Technical Assistance - TAU - National Treasury

THE TAu TEAm
A.1 Meet the Management Team
Eileen Meyer
Chief Director, Technical Assistance Unit, National Treasury
Case Studies of The National Treasury’s Technical Assistance Unit 61
Eileen has been Head of the TAU since 2001 and has been instrumental in the setting up of
the unit as it is today. Eileen started out as a researcher on poverty issues at the South African
Labour and Development Research Unit, University of Cape Town, in the 1980’s, after which
she joined the NGO sector in education by setting up Khanya College, a project of the South
African Higher Committee for Education. She joined the donor sector in the 1990s and worked
as a project manager, initially in education, training and development, and later, identifying,
procuring and managing consultants in the preparation, design and formulation of donorfunded
programmes in South Africa, at the German Development Co-operation, on behalf
of the European Commission (EC) Delegation. She gained extensive experience working with
the European Commission funded programmes. She also joined the legislative sector as the
National Programme Director of the Parliamentary Support Programme, funded by the EC.
At the beginning of 2001, she joined the National Treasury as a programme manager for the
Technical TAT programme, funded by the EU, which was the foundation for setting up the TAU
as a Chief Directorate in the National Treasury. In June 2001, she was appointed Chief Director
of the TAU.
Eileen comments:
“TAU is a knowledge generation organisation, supporting government institutions through tech-nical
assistance and management advisory services to facilitate the implementation of pro-grammes and
projects across all three spheres of government with value for money as a stra-tegic imperative.”
She has been the main driver of a process to turn the TAU into a responsive agency that assists
the government with the implementation and development challenges that it faces. She has
taken the lead in the strategy-making process, and has managed a significant change process to
transform the TAU into a highly competent organisation that is very well respected in government.
TECHNICAL ASSISTANCE | A Vehicle For Improving Government’s Performance