Regional Roads Authority indicated that among others the major
constraints, problems and challenges which affected road sector development in the study
regional state include (i) high price and inflation of construction materials; (ii) shortage of
budget allocated to the sector; (iii) shortage and obsolete working materials and tools; and
(iv) difficulty of the topography of the areas for construction interns of geology,
Hydrogeology and geomorphology.
In general, as to the MoFA and BG-BoFED (2010) report, the assessment and analysis on
eight thematic areas (the economy, poverty & food security, education, health, governance,
decentralization & capacity building, water, infrastructure and conflict) revealed the presence
of critical gaps in many of the identified indicators in BGRS as compared to its neighboring
Region (Amhara Region), the National Target set in the PASDEP and/or MGD, the National
Average, and Best Performing Regions in the country on selected indicators.
Though there have been some progresses in the provision of social services such as
education, water, agricultural, health, road and public service & HRD services, during the
past couple of years, as demonstrated above, the expected ‘special assistance’ or support
given by the federal government aggregately could not lead to the intended outcome or
impacts in leading the study regional state to be on a dependable and self-reliant stage.
4.3.6.3 Capacity building leading to Self-reliance

Under this topic, the researcher aimed to point out whether the study regional state managers
and experts as well as beneficiaries alike have developed a self-reliant attitude through the
capacity building support given or interventions by the federal government so far. The
present review of the literature on understanding of ‘Self-reliance’ may indicate a move
towards self-sufficiency and even entertain principles of sustainability, but earlier writers saw
the concept differently. An early explication from Tostensen in 1982 suggested that self-
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of BGRS
reliance was a reduction of a nation’s vulnerability towards others. In 1985 Hultin reported
that Skill-development encouraged self-reliance in eastern and southern Africa and noted
Tanzania’s 1967 policy of self-reliance (Jamieson, Martin, 2016 cited from Hultin 1985, p.8).
As a descriptor of development, ‘self-reliance’ took a back seat as ‘sustainable development’

sought to protect the future, repair the present, and end poverty after ‘meeting the needs of
all’ (Tostensen, 1982, pg.16). It was not long after this robust entrance into the ‘development
debate’ that sustainability became the buzz-word for NGO interventions despite the term’s
ambiguous interpretation.
To judge whether the study regional state has developed a self-reliant attitude, one can
conclude from the previous expositions of this paper. However, the researcher made further
investigation through interviews with the study regional state chief officials and FGD with
elders/beneficiaries. In addition to results of the previous parts, the two most cited areas, or
concerns, were: Agricultural Activities and Change of Mindset (attitudes) of communities of
the study regional state. Besides, a review of recent literature pertaining to self-reliance, and
the findings from the analysis of the interviews and FGD, are used together to present the
main findings of this limited study.
A. Agricultural Activities
The interest in Agricultural Activities shown by respondents in this study was an indication
of the potential the study area has in encouraging the implementation of self-reliance in the
BGRS communities. The study regional state has been depending on agriculture to ensure
their livelihood (living standard mainly depends on agriculture). Agricultural concerns
featured in members of the FGD. As to the respondent, the agricultural practice has a great
impact on the capacity of communities (societies of the study area) self-reliance. For
instance, one respondent said: “if farming activities are done seriously with the aim of
making it as a consistent or reliable thing, it can help to implement self-reliance amongst
families, communities”.
Concerning these principles, other respondents made similar arguments, but emphasized how
self-reliance could be encouraged amongst the community members. All the members of the
FGD (seven respondents) appeared to agree that “changes in mindset/attitude can help to
realize self-reliance”. They also noted that corruption and similar problems are challenges to
self-reliance. These issues are dealt with in the following sections.
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of BGRS
One assessment of the problem was that for a long time, people have been thinking how the
regional state could be self-reliant but the techniques which have been chosen are not put into
practice or are not followed up or fully supported. The type of farming that can help make the
regional state self-reliant should be both irrigation and seasonal farming. Another respondent
suggested that: “… if there is greater use of new technology in farming, it can boost the
harvest of the main crops in our regional state, and if this happens to agriculture it can help to
makes to make the community self-reliant and the development to be sustainable.
B. Changing the Mindset (Attitudes)

