Technical Assistance for Africa—Some Words of Caution

Dr. Richard Mshomba

There is a proverb, "Give a man a fish and he will eat for a day; teach a man to fish and he will eat for a lifetime." Technical assistance, at its best, teaches countries "how to fish" and brings them more economic independence. For that reason, technical assistance is vigorously sought after and readily accepted when offered. Yet does all technical assistance have the potential to lead African countries to more independence? Not necessarily.

While most technical assistance is valuable and leads to greater independence, some technical assistance has the potential of doing the opposite. Consider some aspects of technical assistance from the World Trade Organization (WTO) and the International Monetary Fund (IMF).

African countries have signed off on WTO agreements while not always clear about their full meaning and implications. This is partly due to the relatively limited African technical and diplomatic representation in negotiations. The WTO’s technical assistance to African member countries is meant to assist them in understanding WTO agreements and in making policy reforms. While this technical assistance sounds generous and responsible, it can itself be a form of pressure on or incentive for African countries to sign off on agreements before they understand them. This is risky and potentially damaging to the countries’ best interests. Of course, the promise of technical assistance is only one among many potential forms of pressure on countries to take such risks.

The Agreement on Trade Related Aspects of Intellectual Property (TRIPS) is a case in point. As the South African case demonstrated, TRIPS has limited countries’ access to generic medicines and reduced their ability to protect public health in their countries. African countries and other developing countries were pressured to sign off on TRIPS with the promise that they would be assisted in implementing the agreement. This assistance does not necessarily eliminate or reduce the negative impact of TRIPS; it simply speeds up the process of countries’ implementation of the agreement. Notwithstanding the recent extension of the transitional period for the least developed countries (to 2016), the forthcoming assistance puts more pressure on developing countries to amend their existing legislation and enact new laws to conform to the TRIPs agreement, more quickly than they otherwise would have. Thus, the potential negative impact of this agreement will be realized sooner.

A second area of concern when it comes to technical assistance is the potential for biased advising in the context of an asymmetrical relationship. For example, the IMF regularly provides technical assistance to African countries in areas of macroeconomic policy, tax policy and revenue administration, public expenditure management, financial sector policies, and macroeconomic statistics. In fact, the IMF has established African Regional Technical Assistance Centers (AFRITACs) in Dar es Salaam, Tanzania and Bamako, Mali with the objective "to contribute to the development of the productive resources of member countries by enhancing the effectiveness of economic policy and financial policy." Nonetheless, the asymmetrical nature of the relationship between the IMF and African countries sometimes makes technical assistance a tool for dominance rather than a means towards independence. The IMF provides technical assistance, in the form of macroeconomic policy advising, for example, while at the same time controlling the funds and negotiating loans and policies with African countries to which it has provided the technical assistance. To its credit, the IMF has undergone some reforms of its own and now "invites" countries to own their development programs, under a relatively new mechanism for issuing loans – Poverty Reduction Strategy Papers. Still, talk to any officials of the central bank or the ministry of finance in developing countries and you will understand the domineering nature of the IMF.

Another caveat about technical assistance is that individuals who are in the position to question it and, ideally, sometimes even to refuse it, are the ones who stand to directly benefit the most from it. They are among the ones who would receive the technical assistance – which typically involves training, travelling, and a per diem. Of course, the training of Africans is critical for African development. Likewise, incentives for these mostly overworked and underpaid officials and technocrats is a welcome relief. However, there is no denial that some judgment is sometimes compromised.

For example, at the conclusion of the Uruguay Round of GATT, a representative of an African country invited the WTO secretariat to his country to give a workshop on the new agreements to officials at the ministry of trade. However, some individuals at the ministry sabotaged the effort because they wanted instead to be brought to Geneva. Considering the cost difference, that would have meant training only two people instead of training many more at the ministry’s headquarters. The compromise was to have the workshop in a different city in the country, away from the capital to give participants at least some modest per diem.

For technical assistance to bring economic independence to Africa, the short-term and long-term interests of the recipient country must first and foremost guide the technical assistance. This is how the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD) has gained the admiration of developing countries. UNCTAD has a proven record of providing comprehensive technical assistance to developing countries that helps to bridge the information gap between these countries and developed countries in multilateral negotiations. Whether this type of technical assistance comes into play or simply ample time is given for countries to understand proposed agreements before signing off on them, what is critical is for developing countries to be in a position to take genuine ownership of their development plans.

Richard Mshomba is Professor of Economics at La Salle University in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, USA. (mshomba@lasalle.edu) 

Last modified: October 23, 2003.
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