The 4 + 1 Capacities

Capacity to Navigate Complexity

A shift in mind-sets, attitudes and behaviour to comprehend the larger system and to create an understanding of the whole system, as well as a shift from mainly reductionist understanding of the parts to systemic understanding of the relationships among the parts; viewing change as an emerging property that cannot be predicted or planned for in a linear fashion.

Capacity to Collaborate

Enabling actors to understand each other’s perspectives and managing conflicts, managing diversity in order to combine individual skills and knowledge, and create an awareness of their complementarity; and building synergetic partnerships and networks to enhance collaboration. It also involves communication skills and strategies, both internally and externally.

Capacity to Reflect and Learn

Bringing stakeholders together, designing and leading processes of critical reflection and following a double-loop learning process leading to action and change. It requires respect for different opinions and an atmosphere of trust for those opinions to be voiced. It also requires a systematic tracking of processes and progress to enable reflection to take place. Interventions need to be sufficiently flexible and adaptable to changing conditions, and analysis undertaken in an iterative fashion so as to promote experimentation and adaptive capacities as new opportunities for learning emerge.

Capacity to Engage in Strategic and Political Processes

CD for transformational change is inherently political, and involves questioning the status quo. Power relations need to be understood in a number of dimensions, including: economic interests; the balance of power among elites; and civil society-state relations. Understanding and influencing the politics and power relations between individuals, within organizations and of the wider society, is crucial for bringing about new forms of interaction among stakeholders. It includes the conscious empowerment of vulnerable and often marginalized groups.

Capacity to Adapt and Respond in order to Realize the Potential of Innovation

The four capacities are the core of an overarching Capacity to Adapt and Respond in order to Realize the Potential of Innovation, shifting focus from reactive problem solving to co-creating the future. This requires facilitative leadership to enable all of the above to happen. The five capacities are interdependent and are relevant at each of the three dimensions of CD.

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