• News
    • Latest news
    • News search
    • Health
    • Finance
    • Food
    • Career news
    • Content series
    • Try Devex Pro
  • Jobs
    • Job search
    • Post a job
    • Employer search
    • CV Writing
    • Upcoming career events
    • Try Career Account
  • Funding
    • Funding search
    • Funding news
  • Talent
    • Candidate search
    • Devex Talent Solutions
  • Events
    • Upcoming and past events
    • Partner on an event
  • Post a job
  • About
      • About us
      • Membership
      • Newsletters
      • Advertising partnerships
      • Devex Talent Solutions
      • Contact us
Join DevexSign in
Join DevexSign in

News

  • Latest news
  • News search
  • Health
  • Finance
  • Food
  • Career news
  • Content series
  • Try Devex Pro

Jobs

  • Job search
  • Post a job
  • Employer search
  • CV Writing
  • Upcoming career events
  • Try Career Account

Funding

  • Funding search
  • Funding news

Talent

  • Candidate search
  • Devex Talent Solutions

Events

  • Upcoming and past events
  • Partner on an event
Post a job

About

  • About us
  • Membership
  • Newsletters
  • Advertising partnerships
  • Devex Talent Solutions
  • Contact us
  • My Devex
  • Update my profile % complete
  • Account & privacy settings
  • My saved jobs
  • Manage newsletters
  • Support
  • Sign out
Latest newsNews searchHealthFinanceFoodCareer newsContent seriesTry Devex Pro
    • News

    How aid transparency makes a difference

    Aid transparency is more than just a tool to tackle corruption and push for good governance. It is, more importantly, a crucial mechanism to ensure that aid is focused, efficient and effective in these economically lean times.

    By Christine Dugay // 23 September 2011
    Photo by: Bruno Sanchez-Andrade Nuño / CC BY-NC-SA

    Last week’s announcement by the United Kingdom’s Minister for the Cabinet Office Francis Maude that Britain will make openness a requirement for future aid support is the most recent development in the global aid transparency initiative. Attaching open governance conditions to the United Kingdom’s annual 8.4 billion pounds ($13.2 billion) foreign aid budget, says Maude, helps “fight corruption following criticism of poor transparency in a number of aid-receiving nations.”

    However, aid transparency is more than just a tool to tackle corruption and push for good governance. It is, more importantly, a crucial mechanism to ensure that aid is focused, efficient and effective in these economically lean times. Opening aid data for public consumption allows aid to be better tracked, understood, compared and scrutinized. For those in the development community, knowing how funds are spent strengthens mutual accountability between donors and recipients, forces recipients to best utilize scarce aid resources, maintains domestic support for aid in donor countries at times of financial stringency, and ensures that aid delivers on its promise to improve lives.

    For these reasons, aid transparency has become a major priority for donors in their efforts to improve how aid is delivered. Launched in September 2008 at the Third High Level Forum on Aid Effectiveness, the International Aid Transparency Initiative (IATI) aims to make aid spending easier to access, use and understand by establishing a common, open format for the publication of aid information.

    The open aid data initiative gained momentum last year when a number of donors made their aid data public. In May 2010, Sweden launched its Open Aid initiative announcing “development cooperation must be opened up to transparency and ideas from others.” In June 2010, The U.K. launched its Aid Transparency Guarantee, producing the first aid data compliant with the IATI Standard. In November 2010, the United States launched its Foreign Assistance Dashboard, enabling users to examine and track American aid spending in an easy-to-understand format based on internationally accepted standards.

    On the multilateral front, over a year ago, the World Bank granted the public greater access to its wealth of world development indicators, projects and financial data through its website. In the words of its president, Robert B. Zoellick, the Bank’s Open Data initiative is a move towards “democratizing development economics” by closing the information gap between the multilateral agency and concerned stakeholders once bereft of the Bank’s privileged knowledge.

    The initiative to open aid data to the public is further gaining ground as more aid organizations sign up, such as the African Development Bank and the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation. Nonetheless, aid transparency is not a panacea — it alone cannot guarantee aid effectiveness and positive development outcomes. But the fact the World Bank experiences roughly 100,000 data users per day since liberalizing access to information is a sign that there is genuine appetite for aid transparency across the world.

    • Humanitarian Aid
    • Funding
    • Trade & Policy
    Printing articles to share with others is a breach of our terms and conditions and copyright policy. Please use the sharing options on the left side of the article. Devex Pro members may share up to 10 articles per month using the Pro share tool ( ).

    About the author

    • Christine Dugay

      Christine Dugay

      Christine is a former senior analyst under the Surveys and Advisory Services team of Devex. A skilled researcher, she contributes to and/or leads custom research projects and surveys commissioned by leading companies and development institutions. Christine has a professional certificate in political economy and a master’s degree in Japanese studies, and is a fellow of the Japan Foundation.

    Search for articles

    Related Stories

    Data transparencyOpinion: The 2026 Aid Transparency Index is canceled. Here’s what it means

    Opinion: The 2026 Aid Transparency Index is canceled. Here’s what it means

    Funding insightsHow much aid goes to West Africa?

    How much aid goes to West Africa?

    Funding InsightsHow much aid goes to East Africa?

    How much aid goes to East Africa?

    Devex NewswireDevex Newswire: What a difference 10 years does (and doesn’t) make

    Devex Newswire: What a difference 10 years does (and doesn’t) make

    Most Read

    • 1
      Lasting nutrition and food security needs new funding — and new systems
    • 2
      The UN's changing of the guard
    • 3
      The power of diagnostics to improve mental health
    • 4
      The top local employers in Europe
    • 5
      FfD4 special edition: The key takeaways from four days in Sevilla
    • News
    • Jobs
    • Funding
    • Talent
    • Events

    Devex is the media platform for the global development community.

    A social enterprise, we connect and inform over 1.3 million development, health, humanitarian, and sustainability professionals through news, business intelligence, and funding & career opportunities so you can do more good for more people. We invite you to join us.

    • About us
    • Membership
    • Newsletters
    • Advertising partnerships
    • Devex Talent Solutions
    • Post a job
    • Careers at Devex
    • Contact us
    © Copyright 2000 - 2025 Devex|User Agreement|Privacy Statement