Types Of Technical Assistance Research Articles

Needs Assessment for Equitable School Bus Electrification in U.S. School Districts

The Electric School Bus (ESB) Initiative research team surveyed and spoke to school district staff to understand barriers and enablers for electric school bus adoption and how challenges may vary depending on a district’s diversity, income level, and exposure to air pollutants. This paper provides preliminary ideas about the main barriers faced by school districts, what motivates school districts to transition to electric school buses, what types of technical assistance might help school districts move forward, and how school districts are considering equity in their process. The survey size was non-representative and the findings should be taken only as preliminary hypotheses.

Modes of access to water for domestic use in rural Chile: a typological proposal

Abstract A typology is proposed regarding the modes of access to water for the rural population in Chile as well as four explanatory dimensions of its heterogeneity. The typology emerges from a systematic review of the literature and an analysis of quantitative data based on rural water organizations' databases. The modes of access are defined by the following five criteria: their socio-technical system, their type of management, their level of spatial action, the source of their financing, and the type of technical assistance they received. The findings dispute the systemic vision of access to water in rural areas and invite us to consider the structural heterogeneity in regulations and public policies to guarantee the human right to water.

Towards reimagined technical assistance: the current policy options and opportunities for change.

Technical assistance has been at the heart of development assistance provided to country governments by donor agencies over the past several decades. The current debates on reimagining technical assistance focus on the existing challenges of the different types of technical assistance and the (re)construction of an ideal model for delivering this type of support, with little discussion about the dilemmas involved in making day-to-day decisions and trade-offs in implementation. This article presents technical assistance as a policy option for governments and details the existing models of delivering technical assistance, their limitations, and the required enabling conditions. The models presented focus on the type of role for the technical advisers- as doers (performing government functions), partners (working with the government to perform a specific role) and facilitators (enabling and facilitating change programmes to address wicked problems). Finally, the paper provides a practical account of the implications of the programme design and suggests potential opportunities for change particularly in the context of COVID-19 pandemic. It complements an open letter on the practical account of the current challenges in the design and implementation of technical assistance programmes.

Towards reimagined technical assistance: the current policy options and opportunities for change

Technical assistance has been at the heart of development assistance provided to country governments by donor agencies over the past several decades. The current debates on reimagining technical assistance focus on the existing challenges of the different types of technical assistance, and the (re)construction of an ideal model for delivering this type of support, with little discussion about the dilemmas involved in making day-to-day decisions and trade-offs in implementation. This article presents technical assistance as a policy option for governments and details the existing models of delivering technical assistance, as well as their limitations and the required enabling conditions. The models presented focus on the type of role for the technical advisers- as doers (performing government functions), partners (working with the government to perform a specific role) and facilitators (enabling and facilitating change programmes to address wicked problems). As part of the programmes, the team of technical advisers can play one or more roles. The authors also discuss how problem-solving or solution implementation can be the focus of a technical assistance programme or how large programmes combine these two approaches. The paper provides a practical account of the implications of the programme design that would ideally help governments and donors to design more effective technical assistance programmes.

Virtual reality for behavioral health workforce development in the era of COVID-19

The coronavirus 2019 disease (COVID-19) pandemic emerged at a time of substantial investment in the United States substance use service infrastructure. A key component of this fiscal investment was funding for training and technical assistance (TA) from the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration (SAMHSA) to newly configured Technology Transfer Centers (TTCs), including the Addiction TTCs (ATTC Network), Prevention TTCs (PTTC Network), and the Mental Health TTCs (MHTTC Network). SAMHSA charges TTCs with building the capacity of the behavioral health workforce to provide evidence-based interventions via locally and culturally responsive training and TA. This commentary describes how, in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic, TTCs rapidly adapted to ensure that the behavioral health workforce had continuous access to remote training and technical assistance. TTCs use a conceptual framework that differentiates among three types of technical assistance: basic, targeted, and intensive. We define each of these types of TA and provide case examples to describe novel strategies that the TTCs used to shift an entire continuum of capacity building activities to remote platforms. Examples of innovations include online listening sessions, virtual process walkthroughs, and remote “live” supervision. Ongoing evaluation is needed to determine whether virtual TA delivery is as effective as face-to-face delivery or whether a mix of virtual and face-to-face delivery is optimal. The TTCs will need to carefully balance the benefits and challenges associated with rapid virtualization of TA services to design the ideal hybrid delivery model following the pandemic.

