Interview with Ms. Julie Fisher, WEDC, United Kingdom
Updated - Thursday 05 October 2006
Summary of interview
What is the most valuable lesson you’ve learned so far (either from your work or from the symposium) about strengthening capacity for local governance in WASH?
I’m coming in as someone who does not have experience on the ground as such, but who touches on capacity development in terms of providing information that is indirectly used for capacity development. The most valuable thing that I’ve learned is the complexity of capacity development. It seems to me that this issue is hugely complex and I’m not going away with any real solutions to it. I have learned all sorts of different things that are important, for instance that it’s expensive and that it should involve the support of different levels.
What is the most important thing that sector staff should keep in mind in the context of strengthening capacity for local governance?
As a non-expert, the thing that strikes me is that each case is very different. So someone working in the sector and specifically looking at capacity development for local governance should tailor whatever they provide to that local context and not apply a one-size-fits-all approach. Maybe that’s why it’s so complex or why conflicting messages are coming out: different things are applied in different cases.
What does ‘strengthening capacity for local governance’ mean for you in practice? Has it changed or will it change the way you (or your organisation) work(s)? If so, how?
It will not change my work in a direct sense, unless I were to find myself working on a capacity development programme. But having said that, I’ve now gotten awareness of what the concept is, of what some of the issues around it are and that awareness will help me in thinking about who I’m targeting information to, what their needs might be and what the purpose of it all might be. So it is another element to ‘throw’ into the design of publications and outputs.
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