Aid transparency as the prerequisite for accountability

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Aid transparency as the prerequisite for
accountability

• Karin Christiansen
• www.PublishWhatYouFund.org
• NYU, 5th Feb 2009

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What is Publish What You Fund?

• New global campaign for the transparency of aid
• Coalition of aid effectiveness, governance and
  integrity and freedom of information
  organisations
  
• Launched in Sept 2008, will be producing and
  annual index of aid transparency of donors
  
• Aiming to work ourselves out of existence

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Why does aid transparency matter?

• Efficiency of decision making implementation
• Effectiveness of planning implementation
• And particularly accountability democratic
  engagement
  
• Both policies and resources
• of our efforts donors, civil society,
  contractors etc and non- development activities
  and objectives
  
• And of particularly recipient country own efforts
  (which are both usually more in volume terms, but
  much more important for in terms of development
  impact)

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The problem without better info?
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However, greater aid transparency is a necessary
butnot sufficient condition for accountability
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Lack of information really?

• International OECD data set- retrospective
  classification of donors, available after 2
  years, not designed for forward planning
  
• Ugandan 2005 aid map found 100 more project aid
  than was on the governments books
  
• In Afghanistan, the government does not know how
  one-third of all aid since 2001 some 5bn has
  been spent
  
• 7 years after Oslo, most of the money going to
  the Palestinian territories went to urban areas,
  when it was most needed in the camps and rural
  areas

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Continued...

• Liberia local CSOs couldnt get basic
  information (which foreigners could)
  
• US government does not know how much its 26-32
  agencies going to any given country until about 2
  years later, between the 20-30 agencies
  
• And neither does anyone else... including the
  OCED data set
  
• But there are now over 50 country level data
  collection systems but no means of
  communicating between them
  

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Why now- hope?

• Commitments at the Third High Level Forum on Aid
  Effectiveness in Accra
  
• International Aid Transparency Initiative
• Building movement on aid transparency and work
  going one e.g. aidinfo, Guide to Donors
  
• US recent commitments on transparency, on
  development and links to the 3 legged stool
  
• General heightening of awareness around
  transparency financial crisis etc
  
• MDG mid-point the need to make the best use of
  this scarce resource, and be seen to be doing so

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The Publish What You Fund principles

• Principle 1. Information on aid should be
  published proactively
  
• Principle 2. Everyone can request and receive
  information about aid
  
• Principle 3. Information on aid should be timely,
  accessible and comparable
  
• Principle 4. The right of access to information
  about aid should be promoted
  
• To applies to all foreign assistance spending,
  and privately raised expenditure too, but the
  burden is on donors not recipients

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And more specifically

• Which practically means donors should supply
• Comprehensive (breadth/depth, traceability),
  country level data provision, in line with
  recipient budget cycle (e.g. timing, planning,
  evaluation etc) and classifications which makes
  them comparable (e.g. primary ed, with geo-code)
• Not just about flows, but conditions, terms,
  sub-contracts etc
  
• In real-time and with future estimates

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Thank you

• Karin.Christiansen_at_PublishWhatYouFund.org
• www.PublishWhatYouFund.org