Under the Paris Declaration, donors commit to providing as much of their aid as possible through country systems for public-financial management (PFM), procurement, monitoring and environmental and social safeguards.  For their part, partner countries agree to intensify reforms and capacity building to bring those systems up to international standards.

The OECD has been developing a series of tools to help donors and partner countries reach a common assessment of the state of country systems and the reform priorities.  Good practices suggest that these assessments should be done jointly by donors and partner countries, and shared among donors.  The following document and sites provide guidelines for how these assessments are to be done.

General budget support is still a relatively new tool in donor practices, and its ultimate impact is still uncertain.  Some donors, such as DFID, are committed to providing two-thirds of their assistance as budget support; others are more sceptical.  The multi-donor evaluation (below) was the first systematic attempt to assess the effects of general budget support.

Procurement