Bond statement in response to Aid Transparency Index

Simon Starling, Director of Policy, Advocacy and Research at Bond, the UK network for organisations working in aid and development said:

“This report demonstrates the importance of being able to scrutinise how international aid is spent and what it is doing to help the world’s poorest people, particularly if we are to ensure aid is spent effectively, and especially at a time when Covid-19 risks pushing millions of people back into poverty. The FCO is still one of the least transparent aid-spending institutions globally and the British taxpayer should be concerned about this.

DFID still remains among the best-performing bilateral donors on aid transparency, and the benchmark for UK aid-spending departments. All aid spending departments must adhere to the highest standards of reporting and transparency. The Government must also urgently recommit to its previous target of all aid-spending departments receiving a grading of “Good” or above on aid transparency.”

ENDS

Notes to editor

The Aid Transparency Index provides full details of the scores and detailed analysis of the performance of DFID and FCO. For more information please contact Sam Cavenett, Communications Manager: [email protected] / +44 (0)7866 241087
Publish What You Fund’s Aid Transparency Index has been assessing the transparency of major aid donors since 2011. The 2020 Index is the seventh full Index report to monitor and encourage progress towards aid transparency. The report is the only independent measure of aid transparency among the world’s major aid organisations. Our methodology has evolved over the iterations of the Index. Data collection was carried out from December 2019 to April 2020, and focused on 35 indicators, grouped into five components: finance and budgets, joining up development data, organisational planning and commitments, project attributes and performance. The Index groups donors into five categories based on their overall scores (out of 100: ‘very good’, ‘good’, ‘fair’, ‘poor’, and ‘very poor’). 47 donors are assessed in the 2020 Index, including bilateral donors, multilateral development finance institutions (DFIs), humanitarian agencies, vertical funds, intergovernmental organisations, and a philanthropic foundation.
Publish What You Fund is the global campaign for aid and development transparency. Launched in 2008, we envisage a world where aid and development information is transparent, available, and used for effective decision making, public accountability, and lasting change for all citizens. We work to ensure that all aid and development data is transparent, available, usable, and used. We believe that this kind of data has the potential to be transformative and contribute to better development outcomes and the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs).
This week, 188 UK humanitarian and development charities and organisations wrote to the Prime Minister calling for him to reverse the decision to merge the Department for International Development with the Foreign Commonwealth Office.
For further information or interviews please contact Maryam Mohsin on 07555 336029 or [email protected]