Towards reimagined technical assistance: the current policy options and opportunities for change

Abstract

Technical assistance has been at the heart of development assistance provided to country governments by donor agencies over the past several decades. The current debates on reimagining technical assistance focus on the existing challenges of the different types of technical assistance, and the (re)construction of an ideal model for delivering this type of support, with little discussion about the dilemmas involved in making day-to-day decisions and trade-offs in implementation. This article presents technical assistance as a policy option for governments and details the existing models of delivering technical assistance, as well as their limitations and the required enabling conditions. The models presented focus on the type of role for the technical advisers- as doers (performing government functions), partners (working with the government to perform a specific role) and facilitators (enabling and facilitating change programmes to address wicked problems). As part of the programmes, the team of technical advisers can play one or more roles. The authors also discuss how problem-solving or solution implementation can be the focus of a technical assistance programme or how large programmes combine these two approaches. The paper provides a practical account of the implications of the programme design that would ideally help governments and donors to design more effective technical assistance programmes.

Effectiveness and Value for Money of Technical Assistance Approaches: In-house vs Contracting

“…As a result, TA may be more valuable as a development tool than the amount of funding received. As such, TA is one of the most widely used modes of delivery in international development assistance (Runde et al,2020;Cox and Norrington-Davies, 2019;Nastase et al, 2020;Nastase et al, 2021).…”

“…TA programmes must be established to address beneficiaries' primary concerns. The goal for both TA recipients and donors should be to determine the main objective of the TA and to select from a variety of technical adviser roles (e.g., in-house or externals advisers and consultants), taking into account the limitations and enabling conditions for each approach (Nastase et al, 2020). Some useful principles (or good practices) when designing and implementing TA (through in-house or external contracting) include:…”

Technical assistance: a practical account of the challenges in design and implementation

“…Country ownership includes two essential conditions: countries setting their development priorities and development partners aligning their support accordingly while using country systems to channel their resources, including knowledge transfer (Global Partnership for Effective Development Cooperation). This principle would imply a nationally driven agenda and technical assistance as a policy option ( Nastase et al ., 2020 ) for the country governments to deliver on their priorities.…”

“…At different times, in some contexts, both types of support may be needed. ( Nastase et al ., 2020 )…”

“…Technical assistance includes various practices, such as hands-on support, training, peer to peer learning, coaching, facilitation, embedding externals in the government, or South-South cooperation. In our complimentary paper on technical assistance ( Nastase et al ., 2020 ), we refer to technical advisors providing support as DOERS, PARTNERS and/or FACILITATORS. We also refer to supply or demand-driven technical assistance.…”