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

Technical assistance is provided to strengthen state capability as part of international development programmes. This article presents the conceptual evolution of the technical assistance linked to capacity development, starting from a single unit of analysis, that of individual capacity to complex systems theories. It presents some of the frequent challenges in designing and implementing technical assistance, with a focus on the challenges common across government-funded and externally funded technical assistance, as well as the challenges unique to externally funded technical assistance. The article reviews the recent thinking on the practice in technical assistance from locally-driven technical assistance to positive deviance as a method to identify what works. It discusses change management as an adaptive and iterative process, and technical advisers acting as enablers of change rather than as change-makers and relying on adaptive and flexible approaches to programme management.