Abstract:
Having followed various different approaches in environmental management capacity
building for a number of years, the Development Bank of Southern Africa (DBSA)
achieved various degrees of success. The increased importance of environmental
management at local government level required a more consistent approach from the
DBSA in order to improve delivery. This necessitated the identification of success criteria
that the DBSA could implement to guide this improvement.
In order to identify these criteria, the following main aspects were researched: The
environmental mandate and capacity of local government in South Africa, the
international perspective on capacity building, the DBSA’s mandate on capacity building
and lastly the outcomes of four environmental capacity building projects implemented by
the DBSA.
The criteria identified focussed on two main areas, namely project management and
environmental management. Furthermore, various steps were identified that the DBSA
needs to take with relation to its own project cycle that might lead to improvements in this
regard.
