Karin Christiansen, Director of Publish What You Fund, responds to the U.S. strategy for meeting the Millennium Development Goals.

Obama Administration Starts Delivering on Aid Transparency

18 months in, the Obama administration is starting to deliver within foreign assistance on the commitment to make U.S. government transparent. On July 30, USAID Administrator Rajiv Shah unveiled the new U.S. strategy for meeting the Millennium Development Goals “Celebrate, Innovate, and Sustain: Toward 2015 and Beyond”. Publish What You Fund applauds the announcement which includes launching an ‘aid transparency initiative’ and looks forward to seeing concrete timelines, detailed plans and robust policy that will ensure the potential of this initiative is brought to life.

The Strategy commits to “improving the transparency of aid flows”[i] to address “data shortages, comparability problems [as] large lag times weaken [U.S.] ability to measure progress toward the Goals”[ii]:

“We will start by launching a major aid transparency initiative. In collaboration with U.S. agencies, other donors, and partner governments, we will identify the most appropriate timelines and channels to disseminate country