March 2017 — Capacity building has been the cornerstone of international development for decades, but approaches to capacity building have not led to effective, sustainable change as have intended. There is a need for a better approach — a performance improvement approach. This fact sheet provides an overview of FHI 360’s performance improvement approach, which addresses both human and organizational performance factors in an integrated way. The approach also supports the interplay of leadership and individual skills and knowledge, as well as organizational structures and procedures. This is a complex but necessary approach to ensuring that obstacles to performance are removed so that organizations can deliver results.