Chapter 5 | Page 198 address the issue of fragmentation of aid, provide better economies of scale, and help to allocate resources for the most urgent needs. By contrast, the advantage of bilateral co-operation is that it allows donors to be more selective in allocating aid resources. Politicians and the public in both donor and recipient States can access more information about allocation decisions.52 Because only two governments are involved in decision-making, the processes of approval and implementation can be carried out more quickly.53 Bilateral aid and co-operation affords donors the capacity to assess the performance of their aid contribution more closely compared to what is possible through multilateral mechanisms, which in turn allows the donor countries to better inform their own tax payers on how the aid money is used.54 However, the current form of bilateralism based on national preferences permits and often encourages donors to finance particular countries and projects based on their political preference.55 In such situations, donors not only target assistance towards preferred areas, but also pick their favourite or ‘darling’ countries for aid assistance, thus creating a very unfair system of international assistance and aid distribution.56 This form of voluntarism and preference-based aid does not take into consideration the areas that are most in need in developing countries, thus creating shortfalls in the most urgent areas. 52 Klingebiel, above n 3, 27-28. 53 Ibid. 54 Kharas and Blomfield, above n 49, 78. 55 Ortiz, above n 15, 65. 56 Ibid.