Capacity building for WROs and CSOs should be built on the recognition that WROs and CSOs are vital to establishing, participating and strengthening women’s movements and driving efforts to end VAWG. Capacity building efforts should therefore focus on strengthening WROs and CSOs to continue this vital work. Capacity building efforts should be designed in collaboration with WROs and CSOs, using a participatory approach, to ensure they reflect the needs and priorities of WROs and CSOs themselves. Capacity strengthening might be focused on meeting a programme’s aims, but can also go beyond the programme focus to strengthen the institutional capacity of WROs and CSOs.

Effective capacity building efforts require commitment from all levels of the programme from the onset. This commitment should be reflected in the programme vision, operational plans and resource investments. Funders can support this by including capacity building as a core deliverable with specific resource allocation in requests for proposals. This approach then allows programme managers to develop a capacity building strategy for all levels of the programme, including the programme team, implementing partners, other partners, field staff, local champions and community facilitators.

Lessons learned from Spotlight Initiative, United Nations Trust Fund (UNTF) as well as other relevant organisations found that having a dedicated capacity development manager to oversee a capacity building strategy across programmes was key to championing and driving capacity building efforts forward. This could involve establishing a dedicated team to work closely with programme participants to develop strong relationships, identify capacity gaps, facilitate reciprocal learning, and channel resources to further strengthen their capacity. Without adequate resources and leadership, programmes may struggle to implement effective and meaningful capacity building initiatives in practice. Capacity building efforts should also integrate strong knowledge management to ensure that lessons learned and promising practices from activities are captured and can feed into future capacity building activities.

It is important to recognise the existing skills that all organisations have, including WROs and CSOs, rather than privileging the expertise of one over others. For example, WROs may have more practical and lived experience of what works when advocating to end VAWG in a particular context or the needs of communities on the ground. On the other hand, an INGO may have more experience writing funding proposals and navigating donor applications. Additionally, UN and Government entities may have more experience and comfort presenting to high-level stakeholders. In an equitable partnership, the skills of each organisation should be recognised and valued. Create opportunities for reciprocal learning where each organisation can help strengthen and enrich the capacity of the others.

In addition to different skillsets, partners may have different contextual experiences which others can learn from. There can be great value in bringing together partners from different geographies to share the lessons from their context along with the challenges they have faced and how they have overcome these.

Capacity building efforts need to be demand-driven and informed by the needs, aspirations and interests of partners. The most effective way to achieve this is to conduct participatory capacity assessments with partners to review skills and knowledge across a range of areas critical for effective VAWG programme delivery e.g. technical skills on VAWG prevention and response; foundational skills around financial and project management, report writing, or proposal writing.

Tools and guidance to support capacity assessments include:

• Spotlight Initiative Guidance on Capacity Development
• UN Women (2014) Gender Equality Capacity Assessment Tool
• Oxfam Canada (2021) Organisational Capacity Assessment Tool for Gender-Just Organisational Strengthening

Capacity building efforts should be tailored to the needs of partners and their contexts. Involving partners in the design of capacity building efforts can help identify which approaches they have found useful or less effective in the past. Capacity building efforts can also introduce new approaches informed by best and innovative practice but should be mindful of partner preferences.

Involving partners in the design of capacity building initiatives can also help identify what is achievable within resource constraints. Partner engagement at this stage can help build an understanding of the limits of what a programme can achieve and increase buy-in for the capacity building initiatives that are pursued. Implement participatory learning approaches that actively engage partners in the learning process. Encourage discussions, group activities, and real-life case studies to promote a deeper understanding.

There can be great value in bringing together WROs and CSOs from different geographies within and across regions to share lessons and for peer support. Spotlight Initiative has supported such learning opportunities. Some programmes developed communities of practice where organisations came together to discuss recent evidence, and convened annual programme meetings with a strong emphasis on reciprocal learning.

For example, Spotlight Initiative hosted a Global Learning Symposium in 2022, bringing together over 200 stakeholders from governments, civil society and the UN system, along with other partners. The focus of this symposium was to support the exchange of learning across Spotlight Initiative programmes. The symposium included 45 plenary and topic-specific sessions which were run using a participatory and peer-learning approach. The symposium was designed to provide space for honest reflection across programmes and encouraged individuals to share practices across contexts that could be taken to scale. 

For capacity building efforts to be truly responsive to the needs of partners, it is important for initiatives to be flexible. While programmes should try to identify needs during initial capacity assessments, new needs may emerge during the programme. Programmes will be well placed to meet emerging needs if they build in flexible resourcing arrangements, conduct close monitoring, and provide opportunities for ongoing reflection with partners about capacity building needs and approaches.

Monitoring and evaluating capacity building efforts can support programmes to learn and build from what has worked well and what could be improved. Programmes should consider conducting pre- and post-training assessments; participant feedback surveys; self-assessment tools, training facilitator surveys; satisfaction surveys; and progress reports. These should be linked to baselines that are set at the start of the capacity building process. Employing multiple evaluation methods in the short, medium and long-term supports comprehensive evaluations which can capture learning and be used to inform the design of future capacity building initiatives.