Capacity-Building Guidance Guidelines and Tools for Getting the Most from Your Technical Assistance

Monitoring and evaluation are core responsibilities of American Red Cross and CRS program managers and help ensure quality in our programming. Capacity-Building Guidance is one in a series of M&E training and capacity-building modules that the American Red Cross and CRS have agreed to collaborate on under their respective Institutional Capacity Building grants. These modules are designed to respond to field-identified needs for specific guidance and tools that did not appear to be available in existing publications. Although examples in the modules focus on Title II programming, the guidance and tools provided have value beyond the food security realm.

Capacity-Building Guidance is intended to help readers get the most from their technical assistance. The module includes components on preparing a scope of work for delivering capacity-building technical assistance, evaluating the services provided, writing a technical assistance delivery report, and providing follow-up assistance.

This module provides private voluntary organizations (PVOs) with the tools and forms needed to simplify, systematize, plan, manage, evaluate, and report on the delivery of all types of capacity-building technical assistance that involve the transfer or sharing of knowledge and skills. The module is designed to serve across all sectors (agriculture, health, and so on); all themes (global solidarity, peace building, and so on); and all functions (monitoring and evaluation [M&E], finance, administration, personnel management, and so on)—whether for training, workshops, on-the-job training, or various forms of learning or sharing technical assistance.