Fiscal ROSCs begin with governments filling out a questionnaire, and DFID assessments of fiduciary risk strive to agree with governments on the main policy issues to be addressed and the basis for measuring and monitoring improvements.

Second, to reduce transaction costs for all parties, all the instruments encourage coordination and collaboration among development agencies in conducting the assessments. (See also the discussion below, in the section on issues for further consideration.)

Third, all the instruments encourage dissemination of the assessments and their findings-and sometimes participation by a broad cross-section of society in recipient countries-on the premise that better understanding of governments fiscal and financial decisionmaking may increase pressures for change from civil society. To that end:

PERs have increasingly incorporated consultation with nongovernment entities, and often rely on substantial cooperation from local universities and research organizations.

Many governments have agreed to post their Fiscal ROSCs on the IMF website.

A recent Bank-IMF paper discussing HIPC AAPs emphasizes that monitoring by civil society organizations can increase accountability (World Bank and IMF 2002).

DFID plans to combine its support for public expenditure management with measures to encourage input from the private sector and civil society.

Finally, development agencies follow (with slight variations) a common sequence of actions in conducting assessments. The process starts with planning and desk studies, then moves to a concept paper, a review meeting, identification of peer reviewers and other arrangements for quality control, a field mission (or missions, if needed), multiple drafts of the assessment report and accompanying reviews, a government review, the final report, and public dissemination. Most decisions about whether and how to conduct assessments are driven by the needs of development agencies country assistance programs and by the technical capacity of the countries concerned.

Priority tends to be given to countries for which development agencies are considering budget support and where agency rules require assess-

ments before providing such support. Government consent is always required, usually in the form of a formal request that the agency conduct the assessment-though, in reality, assessments are almost never genuinely requested by the governments concerned. Still, it is hoped that through open dialogue, host governments will come to value the assessments and own the results.

In conducting assessments, development agencies have often been criticized for sending multiple missions (both from the same agency and across agencies) seeking the same basic information and asking similar questions of public officials. Insufficient coordination across multiple missions and assessments creates several problems. It often results in a lack of coherence between the analysis and recommendations of different assessment reports. It can also lead to an excessive number of recommendations for strengthening governance of and tackling technical weaknesses and capacity gaps in public financial management. Such problems, for example, developed in Burkina Faso, where a CPAR, CFAA, and Fiscal ROSC were conducted in 2000-02 (box 3).

In response, agencies are taking steps to ensure that thorough desk reviews of all available information-from both donors and governments- are completed before defining the scope of assessments, and certainly before sending missions. As interest in assessment instruments has increased in recent years, so has their funding. Thus development agencies are paying more attention to quality control, though approaches vary.

Internal evaluations of these instruments have also contributed to their recent evolution, including significant changes in emphasis and increased standardization, rigor, and precision in their application. For example, the World Banks Quality Assurance Group conducted a major review of CFAAs and CPARs undertaken in 2000-01 (World Bank 2002e), and the Bank recently issued extensively revised guidelines for both. In addition, interim guidelines for PERs were developed in 2001, and the Bank is considering formalizing these guidelines as part of a joint review of Bank-IMF work on public expenditure (see below). Similarly, the DFID has produced a manual for staff on its approach to assessing public expenditure management (DFID 2001b). The European Commission is replacing its traditional audits with assessments that emphasize the development implications of the analysis and the importance of monitoring changes in public financial management. Finally, to improve their capacity to advise governments on public expenditure management, many development agencies are hiring more staff with expertise in these areas.

Box 3

Multiple assessments result in myriad recommendations in Burkina Faso

Burkina Faso recently went through a number of assessments in a short period. In 2000 a CPAR was completed, which led to reforms of public procurement. Soon after, the government conducted a broad analysis of its system for public financial management. As part of this analysis, questionnaires were distributed to various parts of the administration, with a focus on the Ministry of Finance. The information was then consolidated in a summary report.

In parallel, in the first half of 2001 the IMF conducted a Fiscal ROSC (with the final report published in 2002). Then in September 2001 a CFAA was launched to provide external verification of the governments findings in its analysis of public financial management. The CFAA was used as a pilot case for a multidonor assessment and drew on experts from a number of African donor agencies. In addition, the CFAA included an audit of government practices to confirm its findings. Also in 2001, several bilateral missions visited Burkina Faso to gather more information on the governments reform agenda for public financial management. Participating in these various assessments and receiving multiple missions in a short period imposed relatively high costs on the administration, especially given the Ministry of Finances limited capacity.

The assessments may have helped provide a comprehensive view of the various aspects of Burkina Fasos system for public expenditure management. Moreover, the coverage of the assessment work-for example, on the responsibilities of banks and the government for budget execution and reporting in the Fiscal ROSC, and on revenue issues in the CFAA-was broader than in many other countries. But for some elements of the budget cycle, especially budget execution, there was clear duplication in the resulting recommendations. Moreover, none of the assessment reports refer to the recommendations of the others. As a result more than 280 recommendations were made. And though many have similar objectives, they sometimes propose different approaches to achieve them. These recommendations will need to be made consistent and coherent during the development of the overall reform plan-which will require significant government effort.