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As threats facing wildlife and protected areas across Africa increase, demand for innovative and transformational leadership to tackle the challenges remains high. Traditional academic training programmes are playing a critical role in meeting capacity development needs, yet opportunities for strengthening leadership capabilities are limited. This was the rationale behind Mentoring for ENvironmental Training in Outreach and Resource conservation (MENTOR), initiated in 2007 by the U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service through a collaborative effort with various partners to support conservation leadership and capacity development across sub-Saharan Africa. Five independent programmes were implemented over a decade, each designed to combine rigorous academic and field-based training with mentoring and experiential learning for teams of 8–9 fellows selected through a competitive process. It was envisioned that this approach to leadership and capacity development would strengthen the resolve, capabilities and competences of the fellows and position them as conservation leaders. Using data from interviews and online surveys, we assessed three key aspects of the programmes: strategic relevance and design; progress, effectiveness and impact; and sustainability. Overall, we found that all five programmes successfully delivered the objective of strengthening leadership for conservation in Africa, with the cadre of professionals acquiring new skills and expertise to advance their careers, and developing life-long relationships and networks. We discuss the potential of this approach for developing African conservation leaders.

This article presents three cross-cutting intervention case studies that address HIV, AIDS, and natural resources management in an integrated manner through innovative programming in Zimbabwe, Uganda, and Malawi. In Zimbabwe, a religious-based non-governmental group and two community organizations work together to build skills of HIV-and AIDS-vulnerable children in rural areas to meet dietary and income needs, while using natural resources sustainably. In Uganda, various government agencies and NGO actors work together to improve the food security of HIV-affected households at the national, district, sub-district, and village levels. Finally, in Malawi, a conservation organization incorporates HIV and AIDS Roger-Mark De Souza-Formerly with the Population Reference Bureau. awareness and programming into its operations and projects. Each case study presents pioneering approaches to simultaneously addressing the pressures on conservation initiatives, food security/agricultural production, income generation/ livelihoods, and social and health care systems. They also provide lessons for expanding interventions and partnerships.Intervention projects that bring together components of HIV and AIDS education and mitigation with natural resource management are emerging as innovative, crosscutting approaches to address the on-the-ground complexities between HIV, AIDS, and the environment as revealed by the scholarship in this special issue. These intervention projects yield interesting questions related to form, impact, and replicability. What do such projects look like? What are the benefits of these approaches? Can they be scaled up and at what level? The three intervention case studies reviewed here provide a noteworthy start to examine such questions.The first case study on Junior Farmer Field Schools by Heinrich and Senefeld addresses the vulnerability of children and HIV and AIDS orphans in Zimbabwe by partnering with a religious-based non-governmental group and two community organizations. Overall, the project works to build skills of HIV-and AIDSvulnerable children in rural areas to meet dietary and income needs while also using natural resources sustainably. Its innovation lies in the adaptation of the wellestablished Farmer Field Schools (FFS) methodology which implements a series of non-formal, participatory, and hands-on activities according to the agricultural production cycle. This project adopted traditional FFS approaches, and added targeted outreach to, and the incorporation of, children. In addition, the project included HIV and AIDS awareness, prevention, and mitigation components, as well as training on basic business skills.Partners for Food Security, the second intervention case study by Coon, Sebanja, and Ogden, represents an inter-agency partnership in Uganda dedicated to improving the food security of HIV-affected households. Partners provides