UCLA

Capacity building of local governments can strengthen a country because enhancing the abilities of individuals and institutions helps achieve the nation’s development goals. As it is one of the development strategies in Zambia, the country has undertaken countless capacity building programs through the cooperation with international and donor organizations. Yet, the effectiveness of the programs is uncertain.

This thesis, therefore, examines the impact of capacity building to the planning officers in Zambia. First, surveys were conducted to analyze the officials’ incentives to attend training and acquire planning-related skills in a range of Geographic Information Systems (GIS) and spatial analyses. Then, a GIS training was evaluated qualitatively and quantitatively to assess how much they improved their skills through the project. Finally, by comparing the relationship between the individual incentives and training results of the officials, this thesis demonstrates that personal incentives can play a key role in capacity building.