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Recent research demonstrates a critical and ongoing need for capacity building of marine protected area (MPA) practitioners in order to ensure effective management of MPAs and MPA networks that protect coastal and marine ecosystems. MPA capacity development needs are site and network specific, although commonly include leadership development, building shared goals across networks, understanding impacts and identifying appropriate management approaches, and building system‐wide monitoring and evaluation programmes.Designing capacity‐building programmes at the network scale can contribute directly to enhancing learning and social networking, sustaining and strengthening effective management of ecosystems, and improving coordinated network governance. Network‐wide capacity building amplifies the effect and availability of technical resources and expertise, lessons learned at different management scales, and collaborative decision‐making. The net result is shared capacity development across the network and improved functioning of multiple MPAs as a unit, all from a singular capacity‐building effort.In the spirit of contributing to the ongoing growth of the global social network of MPA practitioners, this paper shares observations from social MPA network building as part of recent MPA capacity building in the Philippines and Indonesia. These programmes deliver technical capacity and a participatory learning framework for participants to enhance their MPA social network and support long‐term implementation of gained knowledge and skills.Important elements in supporting successful network development through capacity‐building programming include: comprehensive needs assessment;strong collaborative partnerships for programme delivery;clear learning objectives and intended long‐term results; andstrong and sustained political will at the local, national, and regional scales.Each MPA site, region, and capacity‐building programme is unique in structure and content, yet what all programmes have in common is that they build on the principles of trust and community building to create a locally relevant format and framework for the network to flourish. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]