Capacity building is not an event but a process: lesson from health sector decentralization of Nepal

Health Facility Operation and Management Committee are supposed to govern all the affairs of local health facilities under decentralization policy. The capacity building of the committee was deemed necessary and thus different stakeholders involved in the capacity building process. All agreed up on the need of capacity building of the committee but there were different school of thoughts on the contents and process of capacity building. Major capacity building inputs included orientations and training to the committee. However the follow up part was not uniform; some organizations conducted periodic reflection meeting, where as many ended up with the training. There were some tangible changes observed by the capacity building inputs. Their priority however was on infrastructure and drug purchase. The changes observed were very short lived and not sustainable. The capacity building was equated with training and an event with low priority on follow up, monitoring and coaching. It was not thought as a process. A concept of complete package of capacity building should have been developed where training component would be only an element of overall capacity building.