When overreliance on external consultants becomes a problem: UNESCO supports six European governments to solve a growing challenge

Governments worldwide increasingly use external consultants to devise and deliver on growing range of public functions, from policy advice, program design to service delivery. Yet to this day, very few have strategies to manage this growing dependency, or know how to identify when outside expertise is genuinely needed versus when needs are better served by internal capacity.

In 2023, six European governments (Austria, Belgium, the Czech Republic, France, Greece and Latvia) approached the European Commission with the request for support. The Commission mandated UNESCO with a simple but challenging mission: develop practical reforms to address this issue.

Over three years of research, analysis, and concrete reform work with governments, UNESCO developed the Blueprint for Government Consulting Reform, a strategic and practical framework which enables governments, oversight institutions and procurement authorities to diagnose their consultancy dependency, assess its risks and benefits, and design and run reforms that help restore government agency without abandoning the benefits external providers can offer. As the project concludes this month, the Blueprint is now available to any government facing the same challenge.

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