From valuing to evaluating: tools and procedures to operationalise the capability approach

Development Studies series In this chapter, the authors propose tools and procedures for implementing the Capability Approach with respect to children’s development. The first procedure considered addresses the problem of how to conceptualise and value children’s capabilities, while the second is an evaluation tool. The tools and procedures proposed in this chapter follow on from the assumption that the selection of capabilities should be the outcome of a democratic process rooted in public scrutiny and open debate and, most importantly, that this is not exclusively the domain of adults but should be based on children’s participation instead. An appendix describes the detailed questionnaire-based tools and methods used to aggregate ordinal and subjective data.