The past decade and a half has seen a great number of innovations for local governments in many parts of the world. Whereas the 1980s were marked by a blinkered approach to reform that was limited to reducing the size and role of government, the Habitat Agenda reflected a change in the debate to getting the right type of government.

Advances made have been incredibly diverse, ranging from participatory budgeting in Latin America to decentralization initiatives in Asia. The Council of Europe's Charter for Local Self-Government has become an important model for developing new relationships between local and national governments.

In Africa, the cycle of Africities conference galvanises local governments to assume a greater role in fulfilling the objectives of both the New Partnership for Africa's Development (NEPAD) and wider development objectives.

Central and Eastern Europe have been witness to a blossoming of local government democracy. There are a number of exciting initiatives to promote participatory governance across many Arab States, and even the most federal of the countries in the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD), the United States and Canada, are undertaking policy reforms to strengthen the role of cities as engines for economic growth.

However divergent these initiatives may be, a constant thread through these initiatives has been the increasing prominence of capacity building activities within local authorities.

Learning, once regarded as a right of passage for a privileged few, is now seen as an invaluable management tool within the private and public sector alike. Indeed capacity building and its ancillaries, including training, research, education, empowerment, networking and information dissemination are among the most frequently cited commitments made by governments within the Habitat Agenda.

Despite impressive investments in capacity building, the results have yielded mixed results. All too often capacity building has been reduced to a series of loosely related workshops offered as either placebo or perk in place of real organisational growth or change.

What has gone wrong and where should efforts be focused in the future?

Firstly, much of the training has not reflected the complexity of local governance. If good governance is about creating an effective political framework conducive to economic growth, the rule of law, efficient administration and a strong civil society, then good urban governance is rooted in blending the capacities of governmental and non-governmental actors at the local level. Building partnerships among often competing interests is a daunting challenge. It is perhaps not surprising that such efforts fail more often than they succeed. The new reality for cities is that they require a flexible workforce with not only sound technical skills, but one that also has a whole host of managerial competencies.

In the 1970s and 80s most local authorities faced critical shortfalls in trained professionals. Today the challenge is to make better use of existing human resources through improved governance and managerial structures.

Participatory consultation and decision-making, conflict resolution, project management and evaluation are just some of the core critical skills which are lacking in many local authorities. Indeed these skills are of such importance to the sustainable growth of cities they should not be confined to local authorities alone. The private sector, NGOs and CBOs have an increasing role to play in the management of cities and their services, and must therefore be a key component of any capacity building strategy.

The second factor has been the question of scale. Unfortunately, in many countries training is seen as a donor's by-product. More often than not, training is targeted to a selected few. Without local ownership and adequate resources, the potential benefits of training will rarely be realised. The evidence is clear: to be effective training must be offered in a systematic manner across departments and tailored to the unique realities of the locality. It can be argued that one of the principle benefits of training events is that they can provide a unique opportunity for problem solving. Where local authorities have appointed their own dedicated training specialist, the impact of national programmes has been immeasurably increased. This so-called "training of trainers" model has demonstrated that it is indeed possible to institutionalise capacity building in a cost effective manner. Recent innovations in distance learning through the use of information and communication technologies offer a number of intriguing possibilities in this regard.

Finally, it is important to remember that training can only ever be part of the solution to realising the goal of good urban governance. In fact, training is only one component of capacity building. Leadership, resource mobilisation, policy development and administrative reform are all critical components to building capacity. When offered in this type of decentralised manner, capacity building results in not only improving skills but also delivering tangible benefits to the community.

John Hogan is a Human Settlements Officer with the Training and Capacity Building Branch.

UN-HABITAT's Training and Capacity Building Branch (TCBB) supports national local government training institutions to build their capacity to implement innovative governance programmes targeted at local governments and development oriented NGOs and CBOs. Training programmes and manuals enable these institutions to adapt internally recognised tools to local contexts in Africa, Asia, Latin America and the group of Countries in Transition. National training institutions are supported by: (1) organising regional workshops on developing capacity-building strategies and expert group meetings to analyse training need assessments and to design new training manuals and other tools; (2) developing with partners, generic manuals and handbooks on local governance; (3) conducting training of trainers and action planning workshops; (4) supporting adaptation of these tools to national languages and context; and lastly, (5) assisting institutions in designing national training programmes. TCBB manuals have been successfully translated and adapted to over 20 languages. For more information, visit: www.unhabitat/tcbb