Almost as dominant a topic of discussion was the view that in order to implement change of
any kind, there should have to be shift in attitudes. Again, this was the dominant theme in the
interviews and FGD made. It was thought important to identify what prevents, as well as
what helps to ensure self-reliance.
One is the mentality of self-reliance itself. One example demonstrates this: Early in the Derge
regime, there were many self-help programmes in the communities. It was a programme set
by set by the government whereby all youths in the country, including the elders, had to do
development work which includes the cleaning of roads, planting of trees and much more in
and around urban centers. Even though the programme was set by the government it was
useful because it encouraged self-reliance amongst the community members. The
Respondents provided the following views: “As somebody once said: ‘self-reliance should
start from the villages.’ This was a good saying but contrary to what is happening these days.
People still want to be paid to clear roads that lead to their houses”. Another respondent
added: “Some say that the Government or NGOs should come and pay people so that they
should clear the surroundings of their own houses. This is why we say self-reliance needs a
change of mindset/attitude”. A more wise comment shows the inconsistency of the earlier
view: “If people think that NGOs or government should come and do everything on their
behalf, it may be difficult to see the importance of self-reliance.”
Respondents’ general thinking was that people should change their way of thinking regarding
the role of government. Instead of waiting until everything is done for them, they should
require the government to empower communities to step-up to the challenge. Discussion with
respondents further revealed additional community’s attitudes towards the role of
government:
The government officials should also arrange their programmes … with the aim of
empowering the community members… and not encourage a tendency towards
dependency. In all development programs/projects, the stakeholders should have the
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feeling of ownership. Lacks of ownership destroy many development activities. When

the people who are funding the project pull out, community involvement worsens. When a
community does not build a sense of ownership, they just watch like outsiders rather than
participating in their own causes. As a result, they don’t gain sufficient knowledge of
how to run their development work and it may collapse when funding is reduced or totally
stops. (Emphasis added).
Governmental failure to ‘empower’ communities, and lack of sufficient knowledge and low
sense of ownership were seen as limiting factors for self-reliance. Responsibility for
redressing these factors was not however owned by respondents, but waiting for an outsider
(e.g. Government and NGOs). Again, deflecting blame, respondents pointed out that NGOs
(foreign donors), who were not familiar with cultural values and norms, did not realize that
their local management team may not perform as expected. One respondent strongly
emphasized that: “donors do not consult the community widely enough” and so “fail to notice
when the programme plans are being weakened by personal interests.”
This implies that respondents felt that the interests of many had become marginalized. It was
also said that some chief officials/leaders acted ‘with the mask on their face’ despite being
highly trusted. Furthermore, Respondents suggested that donors and stakeholders both need
to adjust their working approach and it would be advantageous for both to assist the process
of development and ensure long-term progress. Hopefully, respondents claimed that: “If both
work faithfully on this principle, self-reliance can be achieved”. It is not difficult to see that
concerns over how self-reliance might be implanted, which can an impact in the study
regional state. Even though it is very good and important to help the needy, it is very sad to
see that some people take this as a permanent help, i.e. they stop working so hard and allow
‘well-wishers’ or supporters’ will come in and provide them with food, and other materials,
thereby undermining any aim to create self-sufficiency. Becoming self-reliant becomes
unimportant to them. Thus, it can be deduced that public managers/chief officials, experts and
beneficiaries’ are targeted as having lack of understanding regarding the principles of self-
reliance (simplicity, responsibility, respect, commitment and creativity). Consequently, the
goal of achieving self-reliance via the on-going CB strategies in the study regional state
doesn’t seem to have been realized.
4.3.6.4 Capacity building exit-strategies

Currently, most of the understanding of exit-strategies is related to relief programming rather
than development (e.g. C-SAFE 2005; Rogers and Macias 2004). Within a development
context, the issue of exit strategies is showing a slow, but increasing, level of awareness.
Often, exit-strategies are intertwined with sustainability – a theme to which exit-strategies are
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closely related. However, these themes are contextually different. For example, it is possible

