Increasing the use of participatory techniques also involves the strengthening
of human and institutional capacities. Indeed the building, developing and strengthening
of institutions' and people's skills is at the heart of making most dimensions
of the enabling environment work better - to achieve technology transfer.
Several terms are in use: capacity building, capacity development and capacity
strengthening, depending on whether the need is for creation, reform, or support
of activities and structures. The term 'capacity strengthening' has been advocated
because more often than not, organisations and institutions already exist and
that capacity can often be increased more effectively by reinforcing existing
structures rather than by building new ones (et al., 1997. 'Capacity building'
has also been criticised as implying an engineering approach to the creation of
new capacity (OECD, 1995). However, as the term 'capacity-building' is now being
used within the UNFCCC, it will be adopted here. Whilst there are linkages between
capacity building for promoting the transfer of ESTs for mitigation and the adoption
of technologies for adaptation, the emphases are different so they will be considered
separately here. Principally, the difference is that whilst there has been some
experience with the transfer of energy efficient technologies and renewable energy
technologies, principally for development objectives (so reasons for 'failure'
are known), there is comparatively little experience with the assessment and transfer
of adaptation technologies. In part this is due to the absence of systematic impact
and vulnerability assessment which few countries, developed or developing, have
undertaken.
