Publish What You Fund is pleased to announce two new Board appointments.

Giles Bolton becomes Chair, succeeding Karin Christiansen, who founded Publish What You Fund in 2008. Giles worked at the UK Department for International Development for 10 years until 2007, in countries including Kenya, Rwanda and Iraq. He is author of the book ‘Aid and Other Dirty Business’, published in the UK, US and Canada in 2008, an accessible guide to the impact of aid and trade on African countries. He now works as Responsible Sourcing Director at Tesco, leading its work on human rights and environmental sustainability.

Giles said:

“When I worked in aid in the nineties and noughties, transparency was a distant prospect. It is now rapidly becoming a reality. Publish What You Fund has played a pivotal role in making this happen and I am excited to join the push to make all aid transparent by 2018.”

Claire Hickson becomes Vice-Chair, and will chair the finance committee. Claire runs Trio Policy Ltd, which advises non-profits on how to advocate for policy change. She previously worked for the UK Department for International Development as a governance and conflict adviser and led the Commission for Africa’s work on peace and security.

Claire said:

“As a civil servant, a consultant and a campaigner, I’ve always appreciated the importance of good data. Publish What You Fund does a great job getting donors to publish data on aid and development. Now we need to make sure the data is useful and that people use it. I look forward to working with the team to make that happen.”

At the same time, Karin Christiansen and Fran Perrin are stepping down from the Board. Fran was Chair of Publish What You Fund from 2013 to 2015, and Karin has been acting Chair for the past year. Karin will continue to attend Board meetings in a non-voting capacity as founder and patron. Rupert Simons, CEO of Publish What You Fund, said:

“I’d like to thank both Karin and Fran for their service to the cause and their support to me as mentors. When we started work in 2008, there was almost no real-time data on aid or development. Now 25% of aid meets good quality standards, and the proportion is increasing all the time. I look forward to working with our new Board team, led by Giles and Claire, to make aid fully transparent by 2018.”

You can read more about Publish What You Fund here and see the results of the 2016 Aid Transparency Index here.