Open Letter to Dirk Niebel: Implement IATI!

In 2008 Germany signed the International Aid Transparency Initiative(IATI)- a commitment of donors to provide timely, detailed, standardised data on development cooperation in an open and accessible way. The objective of IATI is to provide enable citizens in donor countries and particularly in recipient countries to hold donors and recipient countries to account for aid monies and to facilitate better planning of aid by recipient countries. Ultimately the purpose of IATI is to enhance aid effectiveness, curb corruption and promote ownership of all stakeholders.On the 7th of July the Steering Committee is meeting in Paris to decide on aid transparency standard for donors, which is will be a crucial in determining the success or failure of IATI. OpenAid is signatory to an open letter to Dirk Niebel and other ministers of donor countries urging him to follow up on Germany's commitment to aid transparency. We ask Minister Niebel to provide strong leadership on this issue and ensure that IATI becomes an important step in improviding aid effectiveness.Read the full letter.

Dear Minister Niebel, We, the undersigned, ask you to ensure that the German government delivers on the intentions and promise of the original aid transparency commitments made in Accra in 2008. On the 7th July at the International Aid Transparency Meeting in Paris, your intervention is needed to overcome the bureaucratic obstacles to publishing a wider range of data and documents on aid.

We are writing to ask you to ensure your representative support to come to an agreement on the 7th of July that meets the priority needs of partner countries including:
* reliable information on future aid flows, to assist national planning and budgeting;
* up-to-date information on current aid flows to support improved management of these resources;
* the publication of aid information using common definitions and formats that are compatible with national budgets and systems;

The provision of partner countries with information on future aid flows and publishing details of any conditions attached to aid agreements are both Accra commitments, for which development ministries will be answerable to at the next High Level Forum in Seoul in 2011. With 18 signatories to date from both governments and multi-lateral organisations, IATI provides its members with a way of meeting the Accra and Paris commitments in a consistent and coherent way. The standard, currently under consultation, will provide a framework to significantly increase the accessibility and availability of timely, comprehensive, and comparable information about aid. We welcome the progress that has been made to date, but a display of political will to engage with the Secretariat in phases 2 and 3 is also needed. The cost for implementation is non-recurring, and will significantly reduce the current reporting delay of the Development Assistance Committee’s Creditor Reporting System (DAC CRS). While we appreciate that donors may need to update their systems in order to publish some of this additional information, and that this may take time, the comments posted on the consultation forum suggest that some donors appear reluctant to move beyond publishing more regularly information that they already provide to the DAC CRS. We are concerned that this would offer little added-value to partner countries. Signed by Publishwhatyoufund, ONE, OpenKnowledgeFoundation and OpenAid