Karl P. Sauvant, Vanessa S. W. Tsang and Louis T. Wells, “The Limits of Capacity Building for Investment Contract Negotiations”, Columbia FDI Perspectives, no 359 (12 June 2023); also available here in Chinese.
Abstract
Developing countries must negotiate the best possible investment contracts with foreign investors at the outset. Donor organizations regularly push for “capacity building” to create technical expertise for negotiations within host country governments. But building and maintaining technical expertise within a government is a time-intensive and costly undertaking, and it often fails. Accordingly, this Perspective discusses the limits of capacity building and when capacity building may be worthwhile.