UK

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 »

In May 2010 the new British Prime Minister wrote an open letter to all government urging them to open up data. "Greater transparency across Government" according to Cameron "is at the heart of our shared commitment to enable the public to hold politicians and public bodies to account; to reduce the deficit and deliver better value for money in public spending; and to realise significant economic benefits by enabling businesses and non-profit organisations to build innovative applications and websites using public data." Following this commitment of the Prime Minister to transparency, the British Development Ministry (DIFD) published an aid transparency guarantee on its website to allow British taxpayers and citizens in poor countries to hold them to account and to provide feedback on DFID services. Read more »