This paper aims to contribute to the emerging literature on capacity-building in statistics education by examining issues pertaining to the readiness of teachers in a developing country to teach basic statistical topics. The paper reflects on challenges and barriers to building statistics capacity at grass-roots level in a developing country, based in part on lessons learnt from the design of an in-service intervention for teachers in South Africa, and on illustrative data about teachers' attitudes, collected as part of this intervention. The paper reflects on implications for future design of interventions, as well as on research needs that can inform future capacity-building in statistics education in developing countries.