The working sessions, a new initiative, are a country level development of the CABRI/SPA Aid on Budget Study's good practice note. The in-depth and detailed country led intervention will integrate planning and managing aid with planning and managing domestic budgets so that the quality of aid spending is improved and local systems and accountability strengthened.

This exercise aims at analysing the constraints to integrating aid in a country's budget process and identifying the specific steps that can be taken to improve the comprehensiveness of the budget and allocative efficiency. The solutions proposed will fit into country processes that are already being demanded or under way.

The process requires the involvement of different stakeholders in countries' budget office, aid management units, sector ministries and interaction with donors. It also allows senior budget officials from neighbouring countries that have made considerable progress in putting aid on budget to share experiences with officials and stakeholders from the country under discussion.

The expected outcomes of the working sessions will be country-specific, depending on how far a country is in it public finance management reforms and what processes are already under way. The final output after the workshop will be a reflective document on the overall processes, which will highlight the positive lessons, take note of the negative lessons and make recommendations.

Rwanda Working Session

The research process undertaken by the Ministry of Finance and Economic Planning of Rwanda and CABRI began in June 2008 and a multi-stakeholder working session took place on 6 – 8 October 2008. The papers and presentations are available here.