TECHNICAL assistance means the sharing of skills and knowledge among nations so as to promote the economic and social development of the less developed countries. It is an appealing idea. More than that, it is a going concern, and the new United Nations Special Fund for Economic Development is going to expand it further.
But every now and again a story appears about the misuse of technical assistance or the failure of a project, on the basis of which the sceptics then eagerly pass judgment on the whole program. Perhaps those who write about technical assistance are partly to blame for this. They believe in it and report on its successes but rarely mention its difficulties.
Like any great undertaking, running a technical assistance program is complex and obstacle-ridden. It speaks well for the general soundness of projects and the efficiency and devotion of the specialists in the field that most projects go through as planned and many produce results which exceed expectations.
The expert himself has to be much more than a package of modern knowledge and techniques. To be effective, he must bring to his job not only a desire to understand the technical problems but also a desire to understand the people with whom he is going to be facing the problems. Sometimes technicians from the advanced countries expect too much to apply their own high level approach to local development. They do not always realize that the "latest" techniques are not necessarily the best for an economically underdeveloped country.
It would require acute perception to tell in advance if an expert is going to have all the proper qualities with which to make a success of his assignment. Sometimes, also, a field officer finds that the job he is actually called upon to do requires different technical qualifications than those which he possesses. This is not his fault.
Because of the diversity of nationalities available to the United Nations service, the language problem is perhaps less acute than with bilateral technical assistance. But even with the world-wide facilities at its command, FAO is not always readily able to find the necessary speciality and the right language in the same person. Sometimes the language handicap can be overcome if the expert works at an urban center, if he is able to work through a national counterpart, or if he is particularly resourceful in making himself understood. If the handicap cannot be overcome, the project is doomed.
When one thinks of all the factors to be considered, it is not surprising that it may take months to find the right man to fill a particular request. But time is also a factor, and a brilliant selection may count for nothing if an expert arrives too late to do the job required of him, or if his permanent employer will not release him for the period really required.
Like many other activities, technical assistance sometimes suffers from the tendency to believe one's own field of interest to be more important than that of anyone else. Ministers, often changing, sometimes will not accord the priority being sought. Projects may then be unsuccessful, directly or indirectly, because of inadequate funds: inadequate to provide a mission with the supplies it needs, inadequate to carry out the project on the scale initially conceived, inadequate to follow up reports and recommendations.
Capital funds do not substitute for the human skills which technical aid can provide but the reverse is equally true. Once people have been taught skills, they are eager to use them. If there is no money to expand the industry or service for which they have been trained or to plant the forests which they have been taught how to establish, it can only lead to disillusionment. The majority of projects are conceived within the framework of larger national development plans, as well they should be, but are dependent on yearly financing. Plans become modified and the fact that an allocation is made one year, for instance, toward creating a demonstration center, does not guarantee that next year the same government, or a new one, will appropriate money to expand its facilities as planned.
Successful technical assistance often resolves itself into an exercise in patience. Certainly all the difficulties met with do not doom this venture in economic development. Far from it. They simply mean that it may take longer than the uninitiated might expect to achieve the desired results.
