CIDT is a specialist in capacity strengthening services for international development agencies, projects and programmes. A social enterprise within the University of Wolverhampton, with more than five decades of experience in 140 countries, this small team of development practitioners draws on expertise from across the university.

“Being in the university has always enabled us to punch above our weight, as we rely on the supportive framework or the University, draw on research centres and colleagues within the University, and work through associates,” explains Head of Centre and Associate Prof. Ella Haruna.

Capacity strengthening is at the heart of everything CIDT does. The Centre operates in the consultancy space, as trusted partners and brokers of knowledge, across four thematic areas. CIDT often partner with local or regional experts and offer solutions co-designed with partners from within a country area, to facilitate a more equitable way of working.
“For our grant work in the Congo Basin, we had long-standing partnerships of up to a decade and this helped develop ownership. The approach was bottom up and partner led, and always managed in an open and transparent way,” describes Ella.

CIDT use a set of well-structured, practical tools to facilitate analysis and decision-making for strategic and operational planning, risk management, progress monitoring, and outcome/impact evaluation including a results framework and theory of change. This positions them well to support delivery that is measured against aid funding requirements.
“We worked on a big capacity strengthening program with the Caribbean Development Bank to roll out training in project cycle management across 19 countries. We build up a strong network of regional trainers, and training was delivered in partnership between an international trainer and a regional trainer, to ensure strong regional ownership and contextualized examples.”

CIDT also conducts regular short training courses and workshops for clients in the UK, Europe and developing countries. They host tailored professional development programmes and can offer bilingual course facilitation of their practitioner-oriented active learning. All course attendees become lifetime alumni, joining Chevening fellows and cohorts from the institute’s former Masters course and varied UK study tours. CIDT strives to maintain contact with alumni to follow the impact of the training in real world situations.

Over the 52 years of CIDT being in operation it has seen a lot of change: from the way development has been done, to the way partnerships are delivered, to the language development practitioners use and the way the sector is funded.
The genesis of the present day CIDT goes back two decades before the University of Wolverhampton itself! From teacher training in agricultural colleges and vocational training of overseas agricultural teachers in the 1970s, an overseas unit of the Wolverhampton Technical Teacher’s College emerged. The commission of in-depth study programmes in the UK, by the Overseas Development Unit of the UK (ODA) marked the start of today’s CIDT. The Unit trained over 700 overseas agricultural teachers and, during these early years, carried out its first overseas assignments providing technical assistance.

To respond to change over the decades, CIDT has been pragmatic and flexible. “We have always tried to operate a three-legged stool with different strands to our work – consultancy and project or grant work, with teaching or research.”

What hasn’t changed over this time is the impact CIDT has made. The Centre has trained thousands of development professionals in a range of hard and soft skills around the project cycle, providing technical assistance, facilitation, coaching, and mentoring. They have three decades of experience supporting forest governance and independent forest monitoring. They have delivered large contracts for the European Union, the United Kingdom Department for International Development (FCDO) and ran an Improving Forest Governance training course for 5 years to over 100 participants. The Centre has worked at different levels of the education system, from basic to higher education, vocational and non-formal education, to sector-wide support in Zambia, Zimbabwe, Tanzania St Helena and Jamaica.

CIDT have contributed to nationally significant sustainable livelihood projects in Rwanda, Nepal and Somaliland and provided call-down support to the NDC Partnerships from 2018 – 2022 for facilitation and country engagement.

CIDT specialises in four key area: gender equality and social inclusion; forest governance; education and lifelong learning and sustainable livelihoods. If you’d like to know more; sign up for their newsletter, visit their website or get in touch.