THE INWENT CAPACITY BUILDING CONCEPT

Transcription

1 THE INWENT CAPACITY BUILDING CONCEPT Personnel and Organisational Development in International Co-Operation Status: 24 April 2006 InWEnt Internal Strategy Paper Written by: Ingrid Jung and Hinrich Mercker InWEnt: Capacity Building Concept Status: 24 th April

2 Introduction The concept of Capacity Building constitutes InWEnt s guiding principle. It furthermore defines measures, notably, Human Resource Development as well as innovative Change Management. This concept underpins InWEnt s strategy and focus in areas of advanced training as well as personnel and organisational development. In this regard, the concept is the programmatic pillar on which InWEnt s strategy and focus is based while at the same time defining the framework for action in the medium term. In international co-operation, Capacity Building encompasses advanced professional training, personnel and organisational development so as to achieve a given set of objectives. Capacity Building also focuses on strengthening one s partners capacity to plan and finally to implement lasting development strategies and policies. In this sense advanced professional training and personnel development as elements of Capacity Building finally determine the development of organisations through constant interaction. InWEnt systematically creates accessibility to knowledge available on a global scale and thereby rendering it utilizable to its partners as a strategic resource for development. InWEnt hence considers itself an international knowledge broker. By fostering dialogue, providing advanced training, building networks and providing advisory services for professionals and managers, InWEnt supports change processes in organisations and institutions in addition to reform processes in economy, politics, and society worldwide. The Company The concept is based on InWEnt s seeing itself as a Learning Organisation regarding learning through advanced professional training as an interactive process between partners on an equal footing. Thus, InWEnt consistently expands its own capacities and competencies as well as those who carry out the programme in order to develop new problem solving mechanisms through a dialogue with its international partners. In the context of development cooperation InWEnt constitutes the third pillar of German international cooperation which includes Financial and Technical Cooperation. InWEnt thus contributes intensively towards forming German development cooperation into a coherent and also methodologically flexible entity. InWEnt therefore systematically makes use of: Methodological-didactic competence: InWEnt offers demand-based capacity building on the basis of years of experience within an international context. Its programmes InWEnt: Capacity Building Concept Status: 24 th April

3 are characterised by two main features, first methodologicaldidactic competence and, secondly, by a high degree of flexibility. Regarding the former, acquisition is comprehensive and intense. In terms of the latter, a high degree of flexibility with regard to forms of learning, where learning takes place and its duration, all being essential components. Private-sector relationship: InWEnt fosters intensive working relations to the German business community, associations and to international companies. Decentralised structure and strong embeddedness in Germany: InWEnt collaborates closely with the BMZ, other federal ministries, other federal states and administrations at the local level. Contacts worldwide: InWEnt works on behalf of German organisations and companies in developing and transition countries as well as in other industrialised countries. InWEnt ensures the quality of its programmes by focusing on needs, methodology / didactics, effectiveness, efficiency, and sustainability, all in a framework of a mandatory quality management system. InWEnt implements this concept with employees who obtain high applicable skills while working in adult education. Capacity Building People Shape Changes Mission statement For orientation, InWEnt uses the guiding principle of a global sustainable development that comprises economic performance capacity, social justice, ecologic carrying capacity, and political responsibility respectively. Objectives InWEnt s work at home and abroad aims at fostering skills in problem-solving as well as applying acquired knowledge of decision makers and executive personnel on all levels, as they perform change and reform processes. In addition, we strengthen the structures required for these processes, we promote the perception of societal responsibility, and we systematically create accessibility to knowledge as a strategic development resource. InWEnt understands societal change as a complex process: During this process, people in different capacities and different organisations InWEnt: Capacity Building Concept Status: 24 th April

