Samantha Attridge and Gary Forster discuss the critical role of transparency in achieving development and climate finance goals, and preview this year’s DFI Transparency Index, highlighting where we’re looking for breakthroughs, and where stumbling blocks may remain.
On 26 June we’ll be launching the 2025 DFI Transparency Index – our latest assessment of how the world’s leading development finance institutions are performing on transparency – in partnership with ODI Global. Join us to hear from DFIs, civil society and private sector representatives and explore how we can improve financial and impact transparency in climate and development finance.
The forthcoming 2025 DFI Transparency Index includes most of the world’s leading bilateral and multilateral development finance institutions (DFIs). However, a group of seven bilateral DFIs with trillions of dollars in assets are not included. Why? The top line answer is that their levels of transparency are so low that no meaningful assessment is possible. This blog explores some of those unassessed DFIs, where their disclosure practices fall short, and the real world consequences of this lack of transparency.
Work on the second DFI Transparency Index is underway, in preparation for launch in July 2025. The Index ranks the transparency of the world’s leading development finance institutions (DFIs) and encourages improvement. We recently completed a methodology review, involving stakeholder consultation, to improve the rigour of the DFI Transparency Index, while maintaining comparability between the 2023 and 2025 editions. Here we set out the changes that have been made to the methodology, including the addition of new climate finance indicators.
The mobilisation of private finance for development outcomes was a central part of the discussions during the recent Paris summit, with more emphasis placed on the need to mobilise “at scale”. However, without improved measurement and increased transparency, it will be impossible to tell whether or not these new commitments deliver on their promises.
Reflecting on the findings of the DFI Transparency Index and the discussions which took place at its launch, George Ingram and Sally Paxton ask what we know now about how DFI resources are deployed, what change has happened and what needs to happen next.
