Development Expertise: Essential or Expendable? Comparing Interactions Between Knowledge and Experience in German and Norwegian Foreign Aid Bureaucracies

We respond to the lack of measurable conceptualisations of expertise in development agencies by investigating its focus and appreciation in two national aid administrations as a function of knowledge and experience. We apply this definition of expertise to qualitative data from interviews with 58 randomly selected officials at the German Federal Ministry for Economic Cooperation and Development (BMZ) and the Norwegian Agency for Development Cooperation (Norad). We find that both organisations draw on similar sets of knowledge and experience. However, BMZ and Norad staff show different valuations of substantive knowledge as opposed to administrative knowledge and individual experience, each of which is rooted in distinct organisational objectives and norms. At BMZ, substantive knowledge is expendable, but individual experience is considered non‐substitutable, and expertise is focused on navigating political priorities. At Norad, substantive knowledge is a prerequisite for career advancement, and experience is seen to ideally leverage such knowledge. Expertise at Norad is thus focused on thematic rather than political priorities. These findings have broader implications for the ability of development agencies to make autonomous policy decisions, for the potential of specialist careers and internal knowledge management to improve organisational effectiveness, and possibly also for the future of these agencies in the face of existential challenges.