Collaboration in Development Consulting: Stooges, Hired Guns, or Musketeers?

Consulting in Third World development involves the provision of technical assistance in both the short and long term in order to solve specific problems. In this article, the author takes a serious, semi-objective look at the nature of development consulting, the nature of collaboration and what it can achieve, and proposes some commonsense ways by which the present process can be improved. Based on case study material from Panama, Peru, and Zaire, five operating styles are presented: the performer, the substitute, the teacher, the mobilizer, and the scapegoating gadfly. Various ways of improving collaboration with team members, donor agencies, counterpart institutions, and the local population are proposed. Underlying the effectiveness of such collaborative consulting is a perspective that Third World development means increasing the capacity of rural people to influence and control their future.