Do trust and transparency still matter? Launch of the 2026 Aid Transparency Index
Wednesday 4 November 2026, 3 – 4.30pm GMT / 10 – 11.30am EST
Join Publish What You Fund and the Center for Global Development to hear the headline findings and themes from the 2026 Aid Transparency Index, the leading global assessment of the transparency of major aid and development organisations, and take part in a timely discussion about the future of trust, transparency and evidence in development decision-making.
The 2026 Index comes at a critical moment. With development cooperation under pressure from rising global need, constrained aid budgets, geopolitical fragmentation, and increasing scrutiny of the effectiveness and legitimacy of international financing, does transparency still matter? What role does reliable, comparable and accessible data play in sustaining trust, supporting public confidence and enabling better decisions about where scarce resources should go? The discussion will consider what the changing politics of aid means for transparency—including the implications of shuttering USAID in 2025.
We’ll bring together perspectives from civil society, partner-country governments and development agencies to ask how transparency can strengthen coordination, accountability and learning; whether partner countries have the information they need ; and what we really know about where development resources are going and what they achieve.
The event will open with a keynote address by Dr Sidi Ould Tah, President of the African Development Bank Group. This will be followed by a presentation of the Index results by Gary Forster, Chief Executive Officer of Publish What You Fund. Ian Mitchell, Senior Fellow and Co-Director of the Europe programme at CGD, will then moderate a panel discussion with Dr Tessie San Martin, Chief Executive Officer of FHI 360 and Chair of Friends of Publish What You Fund, and Philippe Jahshan, Director of the Strategy, Foresight and Institutional Relationships Department, AFD – Agence Française de Développement, alongside another senior official to be confirmed shortly.
Click below to register to join us online.