Rigorous impact evaluations of technical assistance seem to be few and far between, but this one is worth reading. Many public programs and operations by multilateral organisations include technical assistance to the direct beneficiaries of the program in addition to pure financing. However, there is no substantial body of studies that calculates the additional impact; in the sense of exclusively attributable to, of technical assistance on the outcome of interest of the program. We propose [...] Read more »

Here is a key finding of a 2006 evaluation of ‘DFID-Funded Technical Co-operation for Economic Management in  Sub-Saharan Africa.’ Did the provision of the outputs lead to results? Was any impact achieved either transactional or transformational? A consistent picture emerges across the case study examples. DFID’s TC support has contributed in many cases towards the development of improved systems and procedures (e.g. for budgeting, financial management, monitoring and evaluation, audit, payroll management) that if fully [...] Read more »

I’m attending a meeting today to discuss AusAID’s new Framework for regulating pay to advisers–one solution to the perennial problem of high cost technical assistance. What is the evidence on the effectiveness of TA? Here is a summary of some of the key points from Does Foreign Aid Really Work? According to OECD DAC, technical cooperation accounted fro over 36% of bilateral aid from DAC donors in 2004, and was more if TC in infrastructure [...] Read more »