​This briefing paper sets out the need for smarter approaches to the ways in which capacity building is conducted by the international community. The findings emerge from the report, After Ebola: why and how capacity support to Sierra Leone’s health sector needs to change. The central argument is that capacity building has been thought about and operationalised in a narrow, technical way, and that development partners need to ‘do capacity building differently’ in order to better strengthen capacities and provide improved healthcare to communities. The briefing proposes four recommendations.

Richard Mallett and Lisa Denney