Frequently asked questions about Public Online Monitoring

This is not possible: Politically the goals of OpenAid may seem unrealistic. In this respect, we are in good company. Many endeavours of social, political, institutional or scientific change seemed unrealistic at the outset.

Information is too sensible: Information is sensible and incentives for donors to publish information are low. However a study on aid transparency undertaken before the High Level Meeting in Accra by aidinfo suggests donors are nevertheless interested in increasing aid transparency. "The problem is that insufficient political priority has been given to transparency of aid information." (Better information, better aid, consultation paper Accra, infoaid, 2008, p.16). To influence political priorities, public pressure, such as the aid transparency campaign of Openaid is necessary.

Transparency is increasing already strained administrative budgets: The question of extra administrative costs is a technical one. Intelligent online solutions for access to management data means less not more administrative work. The above cited study gives some detail on how more transparency can reduce administrative weight and how investments in new systems will be offset by effeciency gains. The main obstacles to transparency are neither technical nor financial, but rather the challenge of managing institutional change within the aid system.

The political barriers to transparency are too high: Transparency is highly political, but so is development aid. Conflicts of interests exist, irrespective of whether they are brought out into the open through transparency or not. Hidden conflicts of interest lead to ineffective management, waste of resources, incoherent policies and ultimately ineffective aid. Hidden conflicts of interest always work to the detriment of those with less information and less power.

People in development countries will not use the information: People will use information that is useful and accessible, information that touches their stakes and that can make a difference to their lifes. New media alone cannot do the trick. Local networks and local media are necessary to include all stakeholders and to highlight the relevance of information.

There are many projects, for which this approach will not work: That is true. Let's find the projects, for which this approach will work and move on from there. Projects which will probably benefit easily from POM are highly visible projects that meet the demand of local people (infrastructure, health, education, energy, water).

The spread of internet and other elements of new media is not advanced enough in many areas of the developing world: That is also true. But internet and mobile phone systems are already widely used in many areas and the internet and mobile phone coverage will increase in the coming years. In other areas the gap to on-line project information and exchange will need to be bridged by traditional media, newspapers and radio stations and by local civil society organisations. A recent article by Geraldine de Bastion on the information flows during the Kenya election 2007 highlights this link between new and traditional media.