COUNTERPARTS - CONCEPTS AND MODELS

Most international development agencies rely on the counterpart concept to achieve the transfer of knowledge between experts necessary to establish, maintain, and expand development programs. Achievement of that transfer of knowledge requires that those in the counterpart relationship continually renegotiate their roles, relationships, statuses, and functions as the program is planned, implemented, and evaluated. Most discussions of counterparts suggest that the transfer of knowledge is unilateral, i.e., from the foreign expert to the host country national. The predominant Core Counterpart Model is a circumscribed one-on-one relationship lasting the life of the project and confined to the level of the bureaucratic hierarchy that houses it. This paper describes four variations of the Core Model: 1) Multilateral Model; 2) Multilateral-Multilevel Model; 3) Team Model; and 4) Counterpart Development Model. The counterpart relationship is visualized as processual in nature across a spectrum of knowledge transfer. Each model is illustrated by case examples from two programs to prepare college-level nurse-faculty in the People's Republic of China. The case examples demonstrate how configurations of models can change over the life of the project without necessitating changes in counterparts.