Capacity Development Forum (CDF)
Through the Capacity Development Forum (CDF), IIHS brings together diverse stakeholders involved in capacity development in India to form a ‘community of practice’. CDF’s long term objective is to enable collaborative practice and enhance the effectiveness of capacity development initiatives through the creation of an open access repository of knowledge on capacity development. CDF is a gathering of CD practitioners and stakeholders where knowledge is co-created through peer learning, experience sharing, and panel discussions and other formats. The flagship event is the annual CDF convening which takes place at IIHS Bangalore City Campus in a hybrid format and focuses on an engaging theme.
In 2021, the theme was ‘Design and Delivery of Individual Capacity Building Programmes’, and in 2023, the CDF annual convening deliberated on ‘Enabling Environment for Capacity Development – Mandates, Policies, and Institutional Arrangements’. For 2024, the theme is ‘Capacity Development and Behavioural Insights – Implications for Institutional Design and Public Policy’.
Capacity Development Forum 2023
CDF 2023 focussed on the enabling ecosystem and policy environment for capacity development, and examined the approaches and trends in reimagining mandates, structures and institutional arrangements that have shaped development initiatives. The panels brought together important stakeholders from the intersection of various scales, sectors and components of CD to discuss how an enabling environment can address critical challenges, and support innovations for a full cycle approach to capacity building in the development sector.
Capacity Development Forum 2021
The first convening of the CDF, held virtually across 8 – 9 December 2021, focussed on the capacity development of urban practitioners at an individual scale, across different sectors of the Urban. Conversations were grounded in the context of the ongoing pandemic, and its impact on Capacity Development (CD) programmes – how this impacted the shift to online modes of delivery, choice of pedagogical tools and technological solutions, and the overall outlook for future CD practice.