As traditional aid shrinks, non-ODA financial flows are increasingly crucial. Their transparency, however, lags far behind. In this blog, Tessie San Martin, George Ingram and Sally Paxton assert that better visibility into non-ODA flows will unlock smarter investments and stronger outcomes. Therefore, extending transparency is essential to ensure new development funding achieves real impact
Aid transparency is the law. The 2016 Foreign Aid Accountability Act and 2018 Evidence-Based Policymaking Act mandate public access to U.S. foreign assistance data. The removal of key USAID data sets and websites limits the ability to assess program effectiveness and spending. Without transparency, accountability weakens. The solution isn’t less data, but better data. Expanding subcontractor details and evaluations would strengthen oversight—not erase it.
Ahead of tomorrow’s launch of the 2024 Aid Transparency Index, George Ingram, Senior Fellow, Global Economy and Development at the Brookings Institution has been investigating exactly what you can find out with International Aid Transparency Initiative data.
Reflecting on the findings of the DFI Transparency Index and the discussions which took place at its launch, George Ingram and Sally Paxton ask what we know now about how DFI resources are deployed, what change has happened and what needs to happen next.
Almost as soon as USAID announced its target that 25% of its funding would go to local partners, the debate began over the definition of what counts as “local” and how to measure it. According to Publish What You Fund’s groundbreaking new research, the choice of methodology could determine whether more than $1.4 billion of additional funding is channeled to local actors each year.
Following the launch of the 2022 Aid Transparency Index, Sally Paxton and George Ingram reflect on the performance of the top US agencies, the progress that has been made on transparency and the importance of using data to improve future development outcomes.
