The overall evaluation of donor support to PFM reforms aims to answer two key questions:

1. Where and why do PFM reform efforts succeed?
2. Where and how does external support to PFM reform efforts contribute most effectively to their success?

The key issue for the analytical study is how best to provide some (at least tentative or partial) answers to the two questions above, drawing on existing quantitative data. For question 1 various factors and conditions (economic, political, etc.) need to be taken into account as independent variables, in order to assess their association/ correlation with variations in the dependent variable (the quality of PFM systems), both across countries and over time. For question 2 the focus is narrower, and aims at isolating the more specific impact of donor support to PFM reforms on PFM reform success, holding other factors constant.