• Skip to primary navigation
  • Skip to main content
  • Skip to primary sidebar

Publish What You FundPublish What You Fund

The Global Campaign for Aid and Development Transparency

  • RSS
  • Twitter
  • Vimeo
  • Youtube
  • LinkedIn
  • Facebook

NEWSLETTER

CONTACT

  • Why it matters
    • Why transparency matters
    • The Story of Aid Transparency
    • What you can do
    • FAQs
    • Case studies
  • The Index
    • 2022 Index
    • Comparison Chart
    • Methodology
    • Index Archive
    • Tools
  • Our Work
    • Women’s Economic Empowerment
    • DFI Transparency
    • Gender Financing
    • Humanitarian Transparency
    • US Foreign Assistance
    • Data Use
    • IATI Decipher
    • Improving UK Aid Transparency
    • Webinars
    • Work Under Development
  • News
    • News
    • Events
    • Blog
    • Reports
  • About Us
    • Board
    • Team
    • Friends of…
    • Our transparency
    • Annual Reports
    • Our Funders
    • Jobs
Show Search
Hide Search
Home / News / Publish What You Fund welcomes new US Bill Calling for More Transparency in Foreign Aid
news

Publish What You Fund welcomes new US Bill Calling for More Transparency in Foreign Aid

By Katie Welford | Apr 30, 2009 | News

Yesterday U.S. Congressman Howard Berman (D-CA), Chairman of the House of Representatives Foreign Affairs Committee, introduced the Initiating Foreign Assistance Reform Act of 2009 (HR 2139), a bipartisan bill designed to increase accountability and improve the effectiveness of U.S. foreign aid. The Bill lays the ground work for a major increase in the transparency of U.S. aid.

Publish What You Fund congratulates Chairman Berman and the other co-sponsors of this important piece of legislation.

Press release
Text of the proposed Initiating Foreign Assistance Reform Act 2009 §4

Press Release

Publish What You Fund

The Global Campaign for Aid Transparency

www.publishwhatyoufund.org

EMBARGO: IMMEDIATE                                            29 APRIL 2009

Contact: Marcus Roberts
External Affairs
Publish What You Fund
646-708-2423
marcus.roberts@publishwhatyoufund.org

NEW BILL CALLS FOR MORE TRANSPARENCY IN FOREIGN AID

(WASHINGTON, DC) – Congressman Howard Berman (D-CA), Chairman of the House of Representatives Foreign Affairs Committee, today introduced the Initiating Foreign Assistance Reform Act of 2009 (HR 2139), a bipartisan bill designed to increase accountability and improve the effectiveness of U.S. foreign aid.

The bill, drafted in consultation with NGOs including Publish What You Fund, "directs the President to develop and implement a comprehensive national strategy to further the U.S. foreign policy objective of promoting global development." In particular, it focuses on laying the ground-work for aid transparency. The bill:

• Instructs federal agencies to make aid information on a detailed country-by-country and program-by-program basis in a comprehensive, timely, comparable, and accessible fashion – namely through the use of departmental websites.

• Ensures the transparency, accountability, and effectiveness of US foreign assistance by detailing the planning, allocations and disbursement, terms, contracting, monitoring, and evaluation elements of US foreign assistance efforts.

• Encourages the US government to best assess the use and impact of its foreign assistance efforts in relation to other donor nations and recipient countries by fully engaging in the International Aid Transparency Initiative – the global forum for aid transparency co-ordination.

“We congratulate Chairman Berman and the other co-sponsors of this important piece of legislation,” said Publish What You Fund’s Director Karin Christiansen. “Foreign aid is scarce and precious resource, and an key part of replacing people’s poverty across the developing world with hope and opportunity. Aid transparency is fundamental to that effort, and Chairman Berman and the bill’s other cosponsors have brought us closer to that goal today.”

Publish What You Fund is the not-for-profit campaign for global aid transparency, found at www.publishwhatyoufund.org
##END##

Text of legislation

The whole bill is available at:
http://www.hcfa.house.gov/111/ForeignAssistanceStrategy.pdf

SEC. 4. TRANSPARENCY OF UNITED STATES FOREIGN ASSISTANCE.

(a) SENSE OF CONGRESS.—It is the sense of Congress that the American taxpayers and recipients of United States foreign assistance should, to the maximum extent practicable, have full access to information on United States foreign assistance.
(b) INFORMATION AVAILABLE TO PUBLIC.—
(1) IN GENERAL.—The President shall publish in the Federal Register and make publicly available on the websites of appropriate Federal departments and agencies comprehensive, timely, comparable, and accessible information on United States foreign assistance a detailed program-by-program basis and country-by-country basis.
(2) SCOPE.—To ensure transparency, accountability, and effectiveness of United States foreign assistance, the information on United States foreign assistance published and made available under paragraph (1) shall include planning, allocations and disbursement, terms, contracting, monitoring, and evaluation elements with respect to activities carried out under such United States foreign assistance.
(3) AVAILABILITY TO BE IN TIMELY MANNER.— The President shall direct the head of each Federal department and agency providing United States foreign assistance to ensure that the information required under this subsection shall be made available in a timely manner.
(c) MULTILATERAL EFFORTS.—In order to best assess the use and impact of United States foreign assistance in relation to funding provided by other donor nations and recipient countries, the President should fully engage with and participate in the International Aid Transparency Initiative, established on September 4, 2008, at the Accra High Level Forum on Aid Effectiveness.

Primary Sidebar

NEWS Topics

Africa Agriculture Aid transparency Aid Transparency Index Australia Budget ID Canada China Climate Change Data Revolution Data use Data Visualisation Development Finance institutions DFI Spotlight DFI Transparency Tool European Commission Financing for Development France Freedom of Information Gender Germany GPEDC Humanitarian International Aid Transparency Initiative Japan Jobs Joined-up data Kenya Letters MDGs Newsletter Open data Open government Press Releases Publish What You Fund Road to 2015 Sustainable Development Goals Sweden UK United Nations US US foreign assistance Webinar Women's Economic Empowerment World Bank

NEWS CATEGORIES

  • Blog
  • Case studies
  • Events
  • News
  • Uncategorized

REPORTS

  • Aid transparency
  • Aid Transparency Index
  • China
  • Climate Change
  • European Union
  • Multimedia
  • United States

Twitter

  • How can you build a database of @IATI_aid and @OECDdev data? We’ve just published our methodology for merging aid… https://t.co/m5euZdnNhO
    Aug 15, 2022
  • How can you capture all the #globaldev data to track funding flows? Our new blog and methodology sets out how we m… https://t.co/QQJPPEPu7s
    Aug 10, 2022
  • We’ve developed an exciting new approach for analysing identified needs of climate vulnerable countries against int… https://t.co/OLq5Si88I9
    Aug 4, 2022
FOLLOW US
  • Contact Us
  • Copyright
  • Privacy Policy
  • RSS
  • Twitter
  • Vimeo
  • Youtube
  • LinkedIn
  • Facebook

Publish What You Fund. China Works, 100 Black Prince Road, London, SE1 7SJ
UK Company Registration Number 07676886 (England and Wales); Registered Charity Number 1158362 (England and Wales)