Twinning: lessons for a South-North climate policy context

Twinning is an innovative tool utilized in the EU enlargement process. It is designed to strengthen the institutional capacities of the candidate countries to implement the acquis communautaire . Twinning involves the long-term secondment of a Member State public servant to the domestic counterpart institution and thereby provides hands-on public sector experience. Arguably, the twinning concept is also applicable in South-North climate policy cooperation, and its potential is explored. Twinning serves as a valuable supplement to ongoing capacity-building efforts by assisting the actual implementation of policies. Its basic design addresses some of the frequently cited problems of developmental assistance. Policy relevance: Capacity building and technical assistance are often quoted as components of international technology cooperation, but frameworks to further enhance their contribution to international cooperation on climate policy are rarely discussed. The twinning experience offers an example of formal frameworks to enhance South-North and South-South cooperation on programme design and implementation via the exchange of experts within administrations. Twinning also offers broader insights. Cooperation for technical assistance and capacity building needs to be demand-driven and integrated within existing institutional structures in order to ensure effectiveness. The main challenge is to encourage experts to spend one to two years in recipient countries to ensure an effective understanding of local circumstances. This also reduces the need to send experts in the other direction and thus reduces the risk of a brain-drain, where experts do not return.