IFTI Watch
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6 April 2012
AfDB Seeks Comment on Draft Disclosure Policy
The African Development Bank has issued an only slightly revised draft disclosure policy, which is now open for public comments in advance of a planned May 2 Board discussion. The latest version appears to be largely unchanged from the draft from last June, on which consultations were held. Some critics said it was too narrow. […]
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13 March 2012
World Bank Reports on Year One of Disclosure Policy
The World Bank has issued a statistics-filled report on the first year of what it now calls its “radical” disclosure policy, which went into effect in July 2010. The amount of information available increased, as did the numbers of requests, the Bank shows. Almost 90 percent (89.1) percent of 705 public access requests were fulfilled […]
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25 February 2012
Google, the World Bank, and Public-Private Data Partnerships
By Nathaniel Heller Heller is Managing Director of Global Integrity, a Washingon-based nongovernmental organization, and this was posted Feb. 24 on the Global Integrity blog. On Wednesday, several organizations, including Global Integrity, met with the open data team at the World Bank to discuss open data trends as well as concerns over the recently-announced partnership […]
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10 February 2012
World Bank Consulting on Accountability Concepts
The World Bank is a beginning stakeholder consultations on its Global Partnership for Social Accountability initiative “aimed at strengthening beneficiary feedback and participation by supporting civil society capacity to engage with governments to improve development effectiveness.” Having sought out initial reasons in 2012, the upcoming effort will seek comment on “key concepts” that have been […]
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6 February 2012
UK Minister Stresses Tying Aid to Transparency
A top United Kingdom minister Jan. 30 said progress on transparency will be an important factor in British foreign aid decisions. Francis Maude, the Cabinet Office minister, spoke at the World Bank about the ascendency of transparency in the U.K. and internationally. The U.K. is in line to co-chair the Open Government Partnership, a multilateral […]
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3 February 2012
World Bank’s New Lending Tool Less Than Transparent
By Karen Orenstein Orenstein is International Policy Campaigner for Friends of the Earth U.S. This article first appeared Jan 31, 2012, on the FOE blog. The World Bank last week decided to take a significant step backwards on social and environmental protection and transparency. The Bank’s board voted to approve Program-for-Results, also known as PforR, […]
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27 January 2012
World Bank Evaluator to Release Research Data
The World Bank Independent Evaluation Group Jan. 27 announced that it has made available the data backing up its review of the Bank’s governance and anticorruption efforts (GAC). The, IEG has disclosed “its entire data set of results from its desk review of GAC elements in Bank projects and country programs.” The office further explained, “Disaggregated […]
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27 January 2012
World Bank Comments on Google Arrangement
By Nathaniel Heller Heller is Managing Director of Global Integrity, a Washingon-based nongovernmental organization, and this was posted Jan. 23 on the Global Integrity blog. A Jan. 20 Heller post describes his conversations with Bank officials on the topic. Last week we covered the unfolding debate over the World Bank’s decision to make Google Map […]
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20 January 2012
G20 Transparency Lacking, Says Boell Foundation Paper
The policymaking mechanisms of the G-20 group of nations lack transparency and exclude civil society, according to a paper by Nancy Alexander, director of the Economic Governance Program at Heinrich Boell Stiftung Foundation-North America. Alexander also faults on transparency grounds the emerging World Bank Program-for-Results (P4R) strategy. The observations on transparency are contained in a […]
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20 January 2012
World Bank Document Raises Controversy in Philippines
The disclosure of a World Bank document indicating possible misuse of Bank funds in the Philippines has raised a controversy and raised questions about the handling of such Bank documents. The Bank’s aide memoire details “ineligible expenditures” to support a judicial reform project. New reports indicate that the Bank’s aide memoire was provided to Philippine […]
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20 January 2012
Worries about Google’s Deal with the World Bank
By Nathaniel Heller Heller is Managing Director of Global Integrity. His article appeared on a Global Integrity blog. Yesterday we tweeted that we were hearing concerns about the recently signed deal between Google and the World Bank that will allow the Bank to provide Google’s Map Maker platform to governments and multilaterals around the world. We’ve […]
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6 January 2012
IFIs Faulted for Exemptions in Disclosure Policies
International financial institutions (IFIs) have “overbroad regimes of exceptions” in their transparency policies, according to a report issued by the Centre for Law and Democracy. Particularly troublesome are the exceptions relating to internal deliberations and third-party commercial information, according to the CLD report, prepared as a member of the Global Transparency Initiative, an international coalition advocating […]
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12 December 2011
World Bank Posts Digest of Sanctions Board Decisions
The World Bank Dec. 9 announced the creation of a Sanctions Board Law Digest, “publicly detailing for the first time the rationale behind how the Bank Group holds entities accountable for fraud, corruption, and other wrongdoing.” The independent Sanctions Board makes final decisions in contested sanctions cases. The Sanctions Board also will start releasing its […]
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2 December 2011
Aid Transparency Endorsed at Conference in Busan, Korea
Officials from some 160 countries meeting in Busan, South Korea, agreed Dec. 1 that development aid should be spent more efficiently and more transparently. Delegates adopted a 12-page non-binding declaration that will “establish a new, inclusive and representative Global Partnership for Effective Development Cooperation to support and ensure accountability for the implementation of commitments at the […]
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17 November 2011
Publish What You Fund Rates 58 Donors on Transparency
Publish What You Fund has launched the 2011 pilot Aid Transparency Index ranking 58 donors on their levels of aid transparency and finding them wanted. The index uses 37 indicators of aid transparency to rate donors at the organisation, country and activity level. “The report finds that the majority of aid donors are not publishing […]
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11 November 2011
UN Anti-Corruption Body Resists Transparency
The UN Convention Against Corruption has decided not to let civil society groups observe the meetings of a key body.. At a recent five-day meeting in Marrakesh, Morocco, the issue of transparency was much debated, but the result “was not a good conclusion,” Gillian Dell of Transparency International said in an interview with FreedomInfo.org. Russia led an effort […]
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25 October 2011
ADB Revises Communications Policy, Makes Changes
The Asian Development Oct. 25 announced a new Communications Policy, revising its rules on disclosure and adding an appeals body. According to the Bank, the key changes include: earlier disclosure of core ADB documents, such as final proposals for country partnership strategies and sovereign project loans, subject to country consent. translation of summary project information into […]
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14 October 2011
World Bank Proposal Said to Undercut Access Policy
A World Bank proposal to revamp a substantial portion of its lending program would circumvent existing transparency requirements, among other things, according to critics. The disclosure implications of the so-called Program for Results (P4R) are negative, according to civil society group comment letters. The proposed policy “leaves the public uninformed about how funds are being […]
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4 October 2011
UN Transparency Urged at Info Commissioners Meeting
The United Nations “doesn’t know what freedom of information means,” said opening speaker Stephen Lewis at the 7th International Conference of Information Commissioners Oct. 4 in Ottawa, Canada. “Everything is shrouded in secrecy,” Lewis said, saying, “You can’t get the most fundamental information” about what is happening within the UN which “doesn’t know what freedom […]
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30 September 2011
Groups Urge ASEAN to Adopt Transparency Policy
A number of groups have urged the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) to “demonstrate its commitment to public participation by promoting access to information within ASEAN and among its member states.” The Sept. 29 call was made by Article 19, the Southeast Asian Press Alliance (SEAPA), Media Defence-Southeast Asia and SAPA Task Force on […]