WFT-T Strengthens the Institutional Capacity of Partner Organizations

Women Fund Tanzania Trust (WFT-T) conducted a three-day capacity-building training from 12–14 October in Dar es Salaam, bringing together 80 participants from 40 organizations.

The training aimed to equip partner organizations with the knowledge and skills needed to strengthen their institutional systems, improve programme implementation, and achieve their goals of creating positive change in their communities.

The capacity-building training was one of the activities implemented under the RWVL-T Project, which WFT-T implements in collaboration with Msichana Initiative (MI) and CUSO, with support from the Global Affairs Canada.

The training was informed by findings from an Organisational Capacity Assessment (OCA), which identified areas where partner organisations and stakeholders needed additional support to enhance their effectiveness and sustainability.

The assessment highlighted several priority areas for capacity strengthening, including feminist leadership, financial management, monitoring, evaluation and learning (MEL), feminist reporting, and documenting and communicating project success stories.

In response to these needs, WFT-T organised the training to help participants strengthen their organisational systems and improve the planning, implementation, monitoring, and reporting of their activities and programmes.

Speaking during the opening session, WFT-Ts Executive Director emphasized the importance of investing in the long-term capacity of women’s organizations.

“We recognise that building the capacity of women’s organisations is an important approach Women Fund uses to support its partners in achieving their goals. For us, support goes beyond providing grants; it also involves investing in the knowledge, skills, systems, and institutional capacity that enable organizations to become stronger and more sustainable.”

The training covered key topics, including project implementation, institutional strategic planning, resource mobilisation and fundraising, monitoring and evaluation, report writing, social media use, digital security, and financial management.

Participants shared their experiences and reflected on how the training could help them address challenges in implementing and documenting their work. Mzawa Bakari highlighted the difficulties of implementing activities that fall outside an organisation’s established plans

“Through this training, we have realized that one of our biggest challenges was spending too much time on activities that were not included in our implementation plan. This made it difficult for us to prepare our final implementation reports.”

Debora, a participant from Morogoro, highlighted the challenges faced by organisations that rely heavily on voluntary work and have limited funding.

“We spend a lot of time implementing our activities, but we do not have enough time to document our work and prepare reports. This is partly because we do not have funding support, and most of our activities are carried out on a voluntary basis.”

These reflections highlight the importance of strengthening organizational planning, documentation, and reporting systems to help organizations manage their resources effectively, demonstrate their achievements, and communicate their impact.