Meaning and Differences
EXT 505 – Capacity Development · Block 1, Unit 1, Topic 1 · M.Sc. Extension Education
Punjab Agricultural University, Ludhiana
Introduction
These four terms are used almost interchangeably in everyday extension conversation — "we need to train the farmers," "we're building their capacity," "this is a capacity development project," "our HRD department handles this." In careful academic and professional use, however, each term has a distinct scope, time horizon, and level of intervention. This distinction is foundational: every other topic in this course — needs assessment, project formulation, evaluation — is scoped differently depending on which of these four activities is actually being planned.
Learning Outcomes
- Define Training, Capacity Building, Capacity Development, and HRD precisely.
- Differentiate the four in terms of scope, level, and time horizon.
- Explain the historical progression from a training focus to a capacity development focus in international development discourse.
- Locate each concept's typical level of intervention — individual, organisational, or institutional/systemic.
Four Definitions
Training
A planned, short-term activity aimed at improving specific knowledge, skills, or attitudes needed for a defined task or job role. Narrow in scope, individual-level, immediate application.
Capacity Building
A broader, deliberate effort to create or strengthen abilities — of individuals, organisations, or systems — that did not previously exist or were weak. Often implies starting from a low base.
Capacity Development
An ongoing, endogenous process by which individuals, organisations, and societies obtain, strengthen, and maintain the capabilities to set and achieve their own development objectives over time (UNDP, 1997). Broader and more process-oriented than "building" — assumes some capacity already exists and focuses on its evolution and sustainability.
Human Resource Development (HRD)
An organisational systems approach to developing employee/member competencies through interrelated sub-systems — training, performance appraisal, career planning, organisational development — aimed at both individual growth and organisational effectiveness (Nadler, 1970).
Comparing the Four Concepts
| Dimension | Training | Capacity Building | Capacity Development | HRD |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Scope | Narrow — one skill/task | Broad — multiple abilities | Broadest — abilities + their sustained use | Organisation-wide systems |
| Time Horizon | Short-term, often one-off | Medium-term project cycle | Long-term, continuous | Ongoing, career-length |
| Primary Level | Individual | Individual or organisational | Individual, organisational, and institutional/systemic | Individual within an organisation |
| Starting Assumption | Learner lacks a specific skill | Capacity is largely absent or weak | Some capacity exists; focus is strengthening and sustaining it | Employee has potential to be systematically developed |
| Extension Example | One-day pesticide-safety training | 3-year project building an FPO's management ability from scratch | A KVK's continuous, self-renewing system of farmer skill-upgradation over years | An organisation's full career, performance, and training system for its extension staff |
⚠️ Common Error
Treating "capacity building" and "capacity development" as pure synonyms. The distinction matters in international development literature specifically because "building" implies creating something from nothing, while "development" implies an existing, endogenous process being strengthened — donors and UN agencies deliberately shifted terminology in the 1990s for this reason (see Historical Note below).
Visualising the Scope Relationship
Training is one specific activity within the broader effort of capacity building, which is itself one strategy within the ongoing process of capacity development. HRD runs alongside all three as the organisational system that houses and coordinates them.
Why the Terminology Shifted
ЁЯУЬ From "Building" to "Development"
Through the 1970s–80s, international development practice spoke mainly of "training" and "institution building" — implying outsiders constructing capacity in a passive recipient. By the 1990s, agencies including UNDP explicitly moved to "capacity development" language, deliberately emphasising that capacity is an endogenous process — something a society or organisation develops for itself, with external support facilitating rather than constructing it (UNDP, 1997; Lopes & Theisohn, 2003). This is not just a wording change — it reflects a genuine shift in who is understood to hold agency in the process.
Indian Institutional Context
ЁЯЗоЁЯЗ│ Terminology in Practice
KVKs run individual trainings (e.g., a one-day IPM session) as part of a broader capacity development mandate for farmers across seasons. ATMA's Strategic Research and Extension Plan (SREP) is explicitly a capacity development instrument, not a single training. NABARD and ICAR both maintain formal HRD cells or cadres managing staff training, career progression, and performance systems as a distinct organisational function from farmer-facing capacity building.
Beyond Agriculture
ЁЯФД Transferable Distinction
A hospital's one-day CPR refresher is training; a multi-year programme building a rural clinic's ability to run its own diagnostic services is capacity building; a national health system's ongoing capability to plan, deliver, and adapt its own services is capacity development; and the hospital's internal career, appraisal, and training systems for its staff constitute its HRD function. Same four-way distinction, different sector.
❓ Frequently Asked Questions
Click any question to reveal the answer.
Not purely a matter of duration — the deeper distinction is about who drives the process. Capacity building often implies an external actor constructing missing capacity; capacity development assumes the individual/organisation/society already has some capacity and agency, and support is aimed at strengthening and sustaining what is genuinely theirs.
HRD is best understood as the organisational infrastructure — the systems (training, appraisal, career planning) — that an organisation uses to carry out training, capacity building, or capacity development for its own members. It's a management framework that houses these activities rather than a competing definition of them.
Yes — a multi-year KVK farmer programme might include individual trainings (Training), aim to build an FPO's management ability from scratch (Capacity Building), be designed as part of an ongoing, self-sustaining extension system (Capacity Development), and be run through the KVK's internal staff development systems (HRD). The terms describe different lenses on the same effort, not mutually exclusive categories.
It changes how you plan and evaluate. A training is evaluated by immediate knowledge gain (Kirkpatrick Level 2). Capacity development is evaluated over years, by whether the system sustains and improves its own capability after external support ends — a much harder and longer-term evaluation question, covered later in this course under Impact Assessment.
References (click to expand)
Capacity Development Concepts
- UNDP. (1997). Capacity Development: Technical Advisory Paper 2. United Nations Development Programme.
- Lopes, C., & Theisohn, T. (2003). Ownership, Leadership and Transformation: Can We Do Better for Capacity Development?. Earthscan/UNDP.
- Morgan, P. (2006). The Concept of Capacity. European Centre for Development Policy Management.
- Eade, D. (1997). Capacity-Building: An Approach to People-Centred Development. Oxfam GB.
Human Resource Development
- Nadler, L. (1970). Developing Human Resources. Gulf Publishing.
- Rao, T. V. (1996). Human Resources Development: Experiences, Interventions, Strategies. Sage Publications.
Extension Education Texts
- Ray, G. L. (2006). Extension Communication and Management. Naya Prakash.
- Dahama, O. P., & Bhatnagar, O. P. (1998). Education and Communication for Development. Oxford & IBH.
- De, D., & Jirli, B. (2001). A Handbook of Extension Education. Agrobios (India).