Contracts — that can be broadly defined as an arrangement that reorganises the rights and duties of governments — define mutual obligations and agree on authority and enforcement mechanisms (formal or informal), can be innovative policy tools to enable flexible collaboration among levels of governments. In this context, the experiences of France, Italy and Sweden are useful examples for Korea. This paper looks into the experienced of these countries to derive some policy lessons that could be important in the Korea context. One of the main puiposes of the decentralisation in France was to reform the system of central planning. Contracts have been developed since 1980s in the French decentralisation efforts aiming at reforming the system of central planning. As an “empowerment contract”, the CPER is a tool for transferring responsibilities to subnational governments while gradually building capacities for policy implementation.