Donor definitions of and practices in providing budget support : with particular reference to sector budget support

This report presents the outcome of research undertaken by the Norwegian Agency for Development Cooperation (Norad) in preparation for the Strategic Partnership with Africa (SPA)
Dublin Workshop on sector budget support in October 2005. The report also includes some of the findings and conclusions of the workshop itself. The purpose of this report is to clarify the definition of sector budget support (SBS) as opposed to general budget support (GBS), and review and discuss donors' practices with regard to the two budget support modalities, with particular respect
to SBS.

This report shows that donor definitions and practices related to the application of budget support vary. In particular, the emergence of the concept SBS, which has taken various forms and resulted in different practices among donors, has created a need for clarification. The OECD/DAC definition of sector budget support is not representative for many of the SPA donor's own definitions and practices. Nevertheless, work is in progress both in the OECD/DAC, the SPA, as well as by many of the donors, to clarify the definition of SBS and establish criteria for application. In particular, it is essential to establish a clear distinction between general and sector budget support on the one hand, and sector budget support and other types of sector support on the other.