The PEFA program welcomes the Slovak Republic as its new partner. The Ministry of Finance of the Slovak Republic joins other seven PEFA partners – the European Commission, International Monetary Fund, the World Bank, French Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Norwegian Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Swiss State Secretariat for Economic Affairs, and the UK's Department for International Development – to become a member of the PEFA Steering Committee. The PEFA program is looking forward to exciting new steps as part of our expanded partnership.

The Slovak Ministry of Finance joins the PEFA programs in its fifth phase. Phase 5 builds on the previous four phases and takes into consideration the changes in the public financial management policy and analysis landscape. It responds to demand from the PEFA community for diverse applications of the PEFA methodology and greater contribution to advances in knowledge, skills and insight into more effective performance assessment and reform action.

PEFA began in 2001 as a means to harmonize country level assessment of public financial management across the organizations that established the program. PEFA introduced a standard methodology and reference tool for PFM diagnostic assessments. It was extensively discussed and tested between 2001 and 2005 with the aim of harmonizing the needs of government and their development partners for a common analytical tool and shared data. The first publicly available version of PEFA was launched in 2005 and reports for Afghanistan and Zambia were produced in that year. In 2016, the PEFA methodology was substantially revised. Since the early assessments in 2005 PEFA has been used more than 600 times in 150 countries.