Breaking news:
Three ruling party MPs prosecuted for fraud
Transparency of resources for poverty
1. Effective budget decision-making and execution;
2. Enhance parliamentary oversight, social contract
3. Enable social accountability through citizen
4.
5.
6.
7.
8.
movements and civil society (eg Twaweza)
Reduce administration, overlap and waste;
Reduce corruption, enable money to be tracked
Predictable spending, coordinated programmes
Allow governments to manage own spending
Builds support for aid
After the tsunami in Aceh
“In February, in Riga (close to Calang) we had a case of
measles, a little girl. Immediately, all epidemiologists of
Banda Aceh came in, because they were afraid of a
propagation of measles among displaced people, but the
little girl recovered very fast. Then, we realized that this
was not a normal case of measles and we discovered
that this girl has received the same vaccine three times,
from three different organizations. The measles
symptoms were a result of the three vaccines she
received.”
El Pais (April 13, 2005, p. A2).
International Aid Transparency Initiative
 Agreed in 2008
 18 donors, 50 percent of ODA
 Others participating but not formally committed
 Four components:
 agreement on what will be published;
 common definitions for sharing information ;
 a common electronic data format;
 a “code of conduct”.
 On track to agree details during 2010
 Focused on aid, as part of broader picture
International Aid Transparency Initiative
 Relevant and accessible information for governments,






parliamentarians, civil society, the media and citizens,
Accurate and meaningful information, not just statistics
Timely, forward looking, traceable, detailed,
comprehensive
Include non-DAC donors, multilaterals, foundations and
NGOs
Easy to understand, reconcile, compare, add up and
read alongside other information sources
Electronically accessible, open format, legally open
Reduce duplicate reporting and bureaucracy
Costs and benefits
 Costs about $10-$30m
 Benefits of (much?) more than $3 billion a year
 Roughly equivalent to a 2-3% increase in aid
 Efficiency gains cover costs in 1-2 years
 Effectiveness gains cover costs in about a day
 Conservative, but uncertain, estimates
What you can do
 African governments




speak out for transparency of donors
African citizens
speak out for your right to know
Foundations and NGOs
Commit to implement too. Build capacity.
Donor countries:
Commit to open data standards
Everyone:
Get involved in the technical work.
www.aidinfo.org
www.aidtransparency.net
owen@devinit.org