Sustainable organizational capacity building: is organizational learning a key?

This article offers reflections on an unexpected outcome of a study of the distinctive 'twinning' method employed during the last two decades by the Swedish International Development Cooperation Agency (Sida) to promote sustainable organizational and institutional capacity building in developing countries. Twinning arrangements have produced impressive benefits at the level of professional/technical upgrading, but results at the level of sustainable capacity building have generally been less satisfactory. Consequently, Sida have speculated whether the notion of organizational learning might provide a productive framework for twinning projects. The article reports on what appears to be the 'discovery' of an evolving 'learning organization' in apparently unlikely circumstances, and examines the factors which might account for this. The broader implications of the 'discovery' are discussed, and the possible relevance of the notion of tacit knowledge is suggested.