CBO Capacity Analysis Toolkit: A Toolkit for Assessing and Building Capacities for High Quality Responses to HIV

This capacity analysis toolkit was developed to enable community-based organisations (CBOs) to analyse levels of capacity in different organisational and technical areas. It is designed to facilitate group discussions between members of community organisations and external facilitators providing capacity building support, or it can be self-administered by an implementing community organisation. The profile section has questions that can be asked to establish a basic description of the organisation. The following section of the toolkit details different areas of capacity, including: governance and strategy; finance; administration and human resources; project design and management; technical capacity; networking and advocacy; and community ownership and advocacy. In each capacity section, one open-ended question is followed by specific questions that have corresponding possible responses. Each suggested response indicates a different level of capacity that might be found in the organisation. The facilitator uses the suggested responses to ask the group how they would score their organisation on a scale of 1 to 4. By this method, participants assess their own strengths, weaknesses, and capacity building needs, and also develop their understanding of how they might strengthen their capacity or improve the way they work. The toolkit ends with a section on producing a capacity development action plan.

This toolkit can be used:

• with community organisations to identify capacity-building needs
• to plan any technical support needed by the organisation
• and to monitor and evaluate the impact of capacity-building support.

The toolkit is based on a design developed by Geoff Foster of Family AIDS Caring Trust in Zimbabwe and was further developed and piloted for this version with contributions from ANCS (Alliance Nationale Contre le SIDA) in Senegal, International HIV/AIDS Alliance in the Caribbean, CARE Rwanda, CARE Uganda, Thai National AIDS Foundation, CORE Initiative, and the Alliance secretariat.