Measuring impact without transparency

This week we’ll be at the OECD with development specialists, bankers, policy makers and impact investors to discuss new ways of using private finance to achieve the Sustainable Development Goals. This year discussions are focusing on