About us

Table of contents

Discuss, share and collaborate globally!

Capacity4dev is the European Commission’s online knowledge-sharing platform that connects international cooperation professionals and lets them learn, share, and collaborate with other colleagues and stakeholders. Users include EU institutions staff, as well as international cooperation professionals from EU member states, partner governments, civil society, NGOs, international organisations, and the private sector.

Created in 2009 and managed by the Directorate General for International Partnerships (INTPA), Capacity4dev aims to improve capacity development through knowledge sharing by :

  • Facilitating collaboration and engagement among peers.
  • Enabling cross-learning among practitioners from EU institutions and other organisations.
  • Supporting thematic expertise, share lessons learnt and exchange innovative approaches.
  • Consolidating knowledge sharing tools and communities of practice in a common environment.
  • Improving the efficiency, effectiveness, and quality of EU development cooperation.

Discover what you can do on Capacity4dev through this interactive video:

What will you find on Capacity4dev?

Groups

Groups are collaborative online communities where members keep in touch with each other and exchange knowledge on common topics of interest, geographical areas or projects. 

You are welcome to join or create groups with various levels of privacy (public, restricted, or private - by invitation only), to collaborate and engage with your peers. The group tools make it easy for group members to share documents and audio-visual materials, ask questions, comment on content, and promote events.

There are dozens of groups you can join covering most of the topics and areas that development practitioners work in.   

Projects

Projects allow you to share knowledge based on your experience implementing key methodologies and/or working methods, sharing lessons learnt along the way. You can easily offer visibility to a specific project and programme (ongoing or completed). Project pages will be visible to everyone you share the link with, even after completion. 

Do you manage a project or programme that has interesting lessons to share with others? You can launch your own projects/programmes with a custom homepage and/or menu, while benefitting from the full content management experience of Groups.    

Articles and editorial content

The Capacity4dev Editorial Team regularly publishes knowledge pieces on external cooperation (projects and policies) in the form of Voices & Views articles, Editor’s Spotlight and videos. Voices & Views pieces and videos feature cooperation actors from across the world sharing knowledge on development practices and policies, with operational insight. Feel free to contact the Capacity4dev Editorial Team in case you'd like a specific topic or project to be covered. 

In addition, the Editorial Team manages social media accounts on X, Facebook, LinkedIn and YouTube.    

Resources

Capacity4dev provides easy access to useful tools and guidance such as:

Read the Capacity4dev infosheet and find out how the platform can support your work.


Infosheet

Browsing the platform

Browse by Topics and Countries

Capacity4dev covers a broad range of international cooperation topics. You can use the topic and country pages as an entry point to discover the latest updates and relevant content of interest. As a member, by setting your topic and countries of interest, you will automatically receive automatically personalised feeds, tagged accordingly, on your homepage.

Browse here all content types you can find on the platform.  
 

Crowd-sourced and curated content

Most of the content in the groups is crowd-sourced, while the Voices & Views articles and the Editor’s Spotlight are created by our Editorial Team in close collaboration with platform members, INTPA units and, sometimes, external partners. Therefore, it should be noted that this information is provided in the interests of knowledge sharing and capacity development, and should not be interpreted as the official view of the European Commission. For more information please see the Terms & Conditions.

Becoming a Capacity4dev member

By becoming a member of the platform, you can comment on content and stay up to date with key developments relating to your professional field and areas of interest. 

The fast-growing community is open to all stakeholders and practitioners: EU institutions staff, international cooperation professionals from EU member states, partner governments, civil society, NGOs, international organisations, and the private sector. Each member has his/her own profile page with personalised notifications.

You can search through members to find and contact colleagues in your region or working on similar topics. Staff from the European Commission, the European External Action Service, and EU Member States international cooperation departments are encouraged to join the platform using their work email address, as this will grant access to restricted workspaces and additional information.

Watch the virtual tour of the platform here:

Origins

Capacity4dev was originally set up to support a comprehensive reform promoting capacity development, i.e. the Backbone Strategy on "Reforming Technical Cooperation (TC) and Project Implementation Units (PIU)." The platform has since expanded to incorporate a host of topic areas relevant to the international cooperation community.

Technical Cooperation Reform is central to the rationale of Capacity4dev, through these fundamental principles:

  • promoting capacity development;
  • taking into account specific and broad context analysis;
  • adopting a results-oriented approach;
  • promoting ownership;
  • working through harmonised and aligned action;
  • considering different and innovative options for the provision of international cooperation.

The Team

Capacity4dev is supported by a Coordination Team working for the Commission’s Directorate-General for International Partnerships (INTPA), taking strategic decisions, and a Capacity4dev Team of experts who are part of the meldea programme. The Capacity4dev Team is responsible for the good functioning of the website, supporting members and groups, and producing articles.

They are:  
The Coordination Team in INTPA.D4 Unit - Quality and Results, Evaluation, Knowledge Management

Jean-Hervé Ramat, Head of Unit  
Franco Conzato, Senior Expert, Office of the Director for Sustainable Development Policy and Coordination  
Ivica Lekic, Head of Section
Ariella de Gennaro, Capacity4dev Coordinator and Business Manager
 

The Capacity4dev Team in the Meldea programme

Marie Zamecnikova, Capacity4dev Project Management Expert

Claudia Nocente-McPherson, Capacity4dev Content Coordination Expert

Dimitrios Chaidas, Capacity4dev Communications Expert

Maria Sancho, Capacity4dev User Support Management Expert

Lucie Lamoureux, Lead Institutional Development and Knowledge Sharing Expert
 

Are you looking for more information on registration, groups, adding content and interacting on Capacity4dev? Visit the Help & Support page and should you have any additional questions or ideas you'd like to share, reach out to our team at this contact form.