Publish What You Fund mentioned in Financial Times article
Below is a copy of Alan Beattie’s Financial Time article on the Copenhagen conference on climate change.
For rich nations, this is not the season for giving
By Alan Beattie
Aid Transparency and Development Finance: Lessons and Insights from AidData
Aid Data is a new joint initiative, merging the databases of Project-Level Aid (PLAID) and Accessible Information on Development Activities (AIDA).
AidData is trying to increase the value of data by providing more accurate and descriptive information, strenghtening the strategive planning and co-ordination abilities of both donors and recipients.
The draft agenda, still subject to change, is now available for the workshop taking place in Oxford on the 22nd-25th of March 2010.
What should we make of Conservatives commitment to 0.7%?
The Conservative Party is desperate to indicate that it is no longer the nasty party and the proof is that it will commit itself to spending 0.7 per cent of the nation’s wealth on overseas aid. At a time when everyone, finally, has acknowledged that large cuts to spending are inevitable, is it eccentric for the Conservative Party to draw a ring around development and demand that it be exempt from scrutiny?
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Secretary of State Clinton outlines development priorities for the 21st century
On January 7, 2010, Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton delivered a pivotal speech on “Development on the 21st Century”. Secretary Clinton laid out six approaches the U.S. is taking to tackle development around the world. It is notable that a number of these require great aid transparency to be achieved. Particularly perhaps the stated need to holding agencies accountable in delivering meaningful results and the stress on the importance of agency coordination to avoid duplication and projects overlapping on the field.
White House visitor logs released
The log of visitors to the White House up to October of 2009 have been released.
This look inside the White House comes courtesy of the Obama administration, which released its visitor logs to the public after pressure from good government groups.
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The Sunlight Foundation, which promotes transparency in government, has done a good job of making the raw data accessible and searchable online.
US says recipient countries to have a say in aid spending
Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton has said the Obama administration will share control over U.S. foreign aid with recipient countries, ending Washington’s longtime policy of "dictating" to those nations how to spend the money.
The secretary’s remarks are certain to ignite a heated debate about the role foreign governments — mostly in developing countries — should play in deciding how to spend American taxpayers’ dollars.