Caracterização da produção e qualidade do leite em propriedades de agricultura familiar na região sul do Rio Grande do Sul

A cadeia leiteira possui grande importância socioeconômica no cenário agrícola nacional. Agricultores familiares possuem expressiva importância neste contexto, representando 60% desta produção. Neste trabalho, objetivou-se analisar o perfil das Unidades de Produção de Leite (UPLs) de agricultura familiar na Região Sul do Rio Grande do Sul. Para isto, foram aplicados questionários a 54 agricultores familiares de uma cooperativa do município de Canguçu, e analisadas amostras de leite dos tanques resfriadores, traçando perfis de produção, dos proprietários, parâmetros de qualidade do leite, higiene do processo, condições e tipo de ordenha. Os resultados foram comparados com os padrões estabelecidos pela Instrução Normativa nº 76 de 2018. Os produtores possuem baixa escolaridade, entretanto, 70,4% recebem algum tipo de assistência técnica. A área média das propriedades é de 18,4 hectares. A maioria das UPLs estudadas possuem outras atividades agrícolas como uma forma de incrementar a renda das famílias. A produção possui baixa tecnificação, pois a ordenha manual é realizada em 59,2% das UPLs analisadas. Em 50% das UPLs (27), os padrões de Contagem Bacteriana Total (CBT) acima do permitido pela legislação refletiram falhas de manejo e de boas práticas de ordenha, pois não são práticas comuns pré e pós dipping, secagem com papel toalha e identificação de mastites clínicas ou subclínicas. As análises de Contagem de Células Somáticas (CCS) e das médias dos constituintes do leite como gordura, lactose, proteínas e teor de sólidos se mantiveram dentro dos padrões estabelecidos pela legislação.

Progress and challenges: implementation and use of health information technology among critical-access hospitals.

Despite major national investments to support the adoption of health information technology (IT), concerns persist that barriers are inhibiting that adoption and the use of advanced health IT capabilities in rural areas in particular. Using a survey of Medicare-certified critical-access hospitals, we examined electronic health record (EHR) adoption, key EHR functionalities, telehealth, and teleradiology, as well as challenges to EHR adoption. In 2013, 89 percent of critical-access hospitals had implemented a full or partial EHR. Adoption of key EHR capabilities varied. Critical-access hospitals that had certain types of technical assistance and resources available to support health IT were more likely to have adopted health IT capabilities and less likely to report significant challenges to EHR implementation and use, compared to other hospitals in the survey. It is important to ensure that the necessary resources and support are available to critical-access hospitals, especially those that operate independently, to assist them in adopting health IT and becoming able to electronically link to the broader health care system.

INTERNATIONAL ELECTION SUPPORT: HELPING OR HINDERING DEMOCRATIC ELECTIONS?

Simply put, electoral fraud does not only happen on election day. This article explores whether current methods of providing electoral support, employed by international donors, are effective in promoting democracy. The article presents several key limitations in today's international election observation missions, which may, if not rectified, undermine parts of the rationale for utilising observers. In addition, this paper identifies five types of technical assistance with different mandates that will impact how an Election Commission designs, plans and implements various components of the electoral process. The study highlights several risks, challenges and solutions associated with technical assistance.

Members' Experiences in International Laboratory Capacity Building

To date, ASM Lab Cap volunteers have served as consultants in eight nations. In their assignments, those experts have provided many different types of technical assistance, tailoring it to the specific needs of each country. The Lab Cap experiences in four sub-Saharan African nations—Cote d'Ivoire, Botswana, Mozambique, and Zambia—show the wide range of circumstances and needs that such countries face, as well as how the expertise and skills of ASM volunteers are allowing each of those nations to surpass what their own officials thought could be done to improve local clinical microbiology services.

Building Capacity for HIV/AIDS Prevention Among Asian Pacific Islander Organizations

This article has two goals: (1) to outline a conceptual model for culturally appropriate HIV prevention capacity building; (2) to present the experiences from a 3-year program provided by Asian Pacific AIDS Intervention Team to Asian Pacific Islander (API) organizations in southern California. The participating organizations were of two types: lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and questioning (LGBTQ) social organizations and social service agencies not targeting LGBTQ. These organizations were selected for participation because of their commitment to HIV/AIDS issues in API communities. An organizational survey and staff observations were used to explore changes in capacity. The organizations were mostly small, targeted diverse populations, served a large geographic area (southern California as a region), and were knowledgeable about HIV. Organizations became more viable (more capacity in human resources, financial, external relations, and strategic management), but also more unstable (large growth in paid staff and board members), and showed more capacity in HIV knowledge environments (especially less stigma and more sensitivity to diverse populations). The results suggest that capacity can expand over a short period of time, but as capacity increases, organizational viability/stability and HIV knowledge environments change, meaning that different types of technical assistance would be needed for sustainability.

CLIMATE CHANGE AND WATERSHED PLANNING IN WASHINGTON STATE

: This paper draws on interviews with Washington State Watershed Planning Leads (Planning Leads) and interactions with local watershed planning units to identify factors that may influence the inclusion of climate change in watershed planning efforts in Washington State. These factors include the interest of individual planning unit members in climate change; Planning Lead familiarity with climate impacts; the influence of trust, leadership, and “genetic knowledge” on planning units; and perceptions of strategic gain. The research also identifies aspects of the planning process that may create opportunities for addressing climate impacts in future planning. These aspects include continuation of watershed planning units after plans are developed; commitment to updating watershed plans; recognition of climate impacts in planning documentation; dedicated incentive funding; and the availability of hydrologic modeling tools for assessing hydrologic impacts. Additional types of technical assistance that could support integration of climate impacts are also identified. It is hoped that the insight provided by this analysis will help individuals involved in stakeholder-based watershed planning recognize the various dynamics potentially affecting the inclusion of climate change in watershed planning and in doing so, contribute to the development of planning approaches and tools that will support local efforts to adapt to climate impacts.

Assistance in human–machine interaction: a conceptual framework and a proposal for a taxonomy

Many interactive systems offer assistance when users have difficulties in operating or using them. In spite of the overwhelming variety of assistance techniques available, it is often unclear what type of assistance is really needed and how special assistance functions should be designed. The first step towards theoretically solid design decisions is a conceptual framework and a comprehensive taxonomy of assistance. This paper proposes to define assistance as access to machine functions and provides a taxonomy based mainly on action stages to be assisted. These stages are: (1) motivation, activation and goal setting; (2) perception; (3) information integration, generating situation awareness; (4) decision-making, action selection; (5) action execution; and (6) processing feedback of action results. In analogy to social assistance, various types of technical assistance are assigned to the six action stages. As additional dimensions to classify assistance, we also discuss adjustment, initiative, presentation media and input modality.

Building Poor Countries' Trade Capacity

This is a background paper prepared for an informal expert meeting of the Development Assistance Committee of the OECD. It discusses technical assistance on trade for the least developed and poorer countries and tries to explore alternative partnership approaches for building new trade capacity. It focuses on trade policy more than on trade promotion strategies. The paper identifies four different types of technical assistance: 1. Raising the awareness of key policy makers and actors both of how trade policy operates globally, and what the options are. 2. Help with the implementation of multilaterally or regionally agreed trade arrangements. 3. Help to deal with export related implements in foreign markets. 4. Enhancement of negotiating capability, both multilaterally and regionally. It emphasizes how a ranking across these types of assistance needs to be informed by a sense of the trade situation for these countries. The pattern of poorer country trade has been changing in recent years, with sharp export growth in countries such as Bangladesh, and also some African countries (such as Uganda). This is beginning to generate trade conflicts with OECD countries in areas such as textiles and apparel (MEA) and even antidumping. Poorer countries are also increasingly becoming involved in outsourcing trade (relocation of assembly operations to a poorer country by a large OECD company, possibly in an export processing zone); and trade between poorer countries and other developing countries is growing more rapidly. After many years of stagnant trade growth, poorer country trade is now growing at rates which compare to those of all developing countries. Special opportunities seem to be present in services trade (growing globally at rates higher than goods trade), and (in the future) electronic commerce.

Physicians for the American homelands

Academic health centers in the United States are in danger of becoming more and more irrelevant to the non-tertiary, primary health care needs of modern society. This paper explores options to respond to one segment that repeatedly has been demonstrated to be in distress: rural health care. Recommendations are made about selective recruitment into medical and other health schools to address the issue, early professional socialization, curricular reform, and the types of technical assistance that academic centers might well provide to rural practitioners and caregiver institutions.