Using Training to Build Capacity for Development: An Evaluation of the World Bank's Project-Based and WBI Training

The World Bank's Independent Evaluation Group (IEG) has released this 146-page report assessing the effectiveness of the World Bank Institute (WBI)'s use of the strategy of training, in particular, to build institutional and organisational capacity to achieve sustainable growth and poverty reduction in developing countries. (Other World Bank tools for building capacity include technical assistance, studies, and equipment). The report addresses the following questions:

• What needs to happen for training to translate into behaviour change and capacity building in the workplace?
• How can training be targeted better to meet real organisational needs?
• How do proper incentives and support of top leadership affect capacity building?
• Good training management: does it make a difference?
• How can effective training design, delivery, and evaluation lead to better results?

The report provides a picture of what elements of training, as a capacity-building strategy, are important for success - not only for the World Bank, but for other organisations considering this pathway.

An excerpt from the Executive Summary follows:

"...This evaluation examined the extent to which Bank-financed training contributed to capacity building. Most Bank-financed training was found to result in individual participant learning, but only about half resulted in substantial changes to workplace behavior or enhanced development capacity.

Project-based training was more successful than WBI training in this regard. Where learning did not result in changed workplace performance - and thus did not have an impact on development capacity - this could be attributed to one of three reasons: insufficient participant understanding of how to apply learning in the workplace, inadequate incentives or resources for implementation of learning, or inadequate targeting of learning to organizational needs...

Training success is predicated on adequate design. Good training design was found to involve three characteristics:

• Use of appropriate and professional pedagogic design, including opportunities to practice learned skills;
• Provision of follow-up support to trainees to help them implement knowledge and skills acquired; and
• Targeting of training content, anchored in diagnosis of institutional and/or organizational capacity gaps, formal assessment of participant training needs, and strategic participant selection.

Much of the Bank-financed training reviewed was found to have design flaws that affected results....[For example,] of the nearly half of survey respondents who stated that training had less than a substantial impact on key functions of their work, over a third said it was because training lacked relevance to key work functions. This last issue is indicative of inadequate targeting of training content. Targeting of training content was found to be the most important design factor driving training success...

The organizational context for implementation of knowledge and skills learned was a second important determinant of successful capacity building through training. Training builds development capacity only when trainees have adequate resources and incentives to implement learning in the workplace. One-third of training participants surveyed stated that they lacked sufficient material resources to implement learning in the workplace. Some trainees also lacked incentives to implement learning...

Even where resources or incentives were initially lacking, training succeeded as long as there was strong client commitment to training goals and adequate support was given to addressing related workplace capacity gaps...

Recommendations:

1. The Bank needs to develop guidance and quality criteria for the design and implementation of training, to enable quality assurance and monitoring and evaluation of all its training support...Design guidance should include
   
   • Diagnosis and training-needs assessment requirements for training initiation;
   • Participant selection criteria;
   • Standards for the use of practical exercises and other active-learning techniques within training;
   • Use of follow-up support; and
   • Provisions for monitoring and evaluation, including specification of performance-change objectives and key monitorable indicators.
2. The Bank could improve the quality and impact of training by making available to its Regional staff and borrowers, resource persons with technical expertise in the design, implementation, and monitoring and evaluation of training.
3. ...New WBI training processes should ensure that all training meets the following
   criteria:
   • Is based on a comprehensive capacity assessment of the target organization(s)/institution(s) - done in cooperation with clients - identifying (i) clear and specific capacity-building objectives; (ii) the human, institutional, and organizational capacity support that is necessary in order to achieve these objectives; and (iii) measurable indicators of success;
   • Is undertaken after work is done with operations and partners to identify and confirm, in advance, what resources for all capacity-building support are required to achieve the objectives, including, where needed, (i) multiyear training programs, (ii) follow-up technical assistance, and (iii) organizational and institutional support measures, such as policy support and financing of implementation of learning; and
   • Is subject to external quality review and evaluation of results..."