One week before EU Development Ministers meet in Brussels, a new report from AidWatch and CONCORD, the European coalition of development NGOS, reveals the rankings of European governments on the basis of aid transparency.

Press Release

Publish What You Fund

The Global Campaign for Aid Transparency

www.publishwhatyoufund.org

EMBARGO: IMMEDIATE                                            15 MAY 2009

Contact: Marcus Roberts
External Affairs
Publish What You Fund
+44 07710-762-487
marcus.roberts@publishwhatyoufund.org

Brussels – One week before EU Development Ministers meet in Brussels, a new report from AidWatch and CONCORD, the European coalition of development NGOS, reveals the rankings of European governments on the basis of aid transparency.

The breakdown of countries progress on aid transparency is based on an index compiled through questionnaires delivered to NGOs national platforms and states and demonstrates where even countries with good track records need to work to improve.

Good:

• Belgium – Policy conditions for disbursements not disclosed
• Denmark – No disclosure of policy conditions, insufficient timeframes for consultation on available information
• Estonia – No evaluation mechanisms in place
• Ireland – Data needs to be made more easily accessible to partner countries
• Netherlands – Still insufficient levels of detail in information available
• Sweden – Information provided to the OECD DAC is not easily available
• United Kingdom – Some information is not systematically available and policy conditions are not yet disclosed

Average:

• Poland – Not enough and insufficiently detailed information
• Portugal – Information on aid is not centralised and detailed information can only be obtained from individual ministries and departments
• Spain – Information provided to the public is not detailed enough and is only available in Spanish making accessibility for aid recipients an issue

Poor:

• Italy – Poor national information gathering and not enough information available
• Greece – Overall access to information poor, and not available in a timely and regular manner
• Latvia – Transparency is poor and needs to be improved, especially with regards to bilateral aid

Very poor:

• Bulgaria – Information is very poor; no mechanisms for automatic disclosure
• Slovak Republic – Information is very poor; no mechanisms for automatic disclosure
• Slovenia – Information is very poor; no mechanisms for automatic disclosure

*No data is available for Hungary, Malta and Romania

Improving aid transparency

The report calls on European governments to commit to:

• timely and accurate disclosure and dissemination of information on development policies, negotiations and procedures;
• ensuring that information is easily accessible for scrutiny by people in developing countries.
• signing up to the International Aid Transparency Initiative, and demonstrating how they will implement its commitments.

“We congratulate AidWatch, the CONCORD coalition of NGOs and their other partners on this important report that makes a real contribution to the cause of aid transparency” said Publish What You Fund Director Karin Christiansen. “Clearly, countries that have good ratings and poor ratings alike still have ways to go in achieving aid transparency. The report adds welcome momentum to the aid transparency effort with European governments, particularly with its call for greater timeliness and accessibility to information and engagement with the International Aid Transparency Imitative.”

CONCORD’S 2009 AidWatch report: Lighten the load: in a time of crisis, European aid has never been more important can be found at:

www.bond.org.uk/pages/aidwatch2009.html

Publish What You Fund is the not-for-profit campaign for global aid transparency, found at: www.publishwhatyoufund.org

##END##