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  Capacity-Building > What is Capacity?
   
  Go to:
  Definitions of capacity
  Models of capacity and capacity building
 
   
  Definitions of capacity
  What is capacity and how can we build it? (some lessons from the literature)
  Center for Community Capacity - Definition of capacity
 
   
  Models of capacity and capacity building
  The following are examples of different ways that researchers and practitioners have attempted to understand what community capacity is, and how it gets built. Not all of these examples are focused on the forest sector or on Aboriginal peoples. They are also very different kinds of diagrams, developed for different purposes. Nonetheless, many of them make use of similar concepts and relationships.
     
 

Mendis (2004) developed the following conceptual model of community capacity based on a literature review, grounded field work, and analysis of field data and other available data. The study looked closely at the status and needs for capacity in two Canadian Biosphere Reserves: the Clayoquot Sound and Redberry Lake Biosphere Reserves. Mendis's model is particularly interesting in the context of Aboriginal forestry, because it attempts to integrate key principles of the Nuu-chah-nulth Peoples' relationship to the land and to each other.

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  Beckley and others (2004) presented a model that emphasizes a key role for four types of "relational sphere". While a community may have resources (social, natural, financial, etc.), they are not considered "capacity" unless they are successfully applied to challenges that face the community. Whether or not the capacity is used will depend on whether the necessary relational spheres are present and utilized.

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  The First Nations Forestry Program (2003) developed a "logic model" to show how it intends to meet its objectives, all of which relate to capacity buiding. This kind of model is different from the others shown above, because it focuses less on a theoretical understanding of capacity building and more on linking practical activities to the goal of building capacity building.

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  As part of work in the Capacity Working Group of the National Forest Strategy Team 3, the National Aboriginal Forestry Association (2006) has proposed a conceptual model of how some of the ideas shown in other models on this page fit with issues specific to Aboriginal rights and participation in the forest sector of Canada.

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  Stanley and Campbell (2006) developed this model specifically for the purpose of organizing thoughts around developing the capacity of Aboriginal communities to pursue opportunities in common with the developing forest sector as a whole in the Province of Saskatchewan.

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