4 try to determine and shape their working and living conditions efficiently and effectively themselves. They effect these changes in a political realm by creating the conditions for economic, social, ecological, and cultural development. Equally they are also involved in organisations of civil society, business, and municipal affairs. Participation that promotes change is, therefore, a pre-requisite and a goal at the same time for the political focus and for the methodical approach of InWEnt s Capacity Building. Consequently, Gender Mainstreaming aims to ensure equal participation of women in decision-making processes and in policyshaping. InWEnt systematically conducts Gender Mainstreaming as it develops the organisational structure and content of its programmes. InWEnt also uses the approach as it selects partners and participants. To achieve this broad range of goals, InWEnt identifies the relevant players in change and reform processes and then integrates them into it s programmes. By jointly assessing each other s potentials, global challenges with all their general complexity but also their unique facets can be identified and then met. The Multi-Level Approach To accomplish the desired results of providing a model being broadly influential and building structures, InWEnt undertakes measures in the area of further training, personnel and organisational development toward this end. In this regard, InWEnt recognises the need for systemic change management in its programme on three inter-connected levels, the individual, the organisation, and the system. Organisations only learn if the individuals learn something. Individual learning is no guarantee that the organisation learns something. However, without individual learning, there is no learning organisation. (Peter Senge) Individual InWEnt strengthens the competence and ability of decision-makers to act. This applies likewise to junior-level managers, and senior professionals. Acquiring specialised knowledge is systematically linked to one s ability in being able to configure domains involving political and legal accountability between organisations and vis-a- vis the population at large. International key qualifications and Global Governance Competences are becoming increasingly important. InWEnt: Capacity Building Concept Status: 24 th April

5 These include specific qualifications such as negotiation and communications skills aimed at interdisciplinary cooperation as well as competent management of knowledge and organisations. Of no lesser importance are qualifications in interdisciplinary thinking having global perspectives and diversity management. As a result, InWEnt s programmes do not solely focus on relaying knowledge but also on changing behaviour. The methods focus on the target, application and the action. They promote the participation and self-learning competence of the participants, and the exchange of experiences. The advanced training is practice-oriented and includes learning projects, planning games, traineeships, and internships, while e-learning is used systematically in the form of blended learning. Joint learning enables participants to experience intercultural dialogue first hand, and it is emphasised as a competence required in all societies. All participants are encouraged to help shape change processes, to improve their own action competence, while also expanding their social and intercultural competences, and critical self-assessment. Organisation InWEnt improves the performance capacity of companies, civil society organisations, and public-sector administrations. These groups are InWEnt s actual partner structures. On a national and an international level, those include The business community: associations, chambers, and companies. Civil society: organisations representing special interest groups reflecting a broad section of the population. State: institutions on the national and decentralised level, and regional partnerships. InWEnt s task is to cooperate with partner organisations that have the potential to reach goals relevant to the objectives in their given context. Furthermore, it is InWEnt s responsibility to analyse, with its partner organisations, how they can contribute to achieving these goals. Working with partner organisations, InWEnt develops strategies for advisory services for personnel development and organisational development, and then implements these strategies, before also assessing their impacts. National and regional training institutes constitute InWEnt s crucial partners whose competences are strengthened through Train the Trainer programmes. InWEnt: Capacity Building Concept Status: 24 th April

6 System InWEnt fosters, on a political level, the action and decision-making competence, as well as the perception of persons in a position of responsibility. It achieves this objective by communicating with different political players and assessing the scope of action and viable alternatives, while also discussing strategies for policy-shaping in terms of reaching international development objectives (such as the Millennium Development Goals). In doing so, InWEnt provides a valuable contribution to the international competence of decisionmakers and to the strengthening of the partner country s institutional environment. In the realm of development co-operation, InWEnt aims to strengthen considerably the development potential in our partner counties in the context of global structural policy. Instruments for Change In its programmes, InWEnt uses different instruments for personnel and organisational development. In accordance with the joint goals set forth with its partners, InWEnt selects these instruments, and combines and supplements them with one another. These instruments InWEnt applies include: Advanced education and training Dialogue Networking Advisory services for personnel development. Advanced Education and Training Further education and training as parts of personnel development are put into practice by InWEnt particularly through job-specific, practiceoriented advanced training employing international standards: The participants are addressed as employees of their respective organisations and companies. It is required that participants have completed their studies, mostly academic, and have professional job experience. The programmes last between one week and 12 months. In addition to systematic preparation and ex-post-analysis (continuous learning), they also include company-focused internships and relay key qualifications ( soft skills ) that apply across sectors. The programmes increase the problem-solving capacity and improve the organisation s performance. Advanced training programmes are tailored and unitised, and they contain offers aimed at improving one s self-learning competence. InWEnt: Capacity Building Concept Status: 24 th April

