Partnership Capacity Building for Economic Strengthening in HIV and AIDS-Impacted Communities: Two Cases from Rwanda

This technical note shares experiences and lessons learned from two international NGOs, CHF International and Catholic Relief Services that worked with local partners to deliver microfinance and microenterprise development services to clients affected by HIV and AIDS in Rwanda.

Effective capacity building is critical for successful services delivery. CHF helped build partner capacity through technical training, institutional and management support. CRS's capacity building activities included direct training, mentoring and experiential learning.

CHF and CRS offer the following lessons and recommendations for capacity building with partners:

• There should not be a mission mismatch between lead and local partners;
• Local partners might need capacity building in economic development programming;
• Capacity building needs to be demand-driven;
• Training is not nearly as effective as individual attention in the form of counselling, mentoring, guidance and in-person observation;
• In cases where existing capacity is lacking, partners can either train existing staff or hire staff with economic development experience;
• For organizations with multiple local partners, partner-peer learning can be an effective and low-cost way to improve partner capacity building;
• Partner commitment is necessary for positive results.