“Transparent Aid” by Karin Christiansen, Director of Publish What You Fund, features in the November edition of Interaction’s Monday Development’s Magazine. The article discusses the potential role for greater aid transparency in U.S. Global Development Policy.

Outlining the current reporting framework and habits of the many U.S. aid-giving agencies, Christiansen describes a system which has little coordination and coherence, making it difficult for the U.S. to know what it is giving, and for recipients to know what will be given to them.

Without full and timely information on aid flows, we cannot know where aid money should best be directed. The article explains that comparability of aid flows is essential for effective and accountable foreign assistance:

“Having aid information in a format that allows it to be combined and compared with the efforts of other donors will deliver on three important elements of the U.S. Global Development Policy:

• It will support the U.S. administration, Congress and citizens in understanding how the effectiveness of U.S. aid compares to other donors;
• It will reinforce accountability of recipient governments, enabling them to build a clearer picture of combined aid flows from different donors and plan and manage their own domestic budget accordingly; and
• It will support constructive conversations about division of labor between donors by mapping aid flows into a country and across sectors.”

Read the article at Interaction.