SMART Skills Competency Model: A Theory of Action For Capacity Building in Agriculture And Livelihoods Programming
The Water Smart Agriculture Program for Mesoamerica (WSA) played a key role in the design and testing of the natural resource management and innovation competencies in the CRS SMART Skills Competency Model. The competency model is intended as a practical framework to inform and support the design, implementation and evaluation of capacity building strategies, curriculum, and activities. The competency model approach to social behavior change describes the key behaviors and observable behavioral evidence that can be used to assess concrete behavior change in the field. WSA has developed and implemented evaluation tools with more than 2000 farmers and extensionists in 4 Central American countries. Competency-based evaluation studies have provided concrete evidence of practice adoption, farmer and extensionist feedback on perceived costs, benefits, and barriers to adoption, and the identification of gaps for further training and extension efforts.