Collaborative partnerships aimed at strengthening institutional capacities are a long established trend in academia. Recent developments in Information and Communications Technologies (ICTs) have fostered a renewed interest in collaborative initiatives in the academic sphere, however, and at the same time, have created new ways of working together. Current research models do not provide sufficient methods to guide collaborations in capacity-building processes in virtual environments, especially in contexts associated with inadequate resources. Conceptual tools are therefore needed to guide the implementation of partnerships that use technology to mediate capacity building in these contexts. This research study was aimed at understanding whether and how virtual partnerships can be used to facilitate capacity building in tertiary education institutions in the SADC region. It is based on a single case study of the SANTED Virtual Classroom Project, a partnership between the Departments of Computer Science at Rhodes University (RU) and the University of Namibia (UNAM). In the project, ICTs were used to mediate the process of building teaching and research capacity in the department at UNAM. The dynamics of the partnership are explored as the implementation process developed over a period of three years. The research adopted a sociocultural perspective in the analysis of the project‟s implementation. It uses activity theory and the notion of communities of practice as conceptual frameworks to explore how the two departments organised themselves and how they harnessed the virtual environment to enable the capacity-building partnership. Activity theory provided a lens to understand the complex relationships between the different elements of the partnership activities mediated by technological tools. The concept of communities of practice, on the other hand, enabled participants‟ progress to be analysed, as they went through the various transition stages of the capacity-building process. The thesis identifies the following four categories of challenges inherent in the implementation of virtual partnerships: infrastructural, institutional, cultural and individual expectations. It also emphasises the need for identifying the different transition stages corresponding to the levels of participation in the capacity-building process. The thesis recommends that the implementation of virtual partnerships for capacity building purposes in the SADC region must focus on: identifying the appropriate capacity building strategies at Abstract ii each transition stage; finding appropriate, light-weight virtual classroom solutions; identifying appropriate pedagogic models to suit available technology; addressing systemic tensions that can arise as a result of different institutional cultures; and developing and nurturing virtual communities of practice to ensure sustainability. The research findings contribute to the body of knowledge exploring the use of technologies to develop and strengthen human resource capacities in developing contexts in a sustainable way. More importantly, it contributes to the literature on collaborative virtual partnerships in the SADC region, and demonstrates one way in which the operations of such a partnership may be supported in similar contexts / Adobe Acrobat 9.53 Paper Capture Plug-in