The United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA), in close collaboration with its partner United Nations agencies has established the Country Technical Services Team (CSTs) in nine locations around the world for providing technical support at the regional and country level. These teams are made up of leading international experts drawn from several disciplines such as reproductive health, population and development,

The major purpose of the Country Technical Services Team (CST) is to provide the countries covered with timely and high-quality technical advisory services to meet country needs in all population areas, leading towards national self-reliance in the population field, and to forge a better linkage among the different disciplines related to population and cross-fertilization of substantive knowledge in the countries as well as within the team through active interaction among the team members. The technical assistance provided by the team involves close technical support and backstopping of country programmes, population and sub-programmes. The team concentrates on the provision of technical inputs rather than on the actual implementation of country programmes. These technical assistance services should be carried out in a manner which lends both advocacy and operational expression to UNFPA programmatic emphasis on reproductive health, reproductive rights, gender issues and population development linkages in the context of the UNFPA MYFF.