Does technical assistance matter? An impact evaluation approach to estimate its value added

Many public programmes include technical assistance to the direct beneficiaries of the programme in addition to pure financing. However, there is no body of studies that calculates the additional impact of technical assistance on the outcome of interest. The authors use multi-treatment propensity score - with exact matching for dosage. The impact calculations reveal that technical assistance does matter as it has an impact over and above that of only financing. Given the small dollar value of technical assistance relative to the dollar value of transfers, not only does technical assistance matter but it is a way of getting more for less.