"The new source of power is not money in the hands of a few, but information in the hands of many."
John Naisbitt, researcher and author on Megatrends
Three weeks after Steering Committee Meeting of the International Aid Transparency Initiative (IATI) on July 7th in Paris PublishWhatYouFund (PWYF) and other CSOs released a letter of civil society organisations addressed to the German Minister for Development Cooperation Dirk Niebel.
In this letter PWYF, Transparency International, BetterAid, the International Budget Partnership, CCIC and the Open Forum on CSO Development Effectiveness welcome the support of Germany for the international transparency agenda and highlight its role for aid effectiveness.
OpenAid is not yet on Twitter. We try to be present and responsive on other social networks. Why such a presence is important to the transparency agenda has been explained by Jack Dorsey, one of the founders of Twitter, in a recent interview in Chile. Taking the example of how the current president of Chile is using Twitter Dorsey suggests that social networks change the way politics is done. Regular and personal updates of politicians about their daily activities and ongoing policy debates make politics much more transparent. Politicians and governments become much more approachable and human. Read more »
To increase accountability it is necessary to strengthen the capacity of civil society to understand, monitor and improve budget processes and outcomes in developing countries. An excellent example of social accountability is given in the following video published by the International Budget Partnership: In Kenya, members of parliament receive approximately one million dollars per year to spend on development projects in their constituencies through a scheme called the Constituency Development Fund. The MPs are able to spend this money with no meaningful Independent oversight. Citizen oversight was one the mechanism employed by Kenyan NGO Muslims for Human Rights (MUHURI)to track and monitor the reality and quality of CDF community projects. Read more »
Three weeks after Steering Committee Meeting of the International Aid Transparency Initiative (IATI) on July 7th in Paris PublishWhatYouFund (PWYF) and other CSOs released a letter of civil society organisations addressed to the German Minister for Development Cooperation Dirk Niebel. In this letter PWYF, Transparency International, BetterAid, the International Budget Partnership, CCIC and the Open Forum on CSO Development Effectiveness welcome the support of Germany for the international transparency agenda and highlight its role for aid effectiveness. The Phase I of IATI will deliver important information, however, the main benefits of IATI for partner countries and civil society organisations are to be tackled in Phase II and III of the initiative.
Information is the hard currency of politics. Therefore transparency in development cooperation is not just about technical changes in data bases. Because access to information is highly political, OpenAid is convinced that public awareness and public pressure is necessary to promote aid transparency. In order to reach out to the wider community of development practitioners we have therefore decided to create an OpenAid page on Facebook and an Aid Transparency Forum on Linkedin. Read more »
The reform of the Swedish Development Cooperation has a new name - Open aid! We very happy to share our NGO's name with SIDA and we welcome the initiative of Gunilla Carlsson to promote accountability and cooperation in Swedish aid. According to an official statement of the Swedish Government transparency will allow everybody to monitor Swedish Development cooperation and to hold the main stakeholders to account. But the merits of transparency go beyond accountability. Transparency will help SIDA to tap into the knowledge and creativity of a wide variety of stakeholders in the Swedish society.
OpenAid is happy to announce its newest team member.
We are still small, but we are growing and we are happy that Dorosella Bishanga Ferdinand has joined the OpenAid team. Dorosella is from Tanzania and passionate about how domestic stakeholders including civil society can promote accountability and democratic governance.
When information which properly belongs to the public is systematically withheld by those in power, the people soon become ignorant of their own affairs, distrustful of those who manage them, and - eventually - incapable of determining their own destinies. Although in many countries recognize the right of citizens to access and use information, this right is often not implemented. Access to information is the basis for transparency and accountability both in government activities and in donor projects. Tanzania is one example, where access to information and accountability leaves much room for improvement.
Almost two years ago donor agencies made a strong committment for more aid transparency at the High Level Forum on Aid Effectiveness at Accra in September 2008. "We will make aid more transparent. (...) Donors will publicly disclose regular, detailed and timely information on volume, allocation and, when available, results of development expenditure to enable more accurate budget, accounting and audit by developing countries." (AAA,24.a)
On the 7th of July donors will hopefully honor this committment. On this date the steering committee of International Aid Transparency Initiative (IATI) created in Accra will meet in Paris to decide on the first phase of releasing aid data.
The International Aid Transparency Initiative will be deciding on the first phase of opening up standardised donor data on July 7th. In a recent futuregov article valuable insights on open data and cultures of openness by David McClure, one of the founders of data.gov are summarised. Open Data, McClure argues, should not just be add on for governments. Open Data will not be able to change much, if the organisational cultures of organisations and governments that free their data do not change correspondingly.
Transparency creates trust. NGOs dependent on private donations need this trust. Therefore the German Network of NGOs working development and environmental issues (VENRO) supports a national initiative for a transparent civil society. According to a VENRO press release of June 23rd this initiative brings together nine German networks and organisations and consists of a commitment to publish ten information items.
Rajiv Shah, director of the U.S. government’s Agency for International Development, USAID, once more promised major reform of the aid agency in a speech at the National Press Club last Friday, 18th June. Read more »
The 2010 EU AidWatch Report was launched this morning in Brussels. Having ‘tracked the EU’s progress towards achieving its aid quantity and quality commitments’, the report states that most donors are yet to adequately address the important issues of aid transparency, conditionality and accountability. Read more »
As part of their Ownership in Practice series, Oxfam America has this week released the report ‘Information: Let countries know what donors are doing’. The report highlights the urgent need to address the lack of aid information which, if available in an accessible, comprehensive, timely and comparable format, would increase donor- recipient coordination and more effective aid. Read more »
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 »
Advocacy and Transparency as Levers for Aid Effectiveness There is a lot of hype at the moment to promote Rigorous Impact Evaluations in order to improve aid effectiveness. One line of argumentation goes that there is a lack of knowledge and rigorous impact evaluations will provide valuable knowledge about what works and what doesn't. The other line of argumentation is that more rigorous impact evaluation will provide transparency as to who is doing good work and who isn't. This will increase the control of tax payers and donor governments and weed out ineffective aid. Read more »
Das neuste IATI Consultation Paper ist jetzt offen für Kommentare in einem Internet online forum bis zum 21 Mai. Das Dokument enthält die aktuellen Vorschläge zur Umsetzung der 2008 in Accra unterzeichneten International Aid Transparency Initiative. Sie wurden von der IATI Technical Advisory Group (TAG) erarbeitet. Read more »
Seit wenigen Tagen hat sich die Informationslage über Entwicklungshilfeprojekte erfreulicherweise verbessert. AidData ist online! Am 23. März wurde der Schalter umgelegt und eine Datenbank mit Entwicklungshilfeprojekten seit 1945 ist für alle offen. Die Datenbank ist nicht vollständig, aber sie erfasst vor allem für die nähere Vergangenheit einen großen Teil aller Projekte weltweit. In AidData kann nach Ländern und Sektoren, die Gesamtbudgets sind erfasst sowie teilweise auch zusätzliche Projektdokumente.
How do you get civil society engaged in public online monitoring of your project? Even if you design a killer website for interaction among stakeholders, it will be of absolutely no value without visitors. And chances are that unless you're a seasoned search engine optimizer or have a very large budget at your disposal, nobody will ever find your website. This is where social networks enter the picture.
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