Lessons learnt from working on aid transparency

aidinfo facilitates a regular call with a group of individuals and organisations working on aid transparency issues to share information and maximise the synergies in our work. During the last call we had an interesting discussion about what we’ve learnt through our work on aid transparency.

Several of the assumptions we had when the aidinfo project began over a year ago have been challenged most notably the idea that if more aid information is made available, people will use it. We’ve learnt that, whilst in theory people like the idea of using aid data, there are barriers preventing this. As a consequence the aidinfo programme is focusing more on providing training on the use of existing data sources and working to stimulate and support organisations and individuals who can act as intermediaries and re-package the available information in ways that are useful for different audiences.

Another observation is that, whilst the aidinfo project (and others) is focused on aid and other resources flowing from donor countries, there is a need to link this work to the wider accountability movement in recipient countries where most stakeholders are interested in transparency of the whole budget. The aid transparency movement needs to ensure that aid data is published in a way that is most useful for those working on accountability issues in the South.

Finally, we have found that donors publish a lot more information than some of us thought, it’s just not in a format that’s useful for most users. In particular it’s often not timely or comparable. So the issue with aid transparency is primarily one of coordinating donors to publish their data in a standardised and accessible way