Do's and dont's

Capacity building

Do's

  • Good structure and organization within the national association there.
  • Capable and reliable project coordinators (who have time).
  • A clear distribution of responsibilities.
  • Support from the board for the project coordinators.
  • Careful communication between all organizations involved, both nationally and locally.
  • Follow up (after the Dutch instructors have left).

Dont's

  • Confusion about the distribution of responsibilities on the project. This delayed launching the project.
  • Insufficient support from the association and the board to:
    - project coordinators
    - trained coaches (no supporting course materials, certificates or follow-up after the KNHB instructors had left)
  • Inadequate communication from the local association to the regions.

Monitoring and evaluation

Direct link

The project underwent annual evaluations by the SAHA project coordinator, the KNHB project coordinator, the instructors and the participants. This train-the-trainer project was never linked directly with capacity building or with building a sports infrastructure. The indirect link (better-educated trainers and consequently a better local infrastructure) was quantifiable, based on the level the participants attained. In the upcoming project, a direct link is both identifiable and quantifiable between the project and the local sports infrastructure (how many courses take place and where; how many participants attain A/B levels and where). In the first year the evaluation forms were too complex and too comprehensive for instructors and could be interpreted in various ways (the project in one region was described in entirely different terms from an equivalent project in a different region).

Do's

Simple and clear evaluation forms (to include participants in the evaluation process)

Good consultation between the Dutch instructor and the local project coordinator

Advice regarding follow-up (period that the Dutch instructor is absent).

Dont's

  • Overly complex evaluation/assessment forms
  • Evaluation criteria that can be interpreted in various ways
  • No consultation between the Dutch instructor and the local project coordinator.