UNESCO’s 2011 Education for All Global Monitoring Report suggests that national barriers to Education for All (EFA) have been largely under-estimated and that, over the past decade, insufficient attention has been paid to strategies for overcoming them. This report offers reflection upon UNESCO’s capacity development approach and details achievements and lessons learned through the CapEFA programme. Examples are given on how specific capacity challenges to EFA are being addressed through nationally owned and driven capacity-development strategies, multistakeholder partnership arrangements and platforms for South-South cooperation.