Capacity Building through Education Provision: A review of the North - South collaborative programmes of MS - TCDC and Kimmage DSC between 1994 – 2014

Abstract

This paper emerged from a joint research project between Kimmage DSC and MS-TCDC, Arusha, Tanzania, which aimed to discover to what extent graduates continued to use their skills in development practice and what difference their training made. The overall objective of this research was to explore what worked well in this partnership between two institutes from the 'North' and the 'South', and how this collaboration has advanced capacity building in its various forms to inform transformative learning and social change. Primarily, the study set out to explore whether in fact, capacity building of participants was achieved, and how participants experienced this both during and after the programmes attended. Secondly, the study explored the nature of the partnership model, maintained for 20 years, and to see if lessons could be drawn from this significant example of collaboration. It was largely a qualitative piece of research conducted during the period from November 2015 to July 2016, using a combination of interviews, questionnaires of graduates, and current and former staff of both institutes. Key lessons drawn from the study included the finding that capacity development did take place, for the students themselves, and in many instances, for their organisations and communities. There is evidence that the staff in both institutes developed their individual and professional capacities through the dynamic of this partnership, and strong perceptions that both institutes were also transformed – being changed, as Rosalind Eyben (2011) would say, by the relationship forged by working together. The study presented new insights on the challenges of partnerships – especially those North-South dynamics, in reflecting on the longer than normal life span of this particular relationship. Current and former staff endorsed the key importance of relationships. This study presents a strong argument that time spent by lecturers respectfully engaging with course participants, and time invested by both sets of staff to the developing of constructive but convivial relationships has borne fruit