to have communities that are sustainable – yet still remain largely dependent on external
support. Hence, the emphasis of the exit strategy is to ensure, as much as possible, that
communities will not be dependent on development agencies – rather they will flourish as
self-reliant, independent communities (Murray Boardman, 2006).
The most fascinating issue in this research is about “exit-strategy”. Thus, under this topic, the
researcher aimed to examine whether the study regional state is on the path of sustainable
exit-strategy or not. Hence, asking the chief officials and advisors (Via interviews and FGDs)
on what capacity building exit-strategies were put in place to catch up with other regional
states (relatively developed states) in the country?
Majority of the respondents gave their response that it is not an easy job. In other words, the
task of exit-strategy is not an overnight progress. For instance, the respondents explained the
issue as follows:
… to exit from a given program, there should be things to be taken into account, such as
the determination of societies’ sense of ownership of the program, how much strong
enough the leaders/managers commitment, attitudes, knowledge and skills required and
the capacity of institutional and skilled human resource found in the regional state and so
on. There is no uniformity or continuity of the achievements in the whole areas of
interventions in all the 20 woredas of the state. Hence, by now, it is difficult to say
stop/exit the special assistance or supports, where the front-line institutions as well the
human and infrastructural requisites are not on an expected stage.
This response corroborates with research done by (Rogers and Macias on “Program
Graduation and Exit Strategies: A Focus on Title II Food Aid Development Programs, 2004”)
which pointed out that in developing (phase over) the exit-strategies, there are several
questions that must be answered:
i. How strong is the community’s commitment to continue program activities?

ii. To what extent does the community value program activities? What is the level of
demand for the “phased-over” services?
iii. Do community members, groups and service providers have the knowledge and skills
needed to implement the program activities?
iv. Do the local organizations implementing the phased over activities have sufficient
institutional and human resource capacity?
v. Are the organizations responsible for implementing phased over programs resilient to
shocks and changes in the political and social environment?
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vi. Is there a viable plan to generate the consumable supplies (such as the food or
agricultural inputs) that are required to implement activities? (Rogers and Macias
2004, pg.9)
Furthermore, some respondents said that there is an exit-strategy as to when the study
regional state can catch up with the other relatively developed regional states in the country
and indicated that the time frame in the intervention areas planned and to be reached.
Moreover, MoFPDA’s equivalent development document (2008) revealed that the critical
intervention areas set for the emerging states was planned to be implemented in six years and
will bridge the regional disparities for major social and economic developments. In other
words, the special assistance/supports by the critical intervention areas for the emerging
regional states will be accomplished/exit in the year 2015/16. Nevertheless, to date, the
interventions made could not ensure a reliable exit out don’t the strategy seem to be
continuing. In line with this, in the literature reviews, proponents of exit-strategies (IFAD,
2009; Gardener et al., 2005; Rogers and Macias, 2004b) note that the goal of an exit-strategy
is not only to maintain the benefits achieved, but also to enable further progress toward the
programme/projects development goals. Ideally, an exit-strategy puts in place systems
whereby the benefits expand beyond the original beneficiaries and their communities (Rogers
and Macias, 2004b). Hence, it is strongly argued that having an exit-strategy provides clarity
and focuses on programming work, enables better planning of available human and financial
resources and gets people to think about the end at the beginning of the programme (Davis
and Sankar, 2006). Moreover, the scholars pointed out that in order to qualify for an exit-
strategy, it must contain (a) criteria for exiting; (b) measurable benchmarks of progress in
meeting the criteria; (c) a time line for the exit process; (d) action steps and responsible
parties; and (e) mechanisms to assess progress (Davis and Sankar, 2006, Rogers and Marcia,
2004b).
One respondent added: “ድጋፍ ሲሰጥ ጊዜ ገደብ ሊኖረው ይገባል፤ ይሁን እንጂ በዚህ ላይ ውስንነት አለ። ሁል
ጊዜ ድጋፍ እየተደረገ አይቀጥልም ሆኖም በአጭር ጊዜ ውስጥ ወደሚፈለገው ማለትም ኤግዚት (exit) ማድረግ
ወደሚቻልበት ደረጃ ማምጣት ይቻላል” The direct translation of the statement is that there should be
a time frame for support of the programmes. However, there are gaps in doing so. Besides, it
is possible to come to the exit stage within a short period of time. Further to this, it was also
wisely said by one of the respondent that “ልጅህን ትደግፋለህ እስከተወሰነ ጊዜ ድረስ ከዚያ ታቆማለህ ራሱን
ወደመቻሉ ሲመጣ። ይሁን እንጂ ወደ ክልላችን ስንመጣ ካለው ነባራዊ ሁኔታ አንጻር መች ነው ከእገዛው ተላቀን
ራሳችንን ችለን የምንጓዘው የሚለውን ለማወቅ አስቸጋሪ ነው። የሆነው ሆኖ ግን አንድ ቀን ከ ሁልጊዜ እገዛው (ከድጋፍ)
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ተላቀን ራሳችንን ችለን የምንሄድበት ጊዜ ይመጣል(ቅርብ ነው)”። In short, the above proverb simply
informs support cannot be indefinite, it has to be definite and planned.
However, according to Rogers and Macias (2004) “Graduation and Exit-Strategies” there are

