World Bank technical assistance: participation, policy movement, and sympathetic interlocutors

This article demonstrates that World Bank internal learning has led to significant changes in how the development bank interacts with government officials through technical assistance (TA). Reviewing evidence of institutional learning and associated changes in practice, the article identifies two main pillars of World Bank TA: TA components (advisory services contained within lending operations) and stand-alone TA projects (loans that solely finance TA). Bringing together the policy transfer and policy mobility literatures and international organisation scholarship on sympathetic interlocutors, the article contends that the nature of interactions between policy provocateur and recipient shapes the recipient's perception of the legitimacy of transferred policy options. Overall, World Bank reviews since the 1980s have repeatedly highlighted the importance of participatory interactions between World Bank staff and country officials to the effective movement of policy. In recent years, practice has begun to catch-up with these operational insights, leading this article to propose a twofold conclusion. First, for the TA provider, participatory TA mechanisms consistently lead to greater domestic support from country officials, leading the provider to more effectively transfer its policy products. Second, for the TA recipient, participatory TA mechanisms can lead to their empowerment and greater inclusion in development project management.