Thanks for this - I particularly liked the Stocktaking Study on PFM Diagnostic Instruments which raises a number of important issues.
So....
1. Is PEFA likely to be tailored so that other diagnostic instruments can be rendered superfluous (ROSC, CPFM-SAT, EC assessments, etc.)?
2. Are sectoral PEFAs going to be developed given the demand for them? If so, which areas first? Any plans?
3. It is still asserted that "Further action is needed to address the significant transaction costs resulting from duplicated and overlapping assessments. Governments should have a coherent, integrated medium term strategy of diagnostic instruments; supported by donors." That is pretty close to the statements that gave rise to PEFA all those years ago. In the PEFA training modules we are told "Duplication and lack of coordination led to heavy burden on partner governments (during the 1990s)." Hasn't there been a significant improvement in this regard? This report states "this (use of PEFA) does not appear to be translating into significant net reductions in the amount of PFM diagnostic work being undertaken." This is very worrying. Are there any statistics indicating numbers of PFM diagnostic studies carried out in the 1990s and more recently? The training materials of PEFA assert that "In Africa an analysis of diagnostic work undertaken in 2003 revealed that the average number of reviews for a country was 4.6 reviews." Any figure for a recent year? If there is no significant change then is this excused to some extent by the increased emphasis on budget support and therefore PFM? i.e the ratio of PFM diagnostics to level of budget support has decreased. Or is this disingenuous?
