Physician heal thyself, first? I have seen quite a few development projects in recent years that have capacity building of local NGOs as an important part of their overall strategy. On more than one occassion I have come away thinking, and sometimes saying, that the asssiting NGO itself needs some serious capacity building, before much more progress can be made. If capacity building of other organisations is going to be an important project activity then perhaps it may be useful in some circumstances to establish benchmarks of expected capacity that can be readily observed within the assisting organisation itself. This approach might introduce some realism into the capacity building plans, and provoke some useful self-examination in the assisting organisation. (posted 21/02/01)