As part of their Ownership in Practice series, Oxfam America has this week released the report ‘Information: Let countries know what donors are doing’. The report highlights the urgent need to address the lack of aid information which, if available in an accessible, comprehensive, timely and comparable format, would increase donor- recipient coordination and more effective aid.
In her blog at the Atlantic Community, Claudia Schwegmann, founder of OpenAid, argues for increased aid transparency and civil society advocacy to improve currently ineffective incentives which hamper the aid system.
On Thursday 3rd June the Department for International Development made a commitment to a new ‘UKaid Transparency Guarantee’.
The Financial Times has launched a series examining "whether Africa is finally turning the corner." In the first installment, the paper published an interesting interactive graph that compares African countries’ foreign aid support as a percentage of government spending, from 1980 to 2008. In 2008, foreign aid to Liberia represented 771% of government spending, up from 652% in 2007, 369% in 2006 and 218% in 2005.
London – Publish What You Fund yesterday welcomed the announcement of a new “Aid Transparency Guarantee” by the UK Government. The Guarantee promises that “aid information will be made fully transparent to citizens in both the UK and recipient countries”. Implementing these standards in the UK and advocating for other donors to adopt the same will result in a significant increase in aid effectiveness.
The Prime Minister, David Cameron, has instructed all Government departments to act on the coalition’s promise of increased transparency in Government data. The Prime Minister’s May 31st letter stated:
