GuideStar International's Blog

The UK has signalled a clear shift towards full and open disclosure of information on aid by all donors not only to citizens in this country, but to recipients in developing countries.  In his first major speech as Secretary of State for International Development, Andrew Mitchell claimed, “I want transparency, accountability, responsibility, fairness and empowerment to be the words that define our funded activity wherever it takes place. And I want this to be the mantra that defines our partner bodies too, be they multilaterals, governments or Britain’s brilliant NGOs.” (You can watch highlights of the speech and listen to the entire speech on the Department for International Development’s (DFID) website).

This is welcome recognition from the new coalition government of the responsibility of donors to be transparent in how they disburse aid and builds upon the concerted efforts of the UK under the previous government, in cooperation with other bi-lateral and multi-lateral donors, to respond to demands for transparent, coherent and harmonized aid policy. The International Aid Transparency Initiative (IATI) www.aidtransparency.net is leading the charge in this respect.

This is not just a bureaucratic exercise. The recently published Millennium Development Goals Report for 2010 indicates that there is still plenty to be done if we are to realise the development targets agreed 10 years ago. And although transparency and accountability will not in themselves see the achievement of the targets signed up to by governments worldwide, these principals are key if we are to understand the effect aid is having and hold both donor and recipient governments to account for the promises they make.

In a fiscal year that will be full of severe budget cuts across all departments, the coalition government’s commitment to overseas development aid is noteworthy, as is its attention to ensuring that the processes for disbursing it are transparent, accountable and results focused. This is important from an accountability perspective but also to ensure that the countries receiving aid are able to make the best use of it to meet their own development objectives. As Mitchell stated in his speech, “The philosophy of empowerment will be central to our approach.  We want poor people to be masters and owners of the international development system, not passive recipients of it”. He also said that “The UK Aid Transparency Guarantee will help to create a million independent aid watchdogs – people around the world who can see where aid money is supposed to be going – and shout if it doesn’t get there”. Many people at home and abroad have an interest in ensuring this money is well-spent.

In his blog ‘Tony German (Director of Development Initiatives) analyses the Secretary of State’s speech saying “Parliamentarians, civil society organisations and citizens in developing countries want information from all donors – government, foundations, NGOs and private sector – in a form that they can access, compare, aggregate, consolidate, and mash up with their own information (especially information about their own budget). They are not going to get that from a plethora of different donor websites; nor is it possible at the moment for information intermediaries to aggregate the data from many sources. That’s why the data published by donors must be standardised, detailed, comparable and reusable, which is what the Secretary of State promised.”

Such databases on development financing must inevitably include CSOs. We at GuideStar International hope to do our part in helping CSOs to be not only transparent, accountable, responsible and fair but very importantly empowered!