7 The International Long-Term Training (ILT) constitutes a special format which is characterised by its practice orientation. Prospective executives, who are already engaged in implementing development processes in their respective countries, obtain practice-oriented and targeted qualification in the course of an about twelve-month stay in Germany. Consequently elites in positions of responsibility and key persons in change processes are supported and encouraged in a targeted manner and oriented towards the focal points of German development policy. Dialogue As an important instrument for shaping change processes, dialogues increasingly gain importance within InWEnt s portfolio. They constitute a flexible instrument whose quality results from topic and participant specificity. Dialogues facilitate the active participation of all participants in a special manner. Successful dialogue events result in new perspectives on problems or common action plans. The impact of dialogues is enhanced through persisting collaboration with partner organisations, through pursuing problems over longer periods of time, through the use of electronic media for maintaining contacts or through integrating dialogue components into programmes. Depending on the topics and the participants, global political dialogues, sector policy dialogues and expert dialogues are differentiated. The hitherto existing global political dialogues usually organised by the Development Policy Forum (EF) provide momentum to German and international development policy debates. They serve as a model for BMZ in promoting dialogue with anchor countries. Additionally, the InWEnt department-specific expert dialogues executed as workshops, seminars or conferences constitute arenas for intensive professional exchange. The participants expertise is the essential condition for success with regard to promoting regional or international exchanges of experiences. The demand for sector policy dialogues increases due to development cooperation oriented towards the greater responsibility and the autonomous policy shaping on the parts of partner countries. The joint debate about how to structure political priorities in a sector gives directions for the future allocation of resources. Building Networks Initiating international networks among participants and graduates of international programmes constitutes an integral part of InWEnt s work. Making use of e-learning components plays an important role for creating networks. Combined with the interactive learning methods, IT-backed communications media represent an important pillar for the sustainable organisation of knowledge exchange at international InWEnt: Capacity Building Concept Status: 24 th April

8 level. The Internet-based learning and communications platform Global Campus 21 ( serves as the cornerstone for this approach. Global Campus 21 is based on a learning management system employing modern Web technology. Within a short period of time, tele-tutors learn how to create virtual work rooms and how to maintain them. Moderated by the tele-tutors, the group participants exchange documents, contribute to discussions, arrange chats, and solve tasks. They can use the system around the world and around the clock. Special software or technical support is usually not required. InWEnt initiates and co-ordinates strategic advanced training alliances with international partner organisations and with institutions of the business community, governments and civil society in Germany and in partner countries. These efforts intend to integrate the comparative advantages of the individual partners in a sort of division of labour and jointly shape future-oriented advanced trainings. Co-operating in networks enables a worldwide experience exchange and flexible and customised responses to the different advanced training needs. Former participants and partner organisations are integrated into international virtual communities. The objective is to promote the on-going knowledge transfer and the application-oriented experience exchange. Offering unique events and measures, InWEnt s alumni programme is generally available to all former participants. The technical aspect of working with alumni constitutes part of a continuous learning and enables an exchange with former participants and partner organisations with regard to specific topics. In this way InWEnt accompanies the transfer of competences acquired into the respective working environments. Additional components offered provide the opportunity to regional and national networking among alumni and with former participants as well as the participation in InWEnt s sector wide e-learning programmes. The alumni programme is an integral component and quality feature of InWEnt s advanced training measures. Advisory services for personnel development Due to the impact orientation of international cooperation InWEnt as an organisation for personnel development, advanced training and dialogue focuses on reform-oriented actors of relevant organisations and institutions that are key contact persons for the German contribution to harmonised development cooperation. Assessments of respective institutional environments are carried out in close collaboration with international partners in the respective focal points for support or areas of reform. InWEnt: Capacity Building Concept Status: 24 th April

