The 18 donors of the International Aid Transparency Initiative (IATI) agreed Feb. 8 on the final details of a new global standard for publishing aid information.
“The new aid transparency standard provides a common language and format and a single way that donor countries can share information on the aid they are spending,” according to an announcement by Publish What You Fund. “With this format it will now be possible to build a bigger picture of aid activities which means that donors and recipients can coordinate their plans and complement the activities of others, reducing duplication and waste. However, to see the bigger picture, we need more data.”
Publish What You Fund Director, Karin Christiansen, welcomed thedevelopment: “For the first time, a standard exists which means more aid information will actually be better aid information. And that is what we need to make aid transparent; not only to other governments, and aid agencies, but to the public in all of our countries too.” When everyone can see how much aid is being spent where, and on what, governments – whether giving or receiving aid – can be held accountable by their citizens for spending it well.”
IATI is a group that includes some of the world’s largest donors, such as the World Bank and the UK Department for International Development (DFID), 18 recipient governments and civil society organizations. The group has been developing the format for more than two years.
DFID was the first agency to act, putting their aid information on the IATI registry, the announcement said, adding: “Major progress is also being made in the US. Although the US is not an IATI signatory, efforts to coordinate with the newly agreed standard suggest that as the US aid dashboard moves forward, foreign assistance could be mapped to both other donors’ and recipient countries’ own spending.”
Find out more information on IATI at http://www.aidtransparency.net/
Filed under: IFTI Watch