Technical assistance is a form of foreign aid. Through technical assistance programs, people in developing countries learn skills that help increase production and raise living standards.
There are various forms of technical assistance. Experts from more prosperous countries may set up demonstrations or provide on-the-job training in developing countries. Workers, executives, and engineers from developing countries may go to prosperous countries for training. Technical assistance may be as simple as teaching a farmer to use a plow instead of a forked stick. It may be as involved as showing a government how to keep statistics on its economy.
President Harry S. Truman’s Point Four Program of 1949 was an early technical assistance plan (see Point Four Program ). Some private and public agencies gave such aid before 1949. The United Nations and its agencies also offer technical assistance. The United States Agency for International Development has a major technical assistance program. Its aid ranges from short-term assistance to three-year projects.
Technical assistance may be used by a larger country to coerce a smaller country. The smaller, receiving country may be expected to support the larger country in world affairs in return for the aid.
