requested by UNDP at the end of the 1980s, and unfortunately, this situation has not changed very much in a large number of countries. Therefore, the DMFAS Programme has performed as a repository of technical knowledge being able to re-train new personnel and re-installing DMFAS when necessary. The third one is that installing DMFAS is less expensive than developing a wholly new system for reasons of cost and workability. Compared with designing, programming, and maintaining an entirely new system, packages can be relatively inexpensive. DMFAS designers with the help of users have debugged the available systems to the point where they are likely to have fewer operating problems than custom-made systems. They can be implemented quickly, and the maintenance is centralised, creating high economies of scale: the implementation of DMFAS, for instance, varies from 6 months to 3 years, in order to cover the full database depending on its complexity; this is fast compared to in-house development. The maintenance of a system is of vital importance; it has been proven that the personnel turnover in the IT Department—which is an observed characteristic of a developing country DMO as pointed out above—makes domestically developed systems very vulnerable. Choosing a standard software package like DMFAS also decreases the need to maintain a full group of developers within the DMO's IT department, there are only needs for maintenance and service for daily work, database management, and security procedures like regular backups. The traditional conception for technical cooperation implied that an external team financed by external donors would help the beneficiary country to start a specific activity, and once the local team mastered the techniques and was able to obtain an income from the supported activity, the technical assistance came to an end. The three points enumerated above implied a new approach for technical cooperation provided by DMFAS. The DMFAS Programme changed the philosophy of technical assistance, from the approach described in the previous paragraph, to a permanent service to “client countries”— no longer “beneficiaries” in the sense given by the traditional technical assistance approach—, which accepted to pay an annual fee and share system development costs in exchange of a continuous technical support for their public debt management responsibilities. Mid-2012 DMFAS was installed in 69 countries and more than 100 institutions: Ministries of Finance, Central Banks and other General Government institutions.DMFAS Programme The UNCTAD Debt Management Conference Since 1992 the DMFAS Programme organised