UK Archives

How transparent is UK aid in 2025?

By Elma Jenkins and Alex Tilley | Feb 11, 2025 | Blog

What is UK aid being spent on, how much of it is being channelled through non-FCDO departments , how is the UK’s aid changing, and what impact is it having? In order to answer these questions we need detailed, transparent data about UK aid. Over the coming eight months Publish What You Fund will review the availability, accessibility and quality of information published by eight of the largest (non-FCDO) UK aid-spending departments, plus the Integrated Security Fund.

Most donors are not matching their local funding pledges with action

By Henry Lewis | Dec 17, 2024 | Blog, News

Many bilateral donors have signed up to international agreements to take a more locally led approach and transfer a greater share of resources to local partners. But our new study finds that many of the same donors are not sharing any practical evidence of increased local funding. Commitments Without Accountability highlights that four out of five donors do not have localisation strategies or clear definitions, targets, or methods for measuring progress in funding shifts.

Aid transparency is back on track in the UK

By Gary Forster and Alex Tilley | Jul 16, 2024 | Blog, News

The UK has returned to the top ten most transparent aid and development donors, according to the 2024 Aid Transparency Index. It reveals that the Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office (FCDO) now ranks in the “very good” category after a big drop in the last Index. It scored 82.9 points out of 100, up an impressive 11 points from 2022.

Collaborative UK aid transparency commitment renewed

By Elma Jenkins | Dec 19, 2023 | Blog

The Bond Transparency Working Group has been collaborating with the FCDO to push for more and better transparency in the UK aid budget. They have been successful in updating the UK’s aid transparency commitment. In this blog, Elma Jenkins looks at what this means for the UK’s aid transparency and where more work is still needed.

A new frontier in aid transparency? Private sector aid contractors

By Alex Tilley | Sep 12, 2023 | Blog

We’ve been analysing the transparency of private aid contractors. These organisations handle billions of dollars of aid money, yet the largest players are almost completely un-transparent. This limits both accountability and the scope for analysis of international aid flows. We take a deep dive into the transparency of two of these companies, Chemonics and Adam Smith International, and provide clear policy recommendations to help improve the visibility of the aid that flows through them.

UK absent from top performers in Aid Transparency Index for first time

By Gary Forster | Jul 13, 2022 | News

The FCDO dropped 13.5 points in the 2022 Aid Transparency Index compared with DFID’s score in 2020. This means no UK agencies are in the “very good” category – the first time this has happened since the categories were introduced in 2013.