Kilimanyika offers services in capacity building through planning, training, facilitation and mentoring, working with both communities and individuals. We are able to do this because of strong management and facilitation experiences with a range of stakeholders.

We have developed the capacities of communities to manage their resources through advice, accompaniment, facilitation of planning and training sessions for organisations. We have also developed functional management plans and guidelines and indicators for monitoring and evaluation.

Training of staff and restructuring of organisations has been at the heart of our work. We have built up hierarchies of staff to better manage business and NGOs. We have facilitated workshops to develop understanding of issues and rights. We have worked with communities on developing their awareness of land ownership rights and helped them develop community tenure and income generating activities.

The following brief case studies give some indication of where we have carried out capacity building consulting in practice.

• Creation of a monitoring framework. Working with WWF's RUMAKI programme in 2008, in collaboration with district governments of Rufiji, Mafia and Kilwa, Tanzania, including MACEMP associates to develop a participatory monitoring plan for the ongoing collaborative fisheries management. Work included a consultative field process and was followed by the production of a plan which incorporated biophysical, socio-economic and governance related indicators that will be used in monitoring and evaluation of the programme in future.
  
  
• Creation of Village Environmental Management Plans for two villages in Sudan's Dongonab Bay Marine Park on behalf of IUCN and the African Parks Foundation in 2007 to increase the capacity of rural communities to own and manage their marine and coastal resources sustainably. The process was developed through participatory focus groups and close collaboration with both local leadership, government representatives and marine park managers on the Red Sea coast of Sudan.
  
  
• Developing a socio-economic monitoring plan for nine villages in Tanzania's southern highlands on behalf of WWF to increase the capacity of rural communities to manage forest resources sustainably. The plan, developed after consulations in 2006, focuses on developing capacity in key areas such as organisational development, environmental education, village level patrols, tree planting, access to renewable energy and land use planning.
  
  
• Community Forest Management with the Mpingo Conservation Project, Kilwa, 2004-05 and 2007-08. We have worked with local government, village leaders, councils and community members as a whole to develop the capacities of individuals and village government to be able to manage their own resources through the development of Village Forest Areas. This involved regular consultation, participatory discussions, awareness raising campaigns and step-by-step mentoring in developing management planning structures and guidelines. Good Governance has been an important aspect of this ongoing work in 2008 and included our being commissioned to carry out an evaluation of the project in late 2007 to report back to the project's donors.
  
  
• Staff training and hierarchical development, for BCW Holdings Ltd, Arusha, Tanzania, 2002-03. Our work involved bringing levels of training and capabilities of staff to levels that both increased their efficiency in the working environment and developed their potential for promotion and improved positions elsewhere. This work included the design and establishment of an organisational hierarchy that led to better, more productive management of the company as a whole.