In accordance with decisions made by the FDI, the OECD 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, USAID, the Council of Europe, The Open Society Institute, UNDP and OECD Member countries to assist transition economies in Central and Eastern Europe in carrying out intergovernmental reforms. In 2000 the surveys took place in six countries: three OECD Member countries, the Czech Republic, Hungary and Poland, and the three Baltic States, Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania. In "Fiscal Design Surveys across Levels of Government" OECD Tax Policy Studies, no 7, 2001, the overall concept of the surveys and the comparative results for the six countries are brought.