Today's climate of supranational interests, decentralisation, privatisation, environmental concern and uncertainty are creating much pressure on public sector forestry institutions. Such institutions need to be more sophisticated to operate in this climate, and a current priority is to reform the State's role in an increasingly complex environment. This review presents brief case studies of institutional change in public sector forestry, from India, Ghana, Sri Lanka, Bolivia and Mali. It assesses the roles and impacts of development assistance agencies, in particular DFID and the World Bank, as they have significant experience in the area of supporting institutional change in forestry. Based on these preliminary assessments, and a review of the literature, it suggests some principles for the processes of institutional change, prepared from the angle of development assistance. An annotated bibliography is included.