The world's donors are more transparent than before, new index shows

The 2024 Aid Transparency Index has recorded its highest scores in the analysis’ 12-year history, with the world’s largest aid agencies tracking, sharing, and publicizing their data at better rates than ever before. The index describes itself as the only independent, global assessment of aid data transparency, and is the result of a six-month process led by nonprofit organization Publish What You Fund. By tracking the 50 largest agencies against 35 different indicators — and analyzing some 18,500 data points — the index looks at both the quantity and quality of the data aid agencies are reporting. It’s an attempt to hold donors accountable, and to encourage more organizations, governments, and individuals to use data to inform their work. “If you step back and look at the world today, the needs are enormous. The budgets are not infinite. And the resources that we have need to be spent carefully,” Sally Paxton, the U.S. representative of Publish What You Fund, told Devex. “If you’re working in the dark, it’s impossible to ensure that you’re spending effectively.” The index focuses specifically on data published in the International Aid Transparency Initiative Standard, a voluntary effort to report aid information in an accessible, comparable way. First established in 2008, it has taken time for the concept to take root — and still today, only 545 of the 1,672 users registered with IATI recorded their data last year, according to the index. Of those who did publish, only 35 organizations recorded 95% of their total aid flows, and the top 100 publishers accounted for 99.4% of the total figures recorded. “A very basic challenge is about getting the word out about what IATI is,” Zacharey Carmichael, a senior economist at the World Bank, said at the index’s launch event earlier this week. “There is this really important resource out there, and we haven’t been leveraging it like we should.” All but one of the 50 entities assessed in the index are publishing at least some of their data to IATI, the report found. But the extent to which they published that data varied by organization. The most transparent agency in the index was the African Development Bank, which retained its top spot in the rankings for the third year in a row. While the average score across all assessed organizations was 64.4 — the highest recorded — AfDB scored 98.8. The index highlighted one of the many projects AfDB reported on as an example: one sanitation program in Zambia had 29 documents uploaded to IATI, including evaluation reports, geographical coordinates, and financial disbursements in both English and French. “They make this a priority, and they work very hard on their data,” said Paxton. “What it takes to do well on the index is marrying up the technical know-how and the political will to do this right, and AfDB has cracked that.” “Transparency cannot solve everything, but it provides the foundation for better development assistance.” --— Gary Forster, CEO, Publish What You Fund The Inter-American Development Bank came in second place, and the U.S. Millennium Challenge Corporation, the highest-ranking bilateral aid agency, came in third. Both the U.K.’s Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office and the European Commission Directorate General for International Partnerships saw their scores rise, elevating by 11 and 10.5 points respectively from this year to last. Further down the chart, a number of other agencies had even larger climbs of their own: the Japan International Cooperation Agency, for example, resumed importing data into IATI after a hiatus in 2022. As a result, HICA’s score jumped by nearly 32 points. While more organizations ranked in the index’s top category — very good — than ever before, there were also several agencies that dropped in aid transparency. The Spanish Agency for Cooperation and International Development saw the biggest loss, going from more than 41 points last year to just 5 in 2023. This year, the agency is the second-least transparent of all those assessed. It is surpassed only by the China International Development Cooperation Agency, which scored at just 2.2. China and Spain are the only two countries with scores in the single digits, with the third-worst ranked — the Australia Department of Foreign Affairs — scoring at just over 27. A spotlight on US foreign aid Four of the 50 agencies measured were based in the United States: the Millennium Challenge Corporation, the U.S. Agency for International Development, the State Department, and the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. It’s the ninth time U.S. agencies have been assessed in the index, and comes eight years after the country’s congress passed the Foreign Aid Transparency and Accountability Act. That law, which was passed in 2016, required foreign assistance agencies to issue evaluation policies and project information, including evaluations, the index states. “Using evidence is a culture shift, and it takes time, and we’re on a journey where we’re trying to use more and more evidence,” said Christophe Tocco, the senior deputy assistant administrator in USAID’s Bureau for Planning, Learning and Resource Management, at the index’s launch event. “I think with tightening aid budgets across the planet, there’s an even bigger desire to look at how we use data to make more informed decisions and have more impact with what we do.” The institutions were all over the map, with each agency falling into different categories. The MCC, with a score of 93, was in the top category. USAID, which received a score of just over 66, came in second. The State Department, at nearly 49, dropped into the third category. and HHS, with just under 35, was in the second-worst: poor. Despite the HHS being a long-time implementer of grants through the President’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief, the report said, the agency ranked 46th out of 50 organizations overall — and contrary to U.S. policy, HHS “publishes no performance data at all.” As the largest bilateral aid agency in the world, the report gave USAID credit. Despite its less-than-stellar score: the agency has published over 53,400 activities in IATI since 2013. It also “does very well” in many aspects of reporting: publishing annual reports, audits, strategies, policies, and other types of data related to financing. At the same time, the report noted the agency has outdated systems that make publishing detailed, project-level data difficult. “Given their size, the job they have to do, and the systems that need improving, I think they’ve done a good job,” Paxton told Devex. Even so, the report noted that USAID — along with most other agencies — didn’t publish much information on specific projects, such as data on location, objectives, and outcomes. “Evaluations, monitoring, results — that kind of information is a weakness across the board,” Paxton said. “We want to know: Have these projects worked? Have you evaluated them to find out what works and what doesn’t work?” That, she explained, is what an accountability project like the index hopes to push for: more donors submitting their data, and more donors, organizations, and governments actually using it. And for that, Paxton said, the sector still faces an upward climb. “We don’t want information to just be published,” she said. “We want it to be used — used internally as a management tool, used with other donors, used with implementers, used by policymakers, used by stakeholders. We want everyone to have access to this information so that they can play their role in solving some of these enormous development problems that we have.” And a look at the United Kingdom Publish What You Fund also highlighted the work of the United Kingdom, which jumped from 16th place to 10th in the index from 2022 to today. In 2020, the U.K. merged its independent Department for International Development and Foreign and Commonwealth Office, both of which had previously appeared independently in the index. DFID, which distributed the majority of aid, was ranked as “very good,” and appeared 9th place in the 2020 index. FCO was ranked as only “fair,” and appeared in 38th place. In 2022, the merged department — the Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office — was in 16th place, due to the poor quality of data from what had been FCO. But in this year’s index, the combined department was once again ranked as “very good,” with a score comparable to that of DFID in 2020. In part, that was due to the fact that FCDO set a clear target to do better in the index, the report stated, following a recommendation by the country's independent aid accountability body. As a result, FCDO’s reporting on project conditions, budgets, strategies, and evaluations improved. “This data allows for more informed decision-making, it allows for better planning, coordination, and hopefully better results among donors and implementers,” said Gary Forster, the chief executive officer of Publish What You Fund, at the index’s launch event. “Transparency cannot solve everything, but it provides the foundation for better development assistance.”