The seven PEFA Partners are pleased to announce that an upgraded PEFA framework for measuring and monitoring public financial management (PFM) performance will be launched by 1 February 2016.

The PEFA program was founded in 2001 as a multi-donor partnership between the European Commission, the French Ministry of Foreign Affairs, the International Monetary Fund, the Norwegian Ministry of Foreign Affairs, the Swiss State Secretariat for Economic Affairs, the United Kingdom’s Department for International Development, and the World Bank. The seven partners have remained involved and committed to the program since then.

Following a program evaluation in 2012, the PEFA Partners concluded that the performance assessment methodology should be updated to take account of evolving good practices in PFM and higher global benchmarks for PFM performance. The upgrading process has involved detailed review by teams of technical experts and extensive international consultation. Proposed refinements have also been analyzed and comprehensively tested.

The Partners believe the upgrade will significantly strengthen PEFA’s usefulness as a tool for countries to assess their PFM performance, monitor progress of PFM reforms and identify priorities for further improvement. Good PFM practices are seen as critical to improving global development and poverty reduction and have been acknowledged in various international forums including the United Nations’ Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) and Effective Institutions Platform (EIP).

Following the endorsement by the PEFA Partners, the upgraded framework, to be known as PEFA 2016, is currently being finalized and will be officially launched by February 1, 2016.