Today Karin Christiansen, Director of Publish What You Fund, spoke at the All-Party Parliamentary Group for Debt, Aid and Trade (APPG DAT), which has a membership of over 170 MPs and Peers in the UK Parliament and has developed into a forum for discussion on crucial issues facing the developing world.

The focus of her speech was on the importance of aid transparency for aid effectiveness, and also in raising awareness of how and why money is spent, particularly with the government ring-fencing the budget of the Department for International Development whilst cuts are happening elsewhere.

Illustrating how urgently transparency is needed, she quoted recent polls showing the public belief that the UK spends 15%, as opposed to around 0.5% of its GDP on aid.

After Martin Greeley, Senior Fellow on the Vulnerability and Poverty Reduction Research Team at the Institute of Development Studies had spoken, members of the APPG including Ann McKechin MP, Virendra Sharma MP, John Leech MP, Richard Burden MP, Mark Durkan MP, Baroness Verma and Lord McConnell, engaged in a debate, concluding that it is essential to ensure that every pound of aid spent is effective and has the greatest possible impact on reducing global poverty.