The Reality of Aid Reports analyze and advocate key messages relating to the performance of aid donors from a unique perspective of civil society in both donor and recipient developing countries.
The RoA Reports have established themselves as a credible corrective to offcial publications on development assistance and poverty reduction. They have also developed a reputation as an important independent comparative reference for accountability and public awareness of development issues.
Technical cooperation remains one of the most heavily used forms of aid, accounting for between a quarter and a half of all ODA. However, to date it seems that technical cooperation remains largely insulated from donors’ efforts to improve the quality and effectiveness of their aid, largely ignoring the principles of democratic ownership and partnership.
An examination of technical cooperation should focus on the relationship between technical cooperation and capacity building initiatives by aid providers and commitments towards strengthening democratic country ownership. Policy space for democratic ownership, where people’s voices and interests can shape government development initiatives, is vital if technical assistance is to be effective in building capacity for sustainable poverty reduction. Are recipient developing countries free to decide, plan, and sequence their economic policies to fit with their own development strategies? How can technical assistance as a disguised or soft form of policy conditionality be avoided? What reforms are needed on the part of aid providers in their approaches to technical cooperation that is consistent with their commitment to ownership? How can developing countries’ governments and other recipients of technical assistance create the conditions to manage this form of cooperation in their own interests?
Contributors to this Report explored the following: role of technical assistance in bilateral donors’ and multilateral development banks’ aid, technical cooperation for trade and infrastructure development, technical cooperation and tied aid, and South-South experience in technical cooperation. Comprised of 23 contributions, this 2016 RoA Report provides analyses relating to the performance of aid donors in the provision of technical assistance from a unique perspective of civil society, in both donor and recipient developing countries, with a focus on poverty reduction.