What is Capacity Development?
Capacity development within a group or organization occurs when knowledge is gained about key concepts and this understanding is accompanied by the ability to plan and carry out effective actions pertaining to safe cities for women over time.
Capacity development can be gained through:
- Strengthening policies and protocols;
- Strengthening and building partnerships;
- Increasing access to knowledge and resources;
- Improving the enabling environment and infrastructure; and
- Working with individuals and groups at all levels, using workshops, training sessions, group discussions, coaching, mentoring, ongoing knowledge sharing and discussions, etc.
Capacity development can help safe cities for women programme partners with:
- Research: where to find official and unofficial information on women’s safety; how to understand statistics; quantitative and qualitative methodologies for generating and analyzing data; developing indicators about gender; and creating and conducting credible surveys.
- Leadership: creating a group to work on safe cities for women; engaging the community in safe cities for women initiatives; and leading public debates on issues related to gender.
- Facilitation: mediating group relations during large-scale projects; providing opportunities for different actors to exchange information on women’s safety; and ensuring that project tasks are being completed properly.
- Communication: informing the wider community about the importance of women’s safety; educating different audiences on women’s safety; and preparing material to disseminate to the media on safe cities for women initiatives and objectives.
Why is Capacity Development Important?
- Teach people about the issue of women’s and girls’ safety in cities and communities - this is particularly important for people working on a safe cities for women programme;
- Give all members of a safe cities for women programme valuable leadership, political and communication skills that they can use to promote the initiative;
- Save money in the long run because it gives people working directly for safe cities for women programmes the skills necessary to complete related tasks themselves instead of contracting jobs out;
- Increase the confidence of individual women and girls working on safe cities for women programmes, which in turn leads to a greater sense of control over their own safety;
- Allow all programme partners to share skills and grow together; and
- It's an efficient way to share ideas and values related to women’s safety.
See the capacity development section for more information.