Alan Beattie writes in the Financial Times yesterday, 15^th September, on the state of play in the aid business in the run up to the MDGs. He reports a shift in the international aid agenda has shifted from a focus on the quantity of aid to a language of results – a consequence of donors repeatedly missing their targets, coupled with fiscal tightening.

In the light of the upcoming stock-take on the global efforts to achieve the MDGs, Karin Christiansen, Director of Publish What You Fund highlights the danger of ‘confusing results with attribution’. Speaking about how to hold donors to account for their promises, as highlighted by $10bn for climate finance pledged at Copenhagen in December 2009, she says, “unless it is reported on the same basis as aid, it will be impossible to make comparisons […] Standards need to be set to allow comparisons. Otherwise more information will not mean better information.”

Similarly, while the MDGs may have inherent tactical value, it is impossible to know how donor resources have contributed to their progress without access to comparable, timely and comprehensive aid information.

Read the full article here.