three types of program exit:
Phase down, phase over and phase out. Phase down simply refers to the gradual reduction
in program inputs prior to phase out or phase over. Phase over refers to the transfer of
responsibility for program-related activities to organizations or, sometimes, to individuals
that will remain in the project area. Phase out refers to the withdrawal of program
resources without transferring responsibilities to other institutions or groups (emphasis
added) (pg. 4).
Consequently, among the three approaches of exit-strategies, where does the study regional
state stand is the central question of this study. In line with this, whether to use the phasing
over or the phasing out approach depends largely on the nature of the program activities.
Interventions that require continued activity and an entity to take responsibility for oversight
of the activity suggest a phase over approach, whereas interventions that create permanent
changes in communities and do not require the ongoing provision of services or resources are
suitable for phase out. Other factors also affect the decision whether to take a phase over or
phase out approach: the time frame for exit, available funding and available human,
institutional, financial and physical resources in the area from which the program is
departing. Ideally, the time frame for the program should be planned in such a way that it
allows for a feasible exit plan. Program implementers should also take responsibility for
working with communities to ensure that appropriate resources are available for the ongoing
activities. That is, choosing phase out rather than phase over simply because there is no time
left for appropriate capacity building, or because resources have not been identified for the
implementation of appropriate activities; it is less than ideal, to say the least, and is very
likely to be unsuccessful. But this can be avoided by appropriate exit strategy planning early
in the development of a program (Subiyantoro A., M.Si, 2013).
Furthermore, in theory, ending donor support can take the form of phase down, phase out
and/or phase over (Levinger and Mcleod, 2002). Phasing out is opted when the programme or
project outcomes are already firmly established and, therefore, there is no need for making
any arrangements for another organization and time to continue the implementation of project
interventions. Phasing-down is opted as a predecessor to phasing out or phasing over. It
involves gradual reduction of aid and programme activities. Phasing-over is opted when
project goals, responsibilities, and activities are to be transferred to a new or existing local
organizations or communities (Gardner et al., 2005). While this distinction is important in
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theory, in practice, however, the three forms of exit strategies are used often used
interchangeably or are used simultaneously (Gardner et al., 2005; Oswald and Ruedin, 2012).
However, having the results or outputs of the aforementioned institutions of the BGRS, it is
difficult to put in one of the three exit-strategy approaches for the study regional state. This is
due to the fact that in this study, the respondents indicated inconsistent results —different
organizations have different performances that are positive and negative outcomes through
the capacity building interventions in the BGRS. As a result, a clear and conclusive idea
could not be found easy for the study regional state as far as true exit-strategy is concerned.
Above and beyond, the big deal is that whether the capacity building programme was ready
to exit or not in the study regional state. Obviously, it’s stress-free to judge that the study
regional state is not yet ready to exit from the capacity building support. The reasons are due
to the fact that: the respondents indicated that though there are some progress or
improvements made, till there is a need in support and on the other hand it was concluded
that the study regional states managers, experts as well as beneficiaries were targeted as
having a lack of understanding concerning the principles of self-reliance (simplicity,
responsibility, respect, commitment and creativity). Therefore, it can be concluded that the
capacity building strategy set for the emerging regional states in general and to the study
regional state in particular did or could not help them to exit at this point in time. In other
words, the study regional state still needs further support to catch up with other relatively
developed regional states in the country.
4.4 Summary
This chapter presents the analysis, interpretation (results and discussions) of all of the
research questions of the study. Hence, in relation with the first question, it was investigated
ten critical intervention areas of capacity building strategies designed for the emerging
regional states of Ethiopia in general and for the study regional state in particular. Further to
this, the trends, prospects and constraints of the CB activities were also assessed. In relation
to the second research question, it was also examined whether CB exit-strategies were put in
place to catch up with other regional states in the country. With regard to the third research
question of the study, it was also assessed whether the CB strategies implemented in the
study regional state has developed a self-reliant attitude in public managers and
experts/implementers alike.
As a result, it has been found that in spite of some progress or improvements in the education,
agriculture, health, water, road and HRD service sectors, the implementation of the existing
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capacity building strategy impacts negatively (affects or not as intended) on the provision of
those aforesaid services in the study regional state. Moreover, the chapter discussed some
possible ways that were recommended by the respondents of this study. Thus, on the basis of
the findings and discussion the next chapter will present the conclusion and recommendation
of this study.
CHAPTER FIVE: FINDINGS, CONCLUSION AND RECOMMENDATIONS
5.1 Introduction
The purpose of this chapter is to consolidate and conclude the findings of the study. The
study dealt with the impact of capacity building support for emerging regions in Ethiopia
with particular reference to the Benishangul-Gumuz Regional State (BGRS). In order attain
the basic objectives of this study, quantitative as well as qualitative data were collected from
a total of 230 respondents using questionnaire, interview, and FGD methods of data
collection. Moreover, document review was undertaken so as to gather pertinent data from
secondary sources. Data analysis techniques such as descriptive statistics, percentage and
graphs were also used to analyze the data and answer the research questions properly. The
chapter summarizes the main findings of the study, provides conclusion and state some
recommendations. Hence, given that the previous chapter had detail study, results and
discussions, this chapter provides the major findings, conclusion and recommendations as
follows.
5.2 Major Findings of the Study
With regard to the first research question, the researcher reviewed and assessed numerous
official documents and found that the following were critical capacity building intervention
areas designed to support the emerging regional states of Ethiopia, of which the BGRS is one.
(a) governance, decentralization and capacity building; (b) agriculture and rural development;
(c) water resource development; (d) health development; (e) education development; (f)
revenue development; (g) road development; (h) basic infrastructures development (e.g.
telecommunications, power and electricity); (i) gender (cross-cutting issues); and (j)
environmental protection/sustainability developments. Likewise, the response of both chief
officials and advisors of the study regional state (via interviews and FGD) corroborated with
the above-mentioned ten critical intervention areas.
However, the trends, prospects and constraints of the CB interventions in the aforementioned
areas of the study regional state were assessed and the study found that:
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1. Capacity building is looked at narrowly from the human resource perspective and
