Insights

On February 29, 2024, NPI EXPAND hosted the third event in the project’s series, Lessons in Localization: Experiences and Perspectives from the NPI EXPAND Project. As NPI EXPAND comes to a close in October 2024, the project will share experiences and lessons learned from implementing its large-scale grants and capacity strengthening program through a series of webinars for stakeholders over the next twelve months. To stay updated on the series and future events, be sure to sign up for email updates from the project using this link.

While traditional capacity strengthening methods involve formal assessments and structured plans to address identified gaps, often a more responsive, dynamic capacity strengthening approach is implemented to complement this formal process. Adaptive capacity strengthening identifies immediate capacity gaps during implementation through continuous monitoring and promptly responds to address these gaps as they arise. Many coaching interventions, such supporting local partners in application development, developing monitoring, evaluation, and learning plans, or addressing operational challenges, demonstrate this adaptive approach. While formal, structured capacity strengthening is valuable, the importance of learning by doing and adapting strategies based on real-time needs is crucial in local partner capacity strengthening. However, it’s essential to recognize that adaptive capacity strengthening often isn’t captured in traditional metrics such as USAID’s CBLD-9 indicator, and efforts still need to be made to more accurately to document this adaptive support. By broadening our understanding of capacity strengthening to include adaptive approaches, we can better support local organizations in their journey towards improved performance.

This event, Lessons Learned from Adaptive Capacity Strengthening, explored adaptive capacity strengthening strategies in different contexts and highlighted perspectives from local partners supported by the project in Ethiopia, Kenya, and Senegal.