Southern Perspectives on Technical Cooperation

This document provides an analytical review of post 2000 literature on technical cooperation that is either written by Southern authors, published by Southern institutions or presents the views of Southern nationals and government officials in developing countries. 

The author notes the particularly strong criticisms in the literature of the widespread use of international consultants rather than national or regional TC consultants.  Other criticisms relate to the tying of aid, poor design of TC so that it is not related to capacity building goals, and a lack of alignment between donor and government processes and procedures.  Several documents emphasise the aspirations of Southern governments to genuinely lead on all aspects of TC management and implementation.  Critical success factors are identified that can enable the development of Southern-led TC and policy recommendations are also included.

The second part of the document provides an annotated bibliography, with reference details of key documents on this topic, internet links and short summaries of the documents.

• Original title: Southern Perspectives on Technical Cooperation
• Author: Scott, Z.
• Year: 2009