mostly includes provision of training to human resources in order to acquire
knowledge and the requisite skills. However, capacity building is more than training.
It was revealed that capacity building should also include the working environment,
financial resources and materials that facilitate good performance of human resources
in organizations and help the organization meet customers or clients’ expectations.
2. The implementation of the existing capacity building strategies is impacting
negatively—affecting or is not as intended on the provision of education, agriculture,
health, water, road and HRD services in the study regional state for the following
reasons:
i. Centralized control of resources and decisions in the implementation of the capacity
building strategies in BGRS of aforementioned sectors is a major problem. There is a
tendency to focus on central or Federal needs without an appropriate view of needs at
decentralized levels within the regional state. It unintentionally created dependency on
the federal or central government.
ii. There are not enough financial resources to sustain the capacity building programmes,
hence leading to failure to meet the targets in terms of trained human resources.
iii. There is increasing dissatisfaction with the education, agriculture, health, water, road
and HRD services (in terms of access, quality and equity) being provided amongst the
citizens in the regional state.
iv. There is still an increased demand for each of the aforementioned services while lack of
equipment (e.g., machineries, drugs, school facilities etc.) is still prevailing in the
sectors of the regional state.
v. The study revealed that the human resources who implement the capacity building
strategies are not motivated due to poor working conditions such as lack of motivation
due to poor reward/payment packages; lack of political will to adequately fund the
education, agriculture, health, water, road and HRD sectors, and lacks of commitment –
some professionals are not committed to offering their services.
3. The study also found that a lack of quality is prevailing in the provision of education,
agriculture, health, water, road and HRD services in the BGRS due to: Shortage of
skilled professional personnel in the most of the sectors affected the quality of
services; Lack of working materials and equipment; Inadequate human and material
resources compromise quality services to have been provided.
4. It was further revealed by the study that irrelevant and insufficient implementation of
capacity building strategies is causing the delivery of poor quality education,
agriculture, health, water, road and HRD services for the following reasons: lack of
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monitoring and evaluation, poor staff recruitment process that also affects the delivery
of services to the citizens. In addition, the implementation of capacity building
strategies took place without sufficient consultations with relevant stakeholders, such
as woreda and rural area officers, and inadequate resources. Moreover, the capacity
building strategies are usually implemented without proper planning in terms of
resources.
5. The study found that there are continued problems with the implementation of
capacity building strategies in the stated sectors of the BGRS and gave the following
reasons for their answer: Inadequate financial resources; poor staffing levels; political
interference (influences); corruption and demotivation and non-commitment of skilled
human resources who could implement the capacity building strategies.
6. It has been found that the existing policy/legislation for capacity building is
insufficient. For instance, chief officials do not play a meaningful role in analyzing,
evaluating and directing the experts/implementers on policy for capacity building.
Whilst local chief officials do not play a meaningful role in analyzing, evaluating and
directing the experts/ implementers/ on the policy for capacity building, the experts
also do not comprehensively examine carefully the legislation before presentations in
and enactment by regional council, and implementation of capacity building policy in
the study regional state. This finding therefore suggests that capacity building
legislation and strategies that have been implemented for the last 4 and 5 years do not
undergo through requisite evaluation or follow up and may not be reflective of
expectations and interests of the public in the education, agriculture, health, water,
road and HRD sectors clients or beneficiaries in general. In other words, the absence
of strong monitoring and evaluation of the strategies could not help to know whether
it’s now up to the satisfaction of services stakeholders on one hand, and the federal
agency behind the strategy on the other.
7. The study found out that the organizations/institutions have a specific capacity
building policy that adapts to the existing legislative measures although they are
outdated and thus need to be reviewed to meet the current capacity needs. Moreover,
the institutions do not have sufficient financial and skilled human resources to
implement the capacity building strategies effectively and efficiently due to a high
rate of labour turnover and vacancies and the institutions is always underfunded
making capacity building implementation largely dependent on donor funding. The
study further found that institutions have sufficient work procedures and methods in
place to ensure the effective implementation of capacity building strategies but also
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that there are insufficient control measures and standards in place to complement the
organizational structures to ensure the effective implementation of the strategies and
delivery of quality services in the aforesaid sectors to the citizens. This is mostly due
to poor planning of the capacity building activities which results in compromising the
standards. It was thus suggested that the control mechanisms that assure enforcement
of capacity building policies, plans and strategies in the organizations require
strengthening so that processes that are undertaken to build capacity in human and
material resources benefit the organizational structures and work procedures in this
regard; and that the delivery of the services’ outputs are up to the expectations of the
citizens.
8. Any capacity building strategies is supposed to enhance capacity in the organizations
and therefore improves the service delivery for which the programme is targeted. The
study found that at the moment the provision of services by the aforesaid sectors does
not exclusively satisfy community needs effectively though quality services as an
output have a positive effect on the development in terms of the social, economic and
physical environments.
9. The study revealed that citizens access to the education, agriculture, health, water,
road and HRD services in the study area have been challenged (affected) by the
following: (i) hospitals, schools, and health center distances are far from the
communities; (ii) shortage of qualified professionals (e.g. Medical doctors, specialists,
Engineers) and (iii) inadequate and irrelevant policies guiding implementation of
capacity building strategies. The findings further revealed that the existing CB
policies and strategies could not brought about the intended impact, thus indicating a
need for a change in approach. This was mainly for the following reasons:
a. Expected results were not achieved due to inadequate human and financial resources.
b. Needs of the central capacity building office were prioritized thereby failing to build
capacity at the regional/district/local level.
c. Lack of close and harmonious consultations between the chief officials, implementers
(experts), and the citizens.
d. Nepotism and political interference.
e. Low capacity of the local training institutions
With regard to the second research question,
10. The study found out that the capacity building programme did not help the study
regional state to be on board and made ready to exit at this point in time. Since, the
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goal of an exit-strategy is to assure sustainability of impacts and activities after the

