The Nuts and Bolts of Post-conflict Capacity Building: Practicable Lessons from East Timor

‘Capacity building’ has become a ubiquitous term in the international peacebuilding community. While the need for capacity building in post-conflict contexts is widely accepted, discussions rarely venture into what it is in practical and operational terms, and how it ought to be done. This article1 examines a major capacity building project in East Timor, focusing on capacity building as it occurs day to day and on the ground. Following a brief overview of the concept of capacity building, it identifies a number of key challenges that arise in initiatives in which internationals work directly with local actors to build their capacity. It then offers a set of concrete proposals, targeted at capacity builders and their managing institutions, for improved practice.Submitted by Kari Schmidt (schmidt@american.edu) on 2009-05-18T16:15:56Z No. of bitstreams: 1 Huang_v2n3.pdf: 662248 bytes, checksum: 3a436f88c9107778b8ef57d3b7d33fa2 (MD5)Made available in DSpace on 2009-05-18T16:15:56Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 1 Huang_v2n3.pdf: 662248 bytes, checksum: 3a436f88c9107778b8ef57d3b7d33fa2 (MD5) Previous issue date: 200