Organisational capacity strengthening and international volunteering

The Australian Volunteers Program matches a broad range of skilled Australians with partner organisations overseas, to support these organisations to achieve their own development goals. The program is an important part of the Australian Government’s aid program, connecting volunteers to communities throughout the region, and using global volunteering as a people-centred approach to capacity strengthening. The program’s overarching goal is to support locally-led change and the realisation of the Sustainable Development Goals through global volunteering. 

UTS Institute for Sustainable Futures (ISF) researchers are working with the Australian Volunteers Program and a selection of partners in Indonesia, Fiji, Vietnam and Sri Lanka to undertake research on processes and outcomes of organisational capacity strengthening, as defined by both partner organisations and the Australian Volunteers Program. Together, they are exploring the following questions, with partners taking a lead role in researching their own experiences and ISF researchers providing regular technical support:

How is organisational capacity strengthening understood in different contexts in which the Australian Volunteers Program works?
What changes are experienced by partner organisations to their organisational capacity over the research period?
Who or what contributed to organisational capacity strengthening in the partner organisations?
In what ways has the Australian Volunteers Program contributed to organisational capacity strengthening?
Do changes in organisational capacity enable partner organisations to achieve their development objectives, and if so how, if not why not?
Informed by the research findings, in what ways can international volunteering best support organisations to achieve development outcomes?
Informed by the research findings, what lessons can be learned about researching organisational capacity strengthening in the context of international volunteering?

The research is to be managed through a partnership approach. Research governance will operate as a global research project and also as country-level research activities and primarily be sustained through annual cycles of reflection and planning. Outcomes from country level governance activities, including reflection on research practice and recommendations for refinement, annual partner health checks will feed into global level governance processes inclusive of all POs participating, together with UTS-ISF and Australian Volunteers Program staff.