program has ended/phased over, however the study regional state still needs further
support to catch up with other relatively developed regional states in the country.
Finally, with regard to the third research question,
11. The study revealed that Governmental failure to ‘empower’ communities, and lack of
sufficient knowledge and weak or low sense of ownership were seen as limiting
factors for the intended self-reliance to take firm roots. It was also further revealed
that some chief officials/leaders acted ‘with the mask on their face’ despite being
highly trusted. Hence, it is not difficult to see that concerns over how self-reliance
might be implanted, has made an impact in the study regional state. Moreover, the
study examined that some public managers/chief officials, experts and beneficiaries’
are targeted as having a lack of understanding regarding the principles of self-reliance
(simplicity, responsibility, respect, commitment and creativity).
From the expositions mentioned thus far (major findings), it is not surprising to conclude that
during the past couple of years, there have been some progresses towards in the provision of
social and economic services such as education, water, agricultural, health, road and public
service & HRD services. However, the special assistance or support given by the federal
government could not sufficiently lead to the intended outcome or impacts in leading the
study regional state to be on a dependable self-reliant stage.
5.3 Concluding Remarks

In this study, it has been found that in spite of the some progress or improvements in the
education, agriculture, health, water, road and HRD service in the study regional state, when
compared to past several years, the implementation of capacity building strategies has led to
lack of quality services due to poor planning, inadequate resources and poor monitoring and
evaluation of the strategies being implemented. This has compromised the quality of each
service being delivered. It has also led to a situation where the study regional state is unable
to meet the ever-increasing demand for each of the services sufficiently. Evidence has
confirmed also that the aforementioned services rendered are inadequate and not effective. It
was also found that the implementation of the existing capacity building strategy impacts
negatively (affects or not as intended) on the provision of those aforesaid services in the
study regional state.
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Therefore, it is not surprising to deduce that in the past couple of years, there have been some
progresses or improvements towards in the provision of social and economic services such as
education, water, agricultural, health, road and public service & HRD services. However, the
special assistance or support given by the federal government and neighboring regional states
of the country, sufficiently could not lead to the intended outcome or impacts in leading the
study regional state to be on dependable self-reliant stage.
To this end, the assessment and analysis on six thematic areas (education, agriculture, health,
water, road and HRD sectors) revealed the presence of critical gaps in many of the identified
indicators in the study regional state. Hence, there is a need to critically consider the specific
gaps identified by the study in designing strategies for accelerating development in the
regional state through holistic and integrated approaches.
5.4 Recommendations
5.4.1 Recommendations for policy
Based on the findings of the study, the researcher recommends the following:-
1. Broaden the scope of the legal framework on education, agriculture, health,

