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IATI, the International Aid Transparency Initiative started in September 2008 in Accra, is now open for business! In July 2010 the first decisive step ahead was made by the IATI Steering Committee, who adopted the standards for the first implementation phase. By now also the beta version of the registry for aid data is online and functioning, so that donors can upload data and thereby make it more accessible to a wider audience. The Worldbank, UNDP and DFID have been among the first to uploaded data. But also data from the Global Fund, the Netherlands and Spain can be found in the registry. The goal of IATI is for most signatories to publish some data via the registry until the next High Level Meeting in Busan in 2011.

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.

Participation has for a long time been a popular buzz word in development cooperation. In reality however citizen involvement often seems to be considered a "nice to have". A recent report by the British NGO INVOLVE approaches the issue of participation from a different angle and argues the complexity of most social problems in development cooperation and in social policy generally cannot be adequately addressed by planning of some experts. Read more »

OpenAid is back online again with an easier to use structure and a complete German interface. In cases where content has not been translated, German users will be presented with the English language version instead. If you have any feedback or suggestions for further improvements, please leave us a message through the contact form. Oh, by the way, Explorer has a bug that makes rounded corners appear square. Yet another reason to use Firefox... (admin)