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.

This article describes the experience of analyzing groups of Colombian fruit farmers’ capacity to collect information and their interest and ability to take advantage of the opportunities offered by information and communication technologies (ICTs). Three cycles were designed to understand the attitudes, skills, and current practices of fruit growers and to define the necessary conditions for effective information sharing. The three cycles involved individual farmers, farmer groups meeting face to face, and virtual meeting with farmer groups.