Working Better Together in a Team Europe Approach

Budget support¹³⁶ aims to align with countries’ policies, focus on results and strengthen the capacity of partner countries in a sustainable way by using the country’s policy-monitoring and public finance systems. It provides a platform for policy dialogue to promote EU objectives and incentivise reforms for economic and sector governance at the core of Global Gateway. Capacity development needs are assessed for that purpose and supported, for example, through targeted capacity development actions or public technical assistance activities. Thus, budget support offers interesting opportunities for combing expertise and several joint implementation modalities through the different components of budget support (policy dialogue, capacity building, results monitoring and financial transfers).

Image

In Cambodia, the EU sector budget support for public finance management reform was complemented by targeted support to five Cambodian institutions that were perceived as exercising direct influence over key areas for the success of the overall reform (although they were not responsible for the reform itself) and/or that could create demand for increased transparency and accountability relating to the use of public funds. The complementary support was jointly financed and implemented by the Swedish International Development Cooperation Agency (Sida) under a delegation agreement with the EU. The joined-up approach enabled the application of a holistic and multi-actor approach by drawing on the respective modalities and value added that EU and Sida could bring to the table. In the case of Sida this included, for example, core funding to civil society organisations and the mobilisation of Swedish public expertise for peer-to-peer collaboration. The close link between sector budget support and the complementary programme was reinforced, including in the budget support’s Performance Assessment Framework (PAF) indicators linked to activities undertaken by partners under the complementary programme (notably the participating government agencies). This meant that the objectives of the complementary programme were institutionalised through the PAF while at the same time the complementary programme provided the technical assistance required by the government to reach these indicators. This approach enhanced the depth and width of the policy dialogue, increased collective leverage and improved the visibility of European support to the reform.

136 https://international-partnerships.ec.europa.eu/funding-and-technical-assistance/funding-instruments/budget-support_en