9 In the context of an organisational assessment, analyses of potentials regarding personnel as well as a demand-oriented advanced training strategy with a personnel demand plan are jointly elaborated with the identified partner organisations. Learning objectives and transfer projects are jointly formulated. The concrete training programme offered closely relates to it. The decisive aspect of this undertaking is combining individual advanced trainings as personnel development with objectives of organisational development. Consultations are supported by methods of change management including development consultancy, process accompaniment and coaching. Hubs of Learning When deciding on a training location, InWEnt takes into consideration the programme s objective and the need of its client, co-operation partner or user; that applies to all of our programmes. In this respect, the experiences gained from advanced training measures in Germany and other European countries are very important for many of the partner countries. The learning hub Germany attracts a host of foreign partner organisations. That s due to Germany s role as an international centre of business, training, technology, and research and science. Assessing and analysing the situation in Germany, the participants can experience first-hand the complexity of change processes when an industrialised society evolves into a knowledge-based society. By networking German and international knowledge hubs, InWEnt as a German training institution with an international mission strengthens Germany s position as a learning location in the framework of an integrated Europe. Our Core Competence InWEnt s core competence consists in creating and implementing Capacity Building programmes flexibly and practice-oriented using the instruments of advanced training, dialogue, building networks as well as advisory services for personnel development. By applying InWEnt: Capacity Building Concept Status: 24 th April

10 such instruments, professional, regional, and methodological competence will be combined. Professional Competence Nowadays, professional competence usually develops its fullest potential across sectors and in an interdisciplinary manner. InWEnt s task is to mobilise knowledge with a focus on need and the application. In the process, knowledge is not perceived as an end in itself. Instead, it focuses on increasing the individual action competence and performance capacity of organisations. InWEnt considers working within professional debates as an opportunity to actively participate in shaping the international policy dialogue (agenda setting). InWEnt focuses on ten business areas which constitute the content base of its Capacity Building strategy: Good governance and reform processes, Crisis prevention and peacekeeping, Social development, Environment and natural resources, Sustainable management International relations and foreign trade and payments, InWEnt: Capacity Building Concept Status: 24 th April

11 International professional education Development-related education International management competence in change processes Management of international training programmes Regional Competence InWEnt s regional structure abroad ensures a strong and transparent approach structure for international clients. As a company working worldwide within international cooperation, InWEnt is also strongly embedded in Germany. InWEnt is characterised by a differentiated structure on the level of German federal states, which enables linking international partners with organisations and companies of the learning hub Germany. Market Competence International co-operation focuses the political framework at global, regional and national level. The complexity in this sphere of action requires direct and trustworthy co-operation between decisionmakers and opinion-shapers in the management of national and international institutions. Trustworthy relationships between InWEnt and its key partner organisations serve as the basis for consistent supply and demand orientation when developing tailor-made programmes and other similar products. The excellent collaboration with German and international companies as well as trade associations needs to be emphasised at this point. This exchange facilitates conceptualising and implementing practice-oriented and relevant advanced training measures. Methodical Competence In InWEnt s programmes, participant involvement is a constitutive political and methodological guiding principle. Advanced professional training relates to prior learning processes, enables critical reflection and specifies our present position and thus implies more than mere knowledge transfer. The demand-oriented use of presence and distance modules and the orientation on the participants and the equal importance of methods and contents are core elements of InWEnt s programmes. Balancing methods and contents constitute the core elements of InWEnt understanding of adult education. The combination of targeted offerings aimed to promote a person s competence development, to control and shape processes of organisational development, and for initiating and accompanying political opinion-shaping and development processes characterises the methodical core competence in InWEnt s Capacity Building approach. In the context of impact orientation and sustainability of programmes, transferring and then accompanying the newly-acquired InWEnt: Capacity Building Concept Status: 24 th April

12 competences are integral components of the methodical approach (maintaining post-contacts, international networks). Conclusion In order to offer optimum solutions within it s programmes, InWEnt combines professional, regional, market, and methodical competences demand-oriented and in the context of a comprehensive professional partner network. On this basis, InWEnt acts as a global provider of Capacity Building through advanced training, dialogue, as well as personnel and organisational development within the context of development policy and international cooperation. InWEnt: Capacity Building Concept Status: 24 th April