Capacity building for regulation

Why do we need an innovative approach for capacity building ?
Governments worldwide are striving to create new regulatory bodies in
response to the liberalisation of economies and privatisation. CRC research
on the performance of such institutions has uncovered a lack of conceptual understanding on the part of regulators of the management and
organisational aspects of putting regulatory intentions into practice.
Current literature also reflects a lack of knowledge in this area and
provides an inadequate integration of the respective regulation and
management concepts. Additionally most approaches to capacity building
to address this imbalance of knowledge and practice remain prescriptive
in nature and rely heavily on recommended training to raise performance.
It is in these circumstances that CRC research has pointed the way
forward towards an innovative approach that allows regulators to analyse
the management processes that underpin the effective delivery of
regulation and to identify ‘good practice’ improvement measures. This
policy brief provides a guide to the required methodology which stresses a
move away from prescriptive methods for capacity building towards the
generation of knowledge and actions appropriate for regulators, taking into
account the particular organisational and country circumstances they face