Sweden’s development agency, Sida, was facing growing demand for timely, specialised expertise in complex development contexts that exceeded its internal capacity. Its solution was to establish flexible helpdesks through framework agreements, enabling rapid access to external knowledge when needed. This approach has strengthened evidence-based decision making while maintaining Sida’s efficiency and adaptability in meeting diverse and evolving thematic needs.
How Sida’s helpdesks support decision making
Abstract
Sida operates in complex, rapidly evolving development contexts that require timely access to specialised, high‑quality technical knowledge across a wide range of thematic areas. Internal expertise alone cannot always meet these short‑notice, context‑specific demands, particularly in areas where knowledge requirements fluctuate or are highly specialised. This challenge is not unique to Sida: many development agencies face similar tensions between maintaining core in‑house capacity and accessing flexible, external expertise to support evidence‑based decision making.
To address this challenge, Sida has developed a system of thematic helpdesks and framework agreements, starting with an environment helpdesk in the early 2000s. The helpdesks can respond quickly to enable access to external expertise for Sida staff at headquarters and in Swedish embassies. Key features of Sida’s approach include:
A portfolio of 10 helpdesks covering a broad range of thematic areas. These are financed under the relevant thematic strategies, and cover priority areas such as environment and climate change, peace and human security, migration, gender equality, digitalisation, health and sexual and reproductive health and rights (SRHR), democracy and human rights, corruption, private sector collaboration, and market and employment development.
Flexible assignments, ranging from very short advisory inputs (up to five working days) to more in‑depth analytical work under framework agreements, including the option for field‑based studies.
Collaboration with universities, specialised research institutes, consultants and individual experts, allowing Sida to draw on cutting‑edge academic and applied expertise without long procurement processes.
Easy access to support. A clear internal access model, with dedicated intranet pages, enables staff to quickly identify and commission relevant support.
This set-up allows Sida to complement internal competencies, respond quickly to emerging needs, and strengthen analysis in programming, dialogue and operational decision making, while keeping transaction costs low.
An important source of short‑term, high‑value knowledge support, which is particularly appreciated in partner countries. Across Sida, helpdesks have supported tasks such as country and context analyses, portfolio reviews, organisational assessments, thematic mapping and background studies, often filling internal capacity gaps. They are also used as a sounding board for programme design in new thematic areas.
Growing capacity for cross-thematic collaboration, contributing to more integrated and policy-relevant support. In 2025, the Environment and Climate Helpdesk delivered 59 analytical products. The response to one query on strengthening Sida’s approach to climate, peace and security drew on a review of 60 contributions in fragile settings and recommended stronger synergies across global, regional and national levels, greater support for locally driven action, and better integration of migration and displacement.
Timely and high-quality responses. Evaluations show that helpdesks improve the timeliness, relevance and analytical quality of Sida’s programmes, while remaining more cost-effective than building permanent in‑house specialist capacity. Sida uses monitoring, user feedback and periodic evaluations of individual helpdesks to guide adjustments and ensure continued relevance.
Flexibility and responsiveness are key. Short-term, demand driven access to external expertise allows Sida to remain responsive without over-expanding internal structures. In most cases, replies are provided within two to seven working days.
Strong and accessible links to the research community ensure the relevance of the helpdesk. For example, the environment helpdesk is operated by the Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences and the University of Gothenburg.
Clear internal access matters. Well‑defined procedures and intranet visibility are critical to ensuring that staff know how and when to use helpdesks effectively.
Coverage of cross-cutting thematic areas needs co-ordination. While thematic depth is a major advantage, the absence of an overarching co-ordination mechanism makes it harder to ensure strategic coherence and avoid gaps or overlaps. More structured inter-desk collaboration would support joined up or more integrated approaches.
External expertise complements internal capacity. Helpdesks work best when paired with strong internal analytical capacity that can frame questions, interpret findings and integrate advice into decision making.
Sida (2026), “Environment and Climate Change Helpdesk”, https://sidaenvironmenthelpdesk.se/en.
Sida (2025), “Evaluation of the Environment and Climate Change Helpdesk (2022–2025)”, https://www.sida.se/en/publications/evaluation-of-sidas-helpdesk-for-environment-and-climate-change-2022-2025.
Nordic Consulting Group (2026), “Sida Helpdesk on Peace, Migration, Humanitarian Assistance and Nexus”, https://www.ncg.dk/sida-helpdesk.
Nordic Consulting Group (n.d.), “Global Gender Help Desk (Sida)”, https://ncgsw.se/project/global-gender-helpdesk-sida/.
OpenAid (2026), “Helpdesk for digitalisation 2023-2024”, https://www.openaid.se/en/contributions/SE-0-SE-6-15812.
OpenAid (2024), “Helpdesk Peace, Human Security and Humanitarian Affairs 2020-2024”, https://openaid.se/en/contributions/SE-0-SE-6-13856.
OECD (forthcoming), OECD Development Co-operation Peer Reviews: Sweden 2026, OECD Development Co-operation Peer Reviews, OECD Publishing, Paris, Development co-operation peer reviews and learning.
To learn more about Sweden’s development co-operation, see:
OECD, "Sweden", Development Co-operation Profiles, OECD Publishing, Paris, https://www.oecd.org/en/publications/development-co-operation-profiles_04b376d7-en/sweden_557d7c2d-en.html.
More In practice examples from Sweden are available on Development Co-operation TIPs • Tools Insights Practices.
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