Defining and assessing evidence for the effectiveness of technical assistance in furthering global health.

In an era when health resources are increasingly constrained, international organisations are transitioning from directly managing health services to providing technical assistance (TA) to in-country owners of public health programmes. We define TA as: 'A dynamic, capacity-building process for designing or improving the quality, effectiveness, and efficiency of specific programmes, research, services, products, or systems'. TA can build sustainable capacities, strengthen health systems and support country ownership.

Content of worker notification.

This article summarizes discussions held during the workshop on the issue of the content of worker notification messages and related topics. The workshop itself involved a number of sessions where participants formed small groups. This article represents a distillation of the summary reports by the rapporteurs from each group.