Capacity-building is required at all stages in the process of technology transfer. It is a slow and complex process to which long-term commitments must be made for resources and to which the host country must also be committed if results are to bear fruit. Fundamental change requires an autonomous capacity to innovate, acquire and adapt technologies. A market transformation approach promotes replicable, ongoing technology transfers rather than one-time transfers. In such an approach, public policy can consider what are the set of institutions which underlie markets and what are appropriate public interventions to shape those institutions.
Governments can work with the private sector and establish codes, standards and labels.
This provides a framework which can work to the benefit of industry and consumers. This route can help build markets for dispersed, small-scale technologies where technologies are diverse, vendors are many, and consumers face high risks in evaluating and selecting technologies and suppliers. Standards also allow consumers to be less knowledgeable about the equipment they are purchasing. The principle of cost-effective reduction should not be uncritically applied in all cases, but rather each technology transfer case, whether government to government, private sector to private sector or community to community should be examined on a case by case basis to see what the social impacts will be and whether these are unavoidable or can be reduced. Governments may wish to develop criteria for ensuring that technology transfer projects do not disempower or negatively influence weaker social groups in a society.