More aid donors are signaling their will for keeping and renewing aid transparency commitments at the High Level Forum on Aid Effectiveness in Busan, which starts in just two days’ time. With five more donors publishing to the IATI Registry ahead of the Forum, it is hoped that others will follow their lead in implementing or renewing commitments to publishing their aid information through the International Aid Transparency Initiative Standard by 2015.

The Forum starts on 29 November, in just two days’ time. In the last month EuropeAid, Sweden and the UNDP have published their aid information to the IATI Registry, AusAid launched their new Transparency Charter, the US Millennium Challenge Corporation published their data to the Foreign Assistance Dashboard, and the Inter-American Development Bank announced that it will become the 22nd IATI signatory at Busan.

The past two days have seen five more organisations publish to the IATI Registry: Global Fund, Finland, Oxfam, Spain and the Indigo Trust. It is rumoured that a further three – Denmark, Switzerland, and Asian Development Bank – are working to have their aid information published before the Forum begins on Tuesday.

Twelve IATI signatories – Australia, EuropeAid, Finland, Global Fund, Hewlett Foundation, Netherlands, Spain, Sweden, UK, UNOPS, UNDP and World Bank; Four Civil Society Organisations – Oxfam, Development Initiatives Poverty Research, Engineers Without Borders Canada and the International HIV/AIDS Alliance, and one foundation – Indigo Trust have now published their data to the Registry.

Those publishing so far provide some 42% of Official Development Assistance and Other Official Flows (average for 2008-09), with information from the Hewlett Foundation, the Indigo Trust, UNOPS and four CSOs being additional to this. Once all existing signatories publish their information this figure will increase to 64%. Previously stated interest from Canada and the US in aligning with the IATI standard would bring the coverage up to 80%.

By publishing their aid information to IATI’s common, open standard, these organisations are ensuring that their data can be used, compared and re-purposed to meet many different needs.

The range of information published to IATI by these donors, and others, will grow over time, increasing its usefulness to stakeholders in partner countries (See a visualisation of Uganda’s aid and national budget mapped together).

At the Forum we hope to see more donors fulfilling their commitments to aid transparency first made in 2005.