Transparency and Accountability Initiative (TAI)

The Transparency and Accountability Initiative (T/AI) is a collaborative of leading funders of global transparency and accountability programming. They are committed to development through empowering citizens to hold their governing institutions to account. They seek to galvanize support for ambitious new ideas and promote more impactful funding, building on the momentum of the thriving global transparency and accountability movement. The members (including Ford Foundation, Omidyar Network, Open Society Foundations, the UK’s Department for International Development and the William & Flora Hewlett Foundation) are aligning support around specific areas of focus, including more open, equitable and inclusive tax systems and informing and empowering citizens and governments with data. T/AI is a platform to facilitate such strategic alignment, strengthen knowledge sharing, and foster a culture of learning among both donors and practitioners. WHAT THEY DO The Transparency, Accountability and Participation field is one of the fastest growing public movements of recent years. It brings together a wide range of organisations and projects aimed at promoting greater openness on the part of governments, companies and other institutions so that all citizens are informed and empowered, governments are open and responsive, and citizen engagement with government is able to effectively advance public good. They aim to seize on this momentum by supporting policy change and encouraging all those working in this field to learn from their successes and failures so that they can have greater impact in the future. After five years of successful operation, T/AI is in the process of developing a new strategy that builds on the lessons learned from the organization’s activities to date, contextualizes our work in promising frontiers in the transparency and accountability field, and continues to bridge sectoral and expertise “silos”.