OECD (2009) Donor approaches to governance assessments: Guiding principles for enhanced impact, usage and harmonisation.

This document summarises an analysis of various donors’ governance assessments and introduces five guiding principles to lead to better collaboration between donors as well as with partner country governments when conducting governance assessments. The principles were developed to improve donor impact, usage and harmonisation of governance assessment.

The principles only cover approaches developed and applied by donor agencies, but they make reference to locally driven governance assessments and assessments based on peer review mechanisms. They are intended to provide practical advice to governance specialists in donor agencies working on assessments and to donor agency staff working in other sectors who encounter the realities of governance in their every day work. A diverse range of partner country stakeholders involved in assessing governance may also find these principles of value.

OECD’s five guiding principles are:

1) Building on and strengthening nationally driven governance assessments,

2) Identifying a clear key purpose to drive the choice of assessment tools and processes

3) Assessing and addressing governance from different entry points and perspectives

4) Harmonising assessments at country level when the aim is to stimulate dialogue and governance reform and

5) Making results public unless there are compelling reasons not to do so.