water, road and HRD Capacity Building Strategies in the study regional state
The assessment indicates that shortfalls in effective implementation of the capacity building
strategies in the aforesaid sectors are caused by further capacity building factors such as poor
leadership and mentoring, inadequate physical resources such as working materials and
equipment, inadequacies in administrative and managerial capacities and behavioural changes
that sustain demand for quality services in the community. Therefore this calls for the
revision of these legal and policy frameworks to provide for a legal and policy environment
that allows for resourcing investments in these areas aimed at improving the delivery of the
aforementioned services.
2. Improve operational structure to gain efficiencies and effectiveness from current

investments in capacity building in the education, agriculture, health, water,
road and HRD sectors
The study has revealed a centralized implementation of the capacity building strategies in the
education, agriculture, health, water, road and HRD sectors. Whilst not bad in itself, this has
led to focusing the implementation of the aforementioned services at the central offices, and
chief officials. This has resulted in building a lot of capacities in planning and policy-related
elements of the sectors but little focus on the operating units that deliver the aforesaid
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services to the citizens. It is therefore recommended that the stated above sectors should
deconcentrate or delegate control of resources and identification of capacity needs to
decentralized structures such as regional, zonal and woreda level institutions ( e.g. hospitals,
schools, etc.) to gain in efficiency and effectiveness.
3. Enforce use of performance standards
To ensure that the administration and management of the education, agriculture, health,
water, road and HRD sectors provides services that the community look up to and expect,
there is a need for deliberate efforts to define and enforce performance standards that will
evaluate the performances of the aforesaid sector personnel as well as agents in delivery of
services to the citizens. Speed up the recruitment process in the Institutions so that there are
adequate human resources to implement the capacity building strategies.
4. Design a harmonious consultative capacity building strategies with clear and

