Aid Transparency Index sees IATI as most effective vehicle for transparency

This week sees the launch of the 2012 Publish What You Fund Aid Transparency Index.

Publish What You Fund monitors the transparency of aid organisations in order to track progress, encourage further transparency and hold organisations to account.

The 2012 Index covers 72 organisations ranging from bilateral and multilateral agencies to climate finance funds and private foundations. These organisations were rated against 43 indicators of aid transparency and ranked accordingly.

We are delighted to see that one of the top report conclusions is that the International Aid Transparency Initiative (IATI) is the most effective vehicle for delivering aid transparency. In offering a common standard for publishing aid information, IATI enables organisations to share information in a timely, comprehensive, comparable and accessible way. Click here to browse through IATI data.

From our experience it is clear that aid can be made much more transparent without great difficulty when political commitment is translated into effective implementation, as stated in the Index report.

We are also pleased to see that those organisations who have been working hard to publish and review their IATI data are recognised in the top tiers of the Index, with the UK (DfID) and World Bank (IDA) ranked as the top two. As the report indicates, many of the organisations moving up the Index since last year are those who have spent time integrating IATI into their business as usual systems and processes. We look forward to working with these and others listed in the Index to continuously improve their IATI data.

From an IATI perspective, the Publish What You Fund Aid Transparency Index highlights actions and recommendations relevant to stakeholders across the publishing process that will help progress an organisation or country’s transparency agenda.

Here are our top three pieces of advice:

1.      Even if you don’t have all the answers now, publish your plan to help find them

Once you have committed to publishing to IATI, the most important step is to start on your implementation plan, thinking about what you can publish now, what systems and processes may need adjusting, and firm milestones for delivery on publishing those elements that need more thought or work. Many of the organisations that ranked highly in the Index are those that have successfully built IATI into their systems and processes.

2.      Strive to improve your data quality

At present the Index does not award additional points for accessibility of information. However this will be revised for future years (as will measuring the quality of the aid information published). As part of the IATI data review process, we encourage all publishers to go beyond ‘publish what you can’ as swiftly as possible in order to meet the demands of partner country requirements (forward looking budget information, results and documents to name just a few).

3.      Look to your peers for practical steps and lessons learned

Throughout the Index, particularly on contributor specific pages, you will find a summary of people’s aid transparency journeys as well as practical steps you can take to progress further. Wherever you are in the IATI publishing process, there will be someone you can learn from, whether it is one of your peers in another country, other members of IATI publishing community or the IATI support team.

Congratulations to Publish What You Fund on this year’s Aid Transparency Index. We look forward to helping contributors build on their performance over the coming year.

If you want to discuss how you can take the next steps in IATI, email me and I will put you in touch with the right member of our team or a member of the IATI community.

Kim Borrowdale

IATI Delivery Manager

kim.borrowdale@devinit.org