Capacity Strengthening in CLARE: What Learners Valued
Capacity strengthening is often described through the usual activities: workshops, trainings, mentoring sessions, fellowships, peer learning, toolkits, field visits and webinars.
These activities matter. But they are only part of the story.
Across CLARE, capacity strengthening has taken many different forms. Some approaches were designed to build technical knowledge and skills. Others aimed to strengthen confidence, leadership, relationships, collaboration and research-for-impact capacities. Some created spaces for co-learning, reflection and applying knowledge in practice.
This diversity shows something important: there is no silver bullet for capacity strengthening. Different approaches can strengthen different capacities, and their value often comes from how they work together.
From Activities to Learner Experience
We often look at capacity strengthening from the perspective of the designer: what was planned, delivered and completed.
But what happens when we look at it from the learner’s perspective? What did learners actually gain from these approaches, and what were they able to use?
To help answer this question, the CS Hub introduced the Capacity Rug, a reflection tool for learners to look back at their own capacity strengthening journey.
The Capacity Rug invites learners to map their experience using four simple elements:
Threads are the CS approaches they experienced, such as training, peer learning, mentoring, workshops, field visits or co-creation.
Patches are the gains they actually received, such as new skills, confidence, relationships, leadership, or a change in how they think or work.
Holes are the barriers that limited their ability to use those gains in real life.
Background fabric is the wider context: institutions, power dynamics, workloads, resources, local conditions and social relationships.
The Capacity Rug is now publicly available. Explore and use the tool here => https://plan-adapt.org/capacity-rug/
What the Capacity Rug Helped Us See
This tool helped us move beyond the question, “What activities were delivered?” but asks: What did learners experience on their capacity strengthening journey, and what helped or blocked them from using what they gained?
We tested the Capacity Rug with CLARE learners to explore what they gained from different CS approaches and what enabled or constrained them in applying their learning. Their reflections offered useful insights into how capacity strengthening was experienced in practice. One clear pattern was that learners did not identify one approach as the most valuable. Instead, they valued a diversity of approaches that played different and complementary roles in their capacity-strengthening journeys.
Structured learning, such as workshops and seasonal schools, helped introduce concepts, methods and technical tools. Real World Labs, field visits, co-researcher training and community mapping helped learners apply knowledge to real situations. Mentoring and fellowships strengthened confidence, leadership and negotiation skills. Peer learning, working groups, CLARExchange and WhatsApp exchanges helped learners build relationships and find people they could contact for advice.
This suggests that capacity strengthening designers should connect the approach to the capacity they want to strengthen. The question is not simply, “Which approach should we use?” It is: “What should change for the learner, and which approach or combination of approaches could support that change?”
Learners particularly valued support that was practical, relational and connected to their work.
By practical, we mean that learners could test a method or use a tool on a real task.
By relational, we mean that learners had access to mentors, peers and trusted networks.
By connected to work, we mean that the learning helped address an actual challenge in their project, institution or community.
But the Capacity Rug also showed that learning does not automatically become action.
Where Learning Gets Blocked
Learners described many “holes” in their rugs. These included institutional hierarchy, bureaucracy, heavy workloads, limited funding, unclear contact points, lack of follow-up support, distance, time zones and limited decision-making authority.
One learner described this clearly:
This matters for climate adaptation. Climate adaptation work is highly context specific. A tool or approach that works well in one setting may not work in the same way somewhere else.
Learners’ ability to use technical tools, co-creation methods, peer-learning insights or policy-engagement skills depended on the wider system around them. They needed time, authority, resources, supportive relationships and opportunities to apply what they had learned.
In other words, the background fabric can be just as important as the threads and patches.
What this Means for Capacity Strengthening of Climate Adaptation
The learners’ reflections help us compare literature-informed ideas about effective capacity strengthening with learners’ real experiences. This comparison points to several practical lessons for climate adaptation.
An overall design principle runs through all these lessons: start with the capacity that needs to be strengthened, not with a preferred activity.
First, individual learning is not enough. Learners may gain confidence and skills, but they still need institutional space, time, authority, resources and support to use them.
Second, training is more useful when it is linked to practice. Learners valued opportunities to apply learning to a real task in their own work context. This could include testing a tool, facilitating a stakeholder meeting, producing a community map or contributing to a policy product. Space for practice and feedback should be included in the capacity strengthening design.
Third, short-term workshops need follow-up. One-off events can spark ideas, but sustained capacity often needs mentoring, implementation support, funding, and clearer pathways for continued exchange.
Fourth, co-production needs to be resourced. Co-creation and community knowledge were strongly valued, but they also require time, facilitation, recognition, and links to formal decision-making spaces.
Fifth, peer learning does not happen automatically. It works better when there is trust, clear purpose, good facilitation, and practical ways to know who to contact and why.
Sixth, capacity strengthening should start from existing assets, not only from gaps. Learners brought local knowledge, professional experience, networks, institutional mandates and project expertise. These are not empty spaces to fill; they are capacities to recognise and strengthen.
Finally, technical capacity must be combined with soft and process capacities. Climate adaptation needs data and tools, but it also needs communication, leadership, negotiation, relationship-building and political awareness.
Capacity Strengthening is a Journey
The Capacity Rug helped make these lessons visible.
It showed that CS approaches are not just activities in a workplan. They are part of a wider learning journey. Some threads are strong. Some patches are clear. Some holes remain. And the background fabric shapes everything.
That is where capacity strengthening becomes more than support.
Further reading and references
Supporting capacity strengthening in complex climate adaptation contexts
Baser, H., Morgan, P., Bolger, J., Brinkerhoff, D., Land, A., Taschereau, S., Watson, D., & Zinke, J. (2008). Capacity, change and performance: Study report (ECDPM Discussion Paper No. 59B). European Centre for Development Policy Management (ECDPM): Maastricht, Netherlands. Available at: https://www.cabidigitallibrary.org/doi/full/10.5555/20083150418 [Accessed 31 Dec. 2025]
Valters, C., Cummings, C., & Nixon, H. (2016). Putting learning at the centre: Adaptive development programming in practice. Overseas Development Institute. Available at: https://odi.org/en/publications/putting-learning-at-the-centre-adaptive-development-programming-in-practice/ [Accessed 31 Dec. 2025]
Structured learning
Argyris, C., & Schön, D. A. (1978). Organizational learning: A theory of action perspective. Addison-Wesley: Reading, MA.
Kolb, D. A. (1984). Experiential learning: Experience as the source of learning and development. Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice Hall. Available at: https://carleton-wp-production.s3.amazonaws.com/uploads/sites/313/2022/12/Experiential_Learning_Experience_As_The_Source_Of_-1.pdf [Accessed 31 Dec. 2025]
Learning through relationships and peer exchange
Cundill, G., Roux, D. J., & Parker, J. N. (2015). Nurturing communities of practice for transdisciplinary research. Ecology and Society, 20(2). http://www.jstor.org/stable/26270207
Reed, M. S., Evely, A. C., Cundill, G., Fazey, I., Glass, J., Laing, A., Newig, J., Parrish, B., Prell, C., Raymond, C., & Stringer, L. C. (2010). What is social learning? Ecology and Society, 15(4), Article 1. https://www.jstor.org/stable/26268235
Wenger, E. (1998). Communities of practice: Learning, meaning, and identity. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press. Available at: https://doi.org/10.1017/CBO9780511803932 [Accessed 31 Dec. 2025]