Providing technical assistance to ministries of health: lessons learned over 30 years

I enjoyed your 10 lessons, but I was surprised by your statement around requests to do work usually assigned to a Ministry staff member. You suggest that "drafting" a presentation for a staff member on short notice is a good way to show that you actually add value. I would suggest that while it may do that in the short term, it also sets up the expectation that when it comes to the crunch you will help them by writing the report or the strategy document, providing initial drafts of more major documents, and so forth. While it may start by solving a pressing need, it often ends up becoming the norm, and thereby does not reflect a more useful mentoring role. It also seems to fly in the face of trying to support ownership by and for the Ministry.

Conflict of Interest:

None declared