In accordance with decisions made by the FDI, the OECD's Centre for Tax Policy and Administration has initiated surveys on fiscal decentralisation for the purpose of providing international comparisons on the design of fiscal systems across levels of government.
The FDI is a joint initiative of the OECD, the World Bank, the Council of Europe, the Open Society Institute, the UNDP, USAID and other OECD Member countries to assist transition economies in Central and Eastern Europe in carrying out intergovernmental reforms. The main objectives of the initiate are: to encourage local democracies to improve the capacity of local governments to plan and administer expenditures and raise revenues; and to support local governments in their efforts to become more responsive and accountable to their constituencies. For further reference on the FDI, please address: http://lgi.osi.hu/index2.html or http://www1.worldbank.org/wbiep/decentralization/
The summary note, which has been prepared by the OECD Secretariat, brings together the comparative results of the six country surveys with a view of supporting policy considerations on fiscal decentralisation reforms in these countries.
The OECD is preparing a report on the fiscal design project, which will include the reports of the 2000 activities.
The country reports give a presentation of expenditure and taxig powers across levels of governments in each of the six countries, together with an evaluation of subnational discretion in financial decision-making and the nature of the 'hard budget constraints', imposed by central governments on the subnational authorities. The country reports have been prepard by the governments in each of the countries.
