Pact Tanzania’s mission is to build a strong, democratic society that protects the rights of and provides

Pact’s Approach to Capacity Building Pact views capacity building as an essential step in the grant management process. Pact strengthens capacity through formal training workshops, on-site training, providing coaching and mentoring, advisory services, roundtable meetings, study tours, facilitating peer learning and providing resources and connections to appropriate knowledge networks. The technical assistance is tailored to local or regional concerns and priorities.

opportunities to vulnerable children, women, and marginalized groups. As part of this operating philosophy, Pact is committed to building the capacity of civil society organisations (CSOs), public institutions, and communities while promoting adherence to good governance and the sustainable use and management of resources. Pact is widely recognized as a leading facilitator of leadership and organisational development for NGOs, networks and intermediary organisations. Since February 2002 Pact has worked in Tanzania, implementing a variety of capacity building and subgrant management programmes and has assisted over 80 CSOs and local government authorities (LGAs). Pact strengthens organisational capacity through training, mentoring, tailor-made programming and subgrants. This partnership with the CSO, with the goal of strengthening the institution, has been more effective and the organisation is more sustainable than if it was just provided financial resources. Through monitoring and regular contact with the group, the impact of the subgrant has been greater.

Besides just providing grantees with skills training, Pact puts the power of networked information and knowledge to work for organizations and individuals by blending traditional communication strategies with information technology to connect people for information sharing, learning and impact. The appropriate application of modern technologies, integrated with local communication channels and networks, enables people greater access to quality information resources while offering new opportunities to create and share local content.

Pact supports the development of learning networks that strengthen individual and organizational performance. Pact is currently strengthening existing organizational networks in Tanzania that seek to scale-up member effectiveness through a more dynamic and interconnected approach to learning. Pact’s approach enables the formation of thematic learning communities through formal roundtable meetings, regular communications and the integration of web-based information portals, which leverage and extend investments in local training and technical assistance. from $1,000 to over $2 million.

Pact has provided capacity building support in the following areas: Strategic Plan development, Financial Management, Advocacy Skills, Leadership and Governance, Investigative Journalism, media roundtables for Journalists and Media owners, community mobilization and How to work with the Media. Pact has published a widely distributed booklet known as Legislative Roadmap, to guide Tanzanian CSOs in Advocacy activities. This was followed by the Advocacy Expert Series – six booklets to further guide CSOs advocacy initiatives, including a Media Guidebook. These books and a host of other resources are available for downloading on the Pact Tanzania Website As Information and Communications Technology becomes ever more important, Pact Tanzania has developed websites for our partners and provided training to the staff for maintenance and story writing.

. Pact’s approach to capacity building is mindful of the unique needs of each partner and grantee. While in some cases training on a particular topic may benefit many or most programme partners, this does not eliminate the need for more targeted training or mentoring.

Therefore Pact’s approach to the establishment of the Capacity Building Facility will include a combination of the following services:

Trainings on institutional development, technical issues and networking that will assist all or most programme partners in achieving their strategic objectives.

One-on-one mentoring for finance, programme, monitoring and evaluation, and management staff of CSOs by Pact staff who perform similar functions and have experience mentoring other Tanzanian CSOs. Pact Tanzania has found that in many cases mentoring is more effective than sitting through training, and because it requires no more than staff time, it is also a cost-effective means of building CSO capacity.

Special attention to those programme partners that have been selected for capacity building and mentoring, but not to receive grant funds. Trainings in strategic planning and other institutional development topics will be specifically tailored to the needs of these more nascent groups in order to ensure that their capacity building needs are not lost within the capacity building programme for grantees.

The use of networks is a key approach in Pact Tanzania’s capacity building programming. By providing Training of Trainers (TOT) to networks of CSOs, journalists and other groups Pact has been able to provide training at the grassroots level in an efficient and cost-effective way. These trainers are monitored by Pact Tanzania staff for quality assurance purposes.

Pact Tanzania has existing training materials and modules that can be tailored to the needs of the programmes and its partners in the following areas:

Financial management and reporting

Management and Governance

Strategic planning

Resource Mobilization

Budgeting and Operational Planning

Monitoring and Evaluation

Change Management

Gender Mainstreaming

Investigative Journalism

Advocacy

Volunteer Management

Care taking Skills

Participatory planning

Public expenditure tracking systems (PETS)

Working with the media

Engaging government

Community Mobilization

Sector specific accountability (e.g. water, health or education)

Networking