A voluntary agreement: a New Consensus on Effective Institutions, was reached in Busan which called on specific actions in support of these commitments.

Busan: a new way of working

The Effective Institutions commitments in the Busan Partnership for Effective Development Co-operation propose creating more coherent responses to partner country needs in order to sustain their public sector institutions and related reform efforts.

The new consensus treats the areas of accountability, capacity development, and country systems  as a whole with the aim of making them more effective in practice. In addition it highlights the following:

• the impact of accountability institutions and politics
• The importance of sequenced reform efforts responding to the political and social contexts;
• joint assessments of partner country institutions and capacity development needs;
• the need for evidence on institutional performance; and
• systematic knowledge sharing efforts.

Finally, it was also recognised that in order to be effective, a broader array of stakeholders needed to help shape this agenda, including civil society, parliamentarians and others (private sector, media, etc).

How the OECD works to support the effective institutions commitments

In addition, the OECD’s work focuses on a number of areas where the key objective is to support the implementation of commitments to build effective institutions

• Public financial management
• Procurement
• Country systems
  
• Capacity development
• Aid and domestic accountability
• Anti-corruption

Busan commitments on supporting effective institutions (§29)

Support the implementation of institutional and policy changes led by developing countries, resulting in effective resource mobilisation and service delivery, including national and sub-national institutions, regional organisations, parliaments and civil society.

Assess country institutions, systems and capacity development needs, led by developing countries.

Support the development of improved evidence on institutional performance to inform policy formulation, implementation and accountability, led by developing countries.

Deepen our learning on the determinants of success for institutional reform, exchanging knowledge and experience at the regional and global levels