Advocacy training report - Southern highlands of Tanzania. Building Gender Equitable Resilience for Adaptation to Climate Across Bean Crop and Insect Corridors (BRAINS)

The Building Equitable Climate-Resilient African Bean & Insect Sectors project convened thirty-one participants from six villages in Kisondela ward, Rungwe district, Mbeya Region, for a two-day advocacy training held on 12 and 13 March 2026. The training aimed to strengthen the advocacy, negotiation, and policy engagement capacity of women, youth, community activists, local leaders, teachers, religious leaders, extension officers and village officials so that they can influence decisions and resources that shape inclusive bean, fruit tree, and beneficial insect value chains. Activities including problem tree, stakeholder and power mapping, SMART (specific, measurable, achievable, relevant and time-bound advocacy) advocacy strategies, elevator pitches, and negotiation role-plays helped participants move from identifying broad community problems to framing clear, evidence-based asks. The training showed that many participants were already engaged in advocacy, but their issues were often still general and weakly linked to targets, allies, and concrete action. Participants left with practical advocacy commitments, including mobilising women and youth, engaging leaders, promoting beans, avocado, vegetables and beekeeping, and reaching at least 100 people each. Follow-up will be critical to translate these commitments into sustained community-level advocacy.