ECONOMIC GOVERNANCE AND MANAGEMENT 54. Insisting on ownership does not mean that the inputs of foreign individuals, bodies and organisations will be shunned. For example, technical assistance could be useful in learning about past experience, measures and methods used in other countries in relevant cases. A library of best and useful practices could be put together in this way. Comments and technical peer reviews could be elicited. Foreign personnel could be used in the training of local persons, and in building capacity to perform certain analyses and operational tasks in policy-making. Foreign staff could also serve as advisers while the requisite capacity in domestic human capital is being built. Such an approach could speed up appropriate reforms, while limiting mistakes and reducing cost. 55. Technical assistance and peer reviews are beneficial, because they allow existing knowledge and experience to be tapped. The complexity of the analytical, institutional, organisational, operational and administrative tasks that need to be performed to achieve the intermediate objectives mentioned above, should not be underestimated. In the global community, much work has been done and experience has been accumulated on detailed policies and procedures for achieving all six objectives. Ghana would benefit from drawing on this stock of knowledge and expertise. 56. At the same time, Ghana should be highly selective in making use of foreign technical experts. International knowledge and experience should be applied to Ghana by persons who understand the important structural (including socio-political) realities in the country. Moreover, many Ghanaians are familiar with the state of knowledge in all six subject areas, and have had practical experience working in international organisations and other African countries. Tapping into this pool of local expertise should yield fruitful results. 57. A more difficult challenge for the authorities, and a matter of great concern to some stakeholders in the review, would be how to avoid underestimating and even “discriminating” against those Ghanaian professionals who did not participate in the brain drain. Those who went abroad are seen to have had better opportunities for learning and capacity building, and to have become more qualified over time than those who stayed behind. In reality, the latter have also built up some advantage over those persons who left the country. Their knowledge of the local community includes how to work and get things done in a particular socio-political context, given the available stock of cooperative factors and technical inputs. Some local experts have also succeeded in keeping abreast of the growth in analytical knowledge and practical experience in certain subjects. 63