The Challenge of Capacity Development: Working Towards Good Practice draws on four decades of documented experience provided by both bilateral and multilateral donors, as well as academic specialists, to help policy makers and practitioners think through effective approaches to capacity development and what challenges remain in the drive to boost country capacity. The analysis is underpinned by a conceptual framework which guides practitioners to view capacity development at three interrelated levels: individual, organisational and enabling environment levels.

The publication reviews forty years of development experience and concludes that donors and partner countries alike have tended to look at capacity development as mainly a technical process, or as a transfer of knowledge or institutions from North to South.