For the first time, the 2026 Aid Transparency Index will include ‘accredited’ and ‘non-accredited’ agencies. ‘Accredited’ agencies chose to pay to participate in the full accreditation and assessment process, including full engagement, capacity building and a practice round of data collection with detailed feedback to support them through the Index assessment process. “Non-accredited” agencies did not choose to participate, but have been included as leading bilateral donors to continue the Index’s role as the independent assessment and ranking of the world’s major aid and development organisations.

All agencies will be scored using the same assessment method and scoring approach. However, the ‘non-accredited’ agencies will not receive the engagement, feedback and capacity building benefits. Neither will we share a full breakdown of their scores after Index publication; they will appear in the rankings with an overall score and scores for the five Index components, but no disaggregated indicator scores will be displayed.

To reassure all observers of the fairness and comparability of the assessments and scores, our verification and review process sets out the error-checking, validation and fairness procedures we carry out during the Index assessment. These ensure that scoring approaches are not biased and that all organisations in the Index are scored fairly, in the same way, against the same criteria.

Our independent reviewers are academics with expertise in aid and aid transparency who research the topic as part of their field of study. These academics are entirely independent of Publish What You Fund and have no connection to any of the organisations being assessed in the Index. Independent reviewers adjudicate on scoring decisions when there are disagreements between Publish What You Fund and an assessed organisation or when the research team is unable to reach a consensus on a data sampling decision.