About Us

Capacity4dev

Join – Share - Learn

 

Capacity4dev is the European Commission’s online knowledge-sharing platform that connects development professionals, where you can share, learn and collaborate with colleagues and relevant stakeholders. Members include EU staff, as well as development professionals from EU member states, partner governments, civil society, NGOs, international organisations, and the private sector.

Created in 2009 and managed by the Directorate General for International Partnerships (INTPA), Capacity4dev aims to improve capacity development through knowledge sharing by:

  • Facilitating collaboration and engagement among peers
  • Enabling cross learning among practitioners from EU institutions and other organisations
  • Supporting thematic expertise, share lessons learnt and exchange innovation
  • Consolidating knowledge sharing tools and communities of practice in a common environment
  • Improving the efficiency, effectiveness, and quality of EU development cooperation

Click on the play button below to watch our interactive video to discover what you can do on Capacity4dev

Connecting the Development Community



Groups

Groups are collaborative online communities to keep in touch with each other and exchange knowledge on common topics of interest, geographical areas or projects.

You are welcome to join or create groups with various levels of privacy (public, restricted, or private - by invitation only), to collaborate and engage with your peers. The group tools make it easy for group members to share documents and audio-visual materials, ask questions, comment on content, and promote events.

There are dozens of groups you can join covering most of the topics and areas that development practitioners work in.

The editorial team helps groups engaging discussions about specific lessons learnt or best practices in short, curated group discussions.



Projects

Projects allow you to share knowledge based on your experience implementing key methodologies and/or working methods, sharing lessons learnt along the way. You can easily offer visibility to a specific project and programme (ongoing or completed). Project pages will be visible to everyone you share the link with, even after completion.

Do you manage a project or programme that has interesting lessons to share with others? You can launch your own projects/programmes with a custom homepage and/or menu, while benefiting from the full content management experience of Groups.



Editorial content

The Capacity4dev editorial team regularly publishes knowledge pieces on external cooperation (projects and policies) in the form of Voices & Views articles, discussions within groups, and videos. Voices & Views pieces and videos feature development actors from across the world sharing knowledge on development practices and policies, with operational insight.  Articles, videos and group discussions form a treasure trove of colleagues and experts' insights and views. Should you have an idea for a Voices & Views article with best practices useful for peers, feel free to contact the Capacity4dev editorial team. These will be shared on the platform's homepage as well as on Capacity4dev social media channels.



Topics

Capacity4dev covers a broad range of international development topics, from thematic to horizontal. You can use the topic pages as an entry point to discover the latest updates and relevant content of interest. You can subscribe to receive notifications on specific topics, geographical areas and groups, you can receive this information directly in your inbox.



Resources

Capacity4dev provides easy access to useful tools and guidance such as:

Members

By becoming a member of the platform, you can comment on content and stay up to date with key developments relating to your professional field or areas of interest. 

You can search through members to find and contact colleagues in your region or working on similar topics. Staff from the European Commission, European External Action Service and EU Member States international cooperation departments are encouraged to join the platform using their work email address, as this will grant access to restricted workspaces and additional information. Should you have an EU Login account, please sign in with it for a quicker access.

The fast-growing community is open to all stakeholders and practitioners: EU staff, development professionals from EU member states, partner governments, civil society, NGOs, international organisations, and the private sector. Each member has his/her own profile page with personalised notifications.

Are you looking for more information on registration, groups, adding content and interacting on Capacity4dev? Visit our Help pages: Do you have any questions, ideas? Get in touch with us: support@capacity4dev.eu

Information on the platform

Most of the content in the groups is crowd -sourced, while the Voices & Views are created by journalists, working for the platform, in close collaboration with members of the site and the INTPA units. Therefore, it should be noted that this information is provided in the interests of knowledge sharing and capacity development, and this should not be interpreted as the official view of the European Commission. For more information please see the Terms and Conditions.

 

Origins

Capacity4dev was originally set up to support a comprehensive reform promoting capacity development: the Backbone Strategy on "Reforming Technical Cooperation (TC) and Project Implementation Units (PIU)." The platform has since expanded to incorporate a host of topic areas relevant to the development community.

Technical Cooperation Reform is central to the rationale of Capacity4dev, through these fundamental principles:

  • promoting capacity development
  • taking account of specific and broad context analysis
  • adopting a results orientation
  • promoting ownership
  • working through harmonised and aligned action
  • considering different and innovative options for the provision of development cooperation



The Team

Capacity4dev is supported by a Coordination Team working for the Commission’s Directorate-General for International Partnerships (INTPA), taking strategic decisions, and a Capacity4dev Team of experts who are part of the Methodological Knowledge Sharing (MKS) programme. The Capacity4dev Team is responsible for the good functioning of the website, supporting members and groups, and producing articles.

They are:

The Coordination Team in INTPA.D4 Unit - Performance, Results and Evaluation; Internal Communication, Knowledge Management and Collaborative Methods

The Capacity4dev Team in the Methodological Knowledge Sharing (MKS) programme