It is to strengthen the capacity of development practitioners, policymakers, government line ministry staff and program managers, to engage in complex local governance processes. It will be able them to analyze the institutional context of decentralization and local governance with a specific focus on rural development, gender and power relations; to develop strategies to improve the involvement of different actors in local governance and rural development (including social and productive service delivery, land governance, natural resource management, local economic development); to challenge the impact of one’s own intervention and identify opportunities to contribute to change.