ALMATY, Kazakhstan, June 26. Short-term technical assistance tools fail to ensure resilient capacity development, Country Director of the Asian Development Bank (ADB) office in Kazakhstan, Utsav Kumar, said during a session at the Eurasian Development Bank (EDB) Annual Meeting and Business Forum in Almaty, Trend's correspondent reports from the event.
"As of December 31, 2024, nearly 1,100 technical assistance projects were active, including 44 regional programs spanning multiple countries.
We found that many of these focused on similar capacity development areas but were implemented by different bank units without coordination," he said.
Kumar noted that an analysis of another 30 knowledge partnership agreements funded by technical assistance between 2016 and 2024, involving 25 academic and international organizations, also revealed duplication of training programs.
"As a result, knowledge gained through one technical assistance project was rarely used in other programs, and the capacity developed was virtually never developed in subsequent initiatives.
The new 2026 policy responds to these challenges by creating a unified, bank-wide platform for developing knowledge partnerships that will systematically integrate new ideas, expertise, and innovations from member countries and partner organizations into ADB's operations and disseminate them among client countries," said the ADB representative.
Kumar emphasized that short-term technical assistance instruments are insufficient to ensure sustainable capacity development, especially in upper-middle-income countries, which include Central Asia.
According to him, technical assistance is most effective when closely linked to investment projects and policy dialogue.
As of 2024, the average duration of technical assistance programs amounted to 2.8 years.
He noted that Kazakhstan, as an upper-middle-income country, faces constraints in the allocation of technical assistance resources, resulting in insufficient funding for capacity development programs.
"The 2026 policy envisages a unified cost-recovery mechanism for technical assistance, as well as a system of oversight and monitoring at the corporate, country, and project levels.
The KEEP knowledge and experience exchange program has been in place in Kazakhstan since 2013. As part of the program, we have implemented a 50-50 co-financing mechanism with the Government of Kazakhstan for knowledge exchange programs, capacity development, and project preparation.
We expect such mechanisms to be increasingly applied in upper-middle-income countries.
We continue to discuss opportunities for co-financing such initiatives with various Kazakh agencies," he said.
Kumar pointed out that this ensures the engagement of both parties and allows for the use of both ADB's expertise and the experience accumulated in various member countries.
