Supporting Burmese Civil Society Through Times of Change

Strengthening local organizational capacity to meet Burma’s evolving development challenges

The USAID/Burma Local Engagement Support Services activity offered a series of organizational trainings and mentoring to local organizations, with a focus on those working to address the drivers and consequences of drug addiction in Kachin State.

Building Local Relationships and Trust

The project’s strategy for building organizational capacity followed the stages outlined in USAID’s CBLD-9 Indicator, which includes collaboratively identifying performance improvement priorities; analyzing and assessing gaps; implementing solutions; and monitoring and measuring change in performance.

The task of assessing local organizations and identifying capacity gaps can be overwhelming, so building relationships with key local stakeholders was crucial. The activity identified local leaders with whom they could impart tools and processes necessary to assess, and then meet, the needs at hand. Such actions fostered critical buy-in and ensured that the implementation process was both collaborative and locally driven.

Importance of Assessment Tools

To be successful in improving long term organizational performance, capacity building must be a multi-step process. Adapting diagnostic techniques and integrated actions that identify performance needs was as vital a first step as the subsequent design of capacity development activities targeted to those needs.

Using the Participatory Local Organizational Capacity Assessment (PLOCA) tool—which helps organizations identify capacity gaps along 10 organizational elements—RTI assisted the local organizations to create action plans tailored to their own capacity development needs and identified appropriate capacity development resources. The assessments helped determine operational capacities and the trainings needed to improve capabilities and ensure successful implementation.

Designing Capacity Development Initiatives

Capacity development is most successful when it allows for different learning styles and varied levels of organizational resource availability. Understanding this, the project created modules for OD, as well as tools for staff recruitment, sub award management, service contracts, facilitation of consortium meetings, and financial policies.

Capacity development is also a continuous process of learning, adapting, and growing at both the individual and organizational levels. The organizations who understood and adopted this process of self-learning and continuous improvement saw sustained organizational strengthening outcomes.

Results

A final survey evaluating OD capacity asked for feedback from 62 people from 19 Kachin local organizations and found that more than 70% of participants agreed that they gained OD knowledge and were able to improve both individual and organizational level OD standards.

By working with and through the local organizations and their leaders, the activity was able to empower local champions in partner organizations, support the development of their own solutions, and ultimately be set on the path to delivering sustainable programs.