Assessing Capability Change: A Case Study of the Impact of a North Indian NGO

Amartya Sen's ideas of building people's capabilities as a pathway to development is shaping today's developmental discourse in theory and practice. Its effectiveness and efficiency in fostering ethically "good" development is increasingly acknowledged. However, the question inevitably arises: How is developmental progress in terms of capability change to be assessed? The first part of this paper briefly sketches Sen's capability approach and Alkire's concept of capability assessment. The later sections are devoted to the application of these concepts with a case study on a North Indian NGO, SUTRA. The paper presents and analyses the qualitative results of the empirical assessment of capability change induced by SUTRA. The example of this case study shows that the impact of NGOs can, and I suggest should be analysed within a capability framework. For this purpose, Alkire's concept may serve as a powerful tool.