Guest

Notes from the Field: Bangladesh

By Henry Lewis, Gary Forster and Guest | Oct 28, 2019 | Blog

Gary Forster and Henry Lewis are just back from Cox’s Bazar in Bangladesh. They have been finishing the research stage of our humanitarian transparency project –trying to understand the data needs and challenges of humanitarian actors on the ground, and how they might be addressed. In a new blog with our partners Ruba Ishak and Max Seilern from Ground Truth Solutions, they reflect on their experience in Bangladesh and the insights shared by interviewees who are dealing with one of the biggest refugee crises in the world.

How the New Development Finance Corporation Can Get off to a Solid Start

By Sally Paxton and Guest | Oct 22, 2019 | Blog

Scheduled to open its doors this fall, the new US Development Finance Corporation has some ambitious and welcome goals. George Ingram and Sally Paxton consider the key issues for the new institution to address if it is to set the gold standard for a modern and transparent DFI.

Notes from the Field: Iraq

By Gary Forster, Henry Lewis and Guest | Sep 24, 2019 | Blog

Information sharing during protracted humanitarian emergencies can often be complex and face a number of barriers, particularly for local and national responders. Therefore, since January 2019 we have been working with Ground Truth Solutions to better understand the data needs and challenges of these types of humanitarian actors. Building on desk based research, key stakeholder interviews and an online survey, the project has reached the on-the-ground research phase. Whilst it is too early to share the final findings of the work, in this blog we share some reflections from the first of our two country deep dives; our trip in August 2019 to Erbil, Iraq.

Foreign Aid Allocation Without Aid Transparency

By Gary Forster and Guest | Jul 3, 2019 | Blog

Governments should allocate ODA budgets through the channels that will most effectively alleviate poverty and contribute to the SDGs. How do we know that development finance institutions (DFIs) are an appropriate vehicle for ODA spend? In the latest blog in our series on DFI transparency, Gary Forster teams up with CAFOD’s Dario Kenner to explore how governments and shareholders can be confident that DFI investments are delivering impact and value for money. Taking the example of the UK’s CDC Group, they ask If CDC’s portfolio is making a game-changing contribution to the SDGs.

Is it Time for the Aid Transparency Community to Re-think its Approach?

By Guest | May 29, 2019 | Blog

In this guest blog, Michael Roberts of Giveth.io reflects on the development of open data standards, the differing technology and approaches that have been adopted and what we can learn from this. He argues that initiatives like IATI must continue to focus on addressing internal organisational challenges on governance and capacity. He also contends that we should be open to new forms of technology integrations and not be locked into any one approach.

Three Years After FATAA: What’s the Current State of US Foreign Assistance Data?

By Sally Paxton and Guest | May 23, 2019 | Blog

The Foreign Aid Transparency and Accountability Act (FATAA) was passed by Congress in 2016 to require the US agencies involved in implementing foreign assistance to publish detailed country-based information on their activities. The Office of Management and Budget (OMB) recently assessed how well the 22 agencies are complying with the data requirements. Our US representative Sally Paxton and the Brookings Institution’s George Ingram have been analysing the OMB report and conclude that it falls short in a number of ways. In this blog they summarise the gaps and missed opportunities.