Capacity building in Southern Africa: Experiences and reflections: Towards joint knowledge production and social change in international development cooperation

The intent of capacity building in international development cooperation is to enable people to control their own development. Important premises are ownership, choice and self‐esteem. The authors analyse the dynamics of the enabling process in practice, based on their own experiences working for several years in universities in developing countries, specifically in South Africa and Mozambique. The analysis highlights the importance of the primary process between the partners to develop joint knowledge production strategies and stresses the challenge of less favourable institutional conditions in both the North and the South.