Donor perspectives on strengthening capacity development for conservation

How did this short communication come about?
This short communication was the result of collaboration that happened at a conference, i.e. the Capacity Building for Conservation (CB4C) 2019 Global Conference. This CB4C 2019 conference was the fourth in a series of international meetings and provided global perspectives on the pathways for growing human capital to address increasingly complex environmental challenges. Previous conferences had brought together participations around regional capacity building needs (Latin America 2015, Africa 2016, and Asia 2017). This international event brought together 150+ capacity development practitioners, academics, donors, and partners to discuss and develop effective solutions to a range of capacity issues.
The three-day conference took place in London, UK, from July 30th to August 1st 2019. The conference’s second day provided donors of conservation a space to engage with practitioners and explore how to collaboratively develop and implement pathways to move forward. In the first half of the day, donors and partners shared their investment interests, successes, and lessons learned. In the afternoon, all conference participants were gather in small groups to share ideas about how to design and invest in sustainable capacity building for conservation. Through presentations and engaging discussions, the day produced a collection of viewpoints from donors and practitioners and a snapshot of these are presented in the short communication article.
Abstract
Global perspectives on the pathways for developing capacity for conservation remain limited. Hindering the robustness of solutions is a dearth of opportunities to foster discussion and dialogue among capacity development practitioners, academics, partners, beneficiaries and donors. Additionally, little is known about donor perspectives on capacity development, and about pathways to developing a more sustainable investment in capacity development for conservation. The 2019 Capacity Building for Conservation Conference in London, UK, provided a unique opportunity to convene more than 150 capacity development practitioners from the global conservation community. The Conference included structured opportunities to hear donor perspectives on strengthening capacity development. Session leaders took detailed notes to document donor perspectives and the discussions around them. A thematic analysis of this empirical evidence resulted in the identification of four key themes with corresponding recommendations, consisting of:
(1) collaborative design of capacity development initiatives;
(2) monitoring and evaluation;
(3) longer-term and flexible investments, and;
(4) building strong relationships between donors and grantees.
Would you like to know more about what was said about each theme and the corresponding recommendations? Read the full article here (it is open-access so free to download for everyone). Let us know whether this resource has been useful to you and/or your organisation and in which way, by adding your comment below. Thank you for your feedback!
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Thanks for sharing!