The World Bank yesterday, 22nd September, made another important step toward improved transparency by making their data more accessible and user friendly. Having opened their data to the public in April 2010, data.worldbank.org has been extensively evaluated, and as a result now benefits from many improvements and added features.
On 20th September, the first day of the MDG Summit in New York, Andrew Mitchell, UK Minister for International Development showed his intention to lead the world on aid transparency.
In an interview in the Independent on September 18th, Andrew Mitchell, UK Minister for International Development, stresses the importance of aid transparency ahead of the MDG Summit in New York.
Mitchell announced a UK-U.S. plan to ensure aid money delivers the best possible results. He went on to say that more results-based spending would convince a sceptical public of the value of aid.
A conversation between David Lane, President and CEO of ONE, and USAID Administrator Rajiv Shah on 16th September addressed the important issue of coordination in U.S. foreign assistance. Part of the Bureau of Public Affairs’ “Conversations with America” series, Lane and Shah discussed how best to manage the 26 U.S government agencies involved in development programs.
Publish What You Fund hopes that the MDG Summit in New York points to improved integration of aid transparency in its strategy for achieving the goals. Some resources relating to aid transparency in the MDGs are collected below, and our analysis of the U.S. MDG Strategy can be read here.
On 14th September, Katie Nguyen asked “What have the Millennium Development Goals ever done for us?” Writing on the Reuters Humanitarian site, Alertnet, she acknowledges that although nobody can fault the aim of the MDGs, issues such as poor data have ‘provoked as much doubt as support’.
