Embedded in the conservative pledge to increase the aid budget to 0.7% is its transformation from what we have known previously as ‘aid’, into a new ‘stabilisation and reconstruction force’ which will be overseen by the national security council. This new force will combine soldiers, diplomats, and aid workers in a joint project.
For more information, click here.
Rising Voices, a forum for global conversation, has announced the launch of the ‘Technology for Transparency Network’. This will map online technology projects that aim to promote transparency, political accountability, and civic engagement in many parts of the world. 32 case studies of technologies being put to use for these purposes will be documented; a very worthwhile project which similar initiatives will be sure to learn from.
To read more, click here.
“Freedom of Information and Sustainable Development, Sealing the Link”:
The final report of the UNESCO Experts Meeting held in Paris on March 17-18, 2008, drafted by Caroline Millet, can be found here.
‘Sufficient, measurable, accountable, responsive and transparent’ – aid should meet these criterion according to ONE’s SMART initiative, which are aligned with the principles of Publish What You Fund. Not only the need for aid, but the necessity of transparency of aid and its delivery are recognised by African leaders fighting against poverty.
For more information, click here.
Project-Level Aid (PLAID) and Development Gateway’s Accessible information on Development Activities (AiDA) are merging their efforts to track development finance and cooperation. The new database, AidData is currently in production and will be launched in the first quarter of 2010. A workshop – Aid Transparency and Development Finance: Lessons and Insights from AidData – will take place in Oxford (UK) in March.
For more information, click here.
Western and Gulf Arab donors want to help Yemen escape the poverty on which Al Qaeda thrives, but new aid will not flow unless President Ali Abdullah Saleh enacts reforms and tackles corruption, diplomats and analysts say. Diplomats claim inefficient bureaucracy and a lack of transparency in tenders have helped clog the aid pipeline.