implementable outputs and targets for each of the critical services.
5. Reduce a centrally dominated implementation strategies which cannot address
realities on the ground and also cannot help to put the objectives in to practice.
6. Design a clear exit-strategy that is definite and time-bound as well as clear
responsibility and accountability lines among the potential actors both from the center
and study regional state.
7. Much attention must be given to reorganize the study regional state’s organizations
with adequate or skilled human and material resources. The agencies in charge of
shall strive to establish a research unit and to have adequate and well trained
professionals in the area. Moreover, it needs to launch a system to work in
collaboration with stakeholders.
5.4.2 Recommendation for practitioners/implementers
Policy scholars need to take the lions share to initiate, capacitate, and work with the
legislature by employing innovative and scientific methods. They shall knock the
legislature’s door by undertaking researches, policy analysis, and providing sound and timely
feedback and recommendation.
Implications for positive social change
The other main contribution of this study is its ability; it reached on the above findings and
conclusions by using a mixed research method that employed both quantitative and
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qualitative data. The interesting thing here is that the results of both are similar suggesting the
fact that not only consistence but also the validity of the findings, discussions, and
conclusions presented throughout chapter four and above. As a result, the study offers an
opportunity for those who have interest to conduct further comprehensive research in the
area.
One of the major contributions of this study is that it provides sound empirical evidences that
show the impact of capacity building support for the emerging regional states of Ethiopia in
general and that of BGRS in particular, did not brought the intended outcomes and impacts.
Hence, the researcher believe that if the existing capacity building support programs
continues to be, but highly dominated by the need of central government, the country’s
mission to ensure equivalent development of emerging regional states with the others will
remain unsuccessful.
5.4.3 Recommendations for further research
Further research should be done on a comparative study that can bring higher learning culture
and strengthen the emerging regional states of Ethiopia, so that result can scale up the
equitable development among the states.
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The Impact of Capacity Building Support for Emerging Regional States in Ethiopia: The Case

CHAPTER ONE: INTRODUCTION

1.1. General Background

1.2 Problem Statement

Capacity building is an intervention that strengthens an organization’s ability to fulfill its

Despite dynamics of regional disparities, economic inequalities and public policy

1.3 Objectives of the study

1.3.2. Specific objectives

1.5 Scope (Delimitation) of the study

1.7 Definition of Key Terms

1.8 Organization of the paper

CHAPTER TWO: LITERATURE REVIEW

2.2. Theoretical (Historical) Discourse

Second, development strategies have been largely unsuccessful at creating long-term

At independence, Kenya inherited a system with unequal distribution of services skewed in

The aforementioned countries’ experiences take us to the old wisdom, attributed to

2.3. Conceptual Discussion

Capability is defined as the knowledge, skills and attitudes of individuals. In contrast,

Capacity building has consistently been identified as a critical component in development

a) According to an Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD

2.3.2. The Concept and Essence of Capacity Building

a) The Australian Agency for International Development (AusAID) the process of

In general, Capacity building is an important function in any public organization as without

2.4. Operationalization of capacity and capacity building concepts

Table 1: Organization capacity characteristics

Level Competence & authors Level Competence & authors

Lusthaus et al., (1995), propose a framework for institutional assessment to strengthen

institutional motivation; institutional capacity; and institutional performance. The WRI

2.5 Forms of capacity building and capacity building interventions

2.5.2 What is an intervention?

a) Strategic Interventions: that aim to address concerns about Organization

2.6 Barriers and Enablers of Capacity Building

2.6.1. The CB programs must be locally ‘owned’

2.6.2. The CB should relate to the local context

It is argued that a major problem in CB programs is lack of understanding local contexts-

2.6.3. Contextual political factors strongly affect CB success

2.6.4. The CB requires a multi-stakeholder, multi-dimensional approach

It is indicated that all CB is inherently complex, multi-dimensional and involves multiple

2.6.5. High staff turnover impedes sustainability of CB

2.6.6. Donor practices can create perverse incentives for CB

2.6.7. Pay attention to the timing of CB interventions

2.6.8. Careful design is required

2.6.9. Beware of barriers to participation in CB activities

actual output. Employee motivation has a basic relationship to capacity, as do labour

2.7 Capacity building exit-strategies on sustainability of development Programs

An exit-strategy for a project/program is a specific plan describing how a sponsor intends to

2.7.1 Approaches in exit-strategies

2.7.1.1 Phase down

2.7.1.2 Phase out

2.7.1.3 Phase over

2.7.2 Elements of Successful Exit-Strategies

Moreover, on the same document (Exit-strategies on School feeding: WFP’s Experience)

2.8 Capacity Building for Sustainable Development and self-reliance

Anyanwu(1992), contends that in most African countries community development has

Moreover, the movement for (re)achieving self-reliance in Bangladesh mainly focused on

2.8.2 Understanding Self-reliance in Terms of Sustainability

The overall objective of capacity-building, formulated by the UN Rio Declaration, is “to

protection is not and cannot be restricted to government policies. Increasingly, it depends on

The UN Commission on Sustainable Development (1998) in its sixth session gave an

2.9 Monitoring and Evaluation for general capacity building

2.10 Conceptual framework

Formulation/Design Planning Evaluation

Figure 1: Conceptual framework