Blog Archives - Publish What You Fund

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.

Tracking Humanitarian Spending in Iraq

By Charlotte Smith | Jun 19, 2019 | Blog

We’re looking into transparency in humanitarian emergencies . We started tracking humanitarian spending in Iraq using the two main global reporting standards: IATI and OECD-DAC. The results are striking, & confusing… In this blog we visualise the data that has got us thinking.

Fostering Trust – Why Aid Transparency Matters

By James Coe and Gary Forster | Jun 5, 2019 | Blog

We have encountered many citizens and activists who are seeking answers on aid spending. This blog recalls just a few of their experiences and examines how transparency can help to build trust.

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.

Traceability, or not?

By Alex Tilley and Gary Forster | May 21, 2019 | Blog

Tracing resources along the development chain, from source to frontline expenditure, is an important element of transparency for all data users. We recently produced a visualisation of all the links between current IATI data. The results surprised us, and this blog explains why.