The capacity of public service staff in developing countries is crucial for achieving the Millennium Development Goals. Literature from developed countries shows that, working with higher education institutions (HEIs), industries have improved their human resource capacity through continuing professional development. This paper reports on research carried out in Uganda to examine the drivers of and barriers to collaboration between the water/sanitation public sector and HEIs. The results show that, whereas stakeholders from both sides consider collaboration to be important for achieving their corporate goals, there is a need to overcome organizational constraints and strengthen existing collaborations, which are largely perceived as weak and/or informal. (Contains 4 tables.)