The Aid Transparency Index is the only independent measure of transparency among the world’s leading development organisations. It is a periodic publication researched and produced by Publish What You Fund. The Index tracks and encourages progress towards aid transparency, while holding donors to account.

Between 2012 and 2024, the Aid Transparency Index operated as a global public good, was philanthropically funded and focused exclusively on the world’s leading aid organisations. From the 2026 edition onwards, the Index has evolved into an accreditation-based model. A wider range of aid and development organisations can sign up to a paid-for accreditation and assessment offering, which includes engagement and feedback, capacity building, and recognition for their transparency performance.

To maintain the Index’s role as an independent assessment of the leading aid and development organisations globally, for the 2026 Index we will also include the major bilateral donors assessed in the 2024 Index. These agencies opted not to sign up for the full accreditation process, but they will be scored alongside the accredited organisations, using the same assessment method and scoring approach, and will all appear in the Index ranking. More details about the accreditation offering is available in our information pack.

Since 2018, Publish What You Fund provides assessed organisations with the Data Quality Tester, an open source tool that allows organisations to independently test the quality of their data against the Index methodology.

To ensure both the accuracy and impartiality of the Index, independent reviewers also provide feedback, comments and suggestions on assessments. They typically come from CSOs, think tanks or universities familiar with the donor organisation concerned or the development sector more broadly.