Technical Cooperation and Strategic Response Group

Objective

The Secretariat’s objective is to promote and support development of Commonwealth countries, especially the small and least developed. Our priority is to strengthen capacity of local, national and regional institutions in critical areas through specific, tailored and sustainable technical solutions in response to requests of member countries and regional bodies. 

The Technical Cooperation and Strategic Response Group (TCSRG) was established in 2008 under the Institutional Capacity Development (ICD) programme. We focus on:

• Closing rather than filling gaps by strengthening endogenous capability though intuitional development and capacity building. We enable member countries to maximise their potential using the tools and resources - people, skills, technologies, institutions  at their disposal.
• Demand driven projects, developed collaboratively, in response to requests from countries or organisations. We focus on providing high quality technical assistance that helps our membership to make their own decisions from an informed perspective.
• Application of Results Based Management principles to project design, management and monitoring. This ensures that specific, measureable, and realistic outputs and outcomes are incorporated and that a cooperative and collaborative approach is used.
• Collaboration with divisions, member countries, Commonwealth agencies, and all other relevant stakeholders.
• Providing assistance on a south-south basis. Since 2009, over 70 per cent of experts have been drawn from developing and emerging economies.
• Linking our projects to development priorities identified in national development plans and relevant Millennium Development Goals. Value for money is also a key concern which is factored into every PDD. 

Relevance

Many of Commonwealth member countries face a wide range of development challenges limiting their capacity to sustain development, reduce poverty and achieve the Millennium Development Goals.

We work to meet these challenges through responding directly to specific requests made by Commonwealth members aligned to the Secretariat’s strategic objectives. Our approach ensures that our programme responds to leadership within member countries and maximises project ownership.

We do not prioritise any one country, region, sector or approach. Our work facilitates the sustained strengthening of the capacity within local, national and regional institutions across all the Secretariat's priority areas.

Impact

Our technical assistance, provided mainly through long-term specialist expertise, gives Commonwealth members support to develop local institution capacity. This is closely monitored to ensure that key outputs are achieved and that expectation from the requesting member, the Secretariat and our partners are met. We focus on placing specialist expertise within governing institutions to provide a sustained presence to proactively build knowledge, relationships and institutional capacity against defined verifiable targets.

We deliver high-impact results as can be seen in examples provided in ‘Our Projects’.