Building from the bottom up: A user's guide to the capacity building of local non-governmental organizations

Local non-governmental organizations (NGOs) have become the target of increasing donor funding internationally. Local NGOs are seen as well-positioned to tap into grassroots energies, utilize local capacities and provide a venue to represent the needs and priorities of communities. There is however, a danger of indiscriminate funding of these local-level actors. Many do not have the capacity to absorb the funding or deliver the services expected of them. Capacity building within local organizations is needed to meet local development needs. This paper seeks to provide a tool, based on current literature and field research, to provide guidance to donors to assess the institutional capacity of potential local partner organizations. The areas for local NGO development include human resources, organizational culture, the internal operations, accountability, evaluation and external coordination. The appendix provides the synthesis of the lessons learned into a tool that can be applied to local organizations.