There is a paucity of literature making explicit recommendations for technical assistance to support long-term recovery in post-disaster conflicts. Nevertheless, much of the criticism leveled against TA is the same as that leveled against early recovery interventions, including:
- the fact that TA remains largely supply-driven
- a low level of ownership and involvement on the part of partner countries
- the use of management systems created outside the national civil service
- weak procedures for identifying needs and for planning and designing technical cooperation support
- insufficient analysis of national contexts and underlying capacity constraint
- insufficient attention to ensuring that TA personnel have the necessary skills and profiles
- weak integration and coordination with national development strategies.
Some of the general recommendations made in the early recovery literature could be seen to have a bearing on technical assistance, including the need to:
- conduct capacity and needs assessments
- ensure that early recovery interventions are context specific
- ensure national ownership and that external technical assistance complements existing capacities
- develop capacities for relationship building
- maximize synergies among different actors
- strengthen capacities for disaster risk management and reduction
- ensure integration of cross-cutting issues
- employ participatory monitoring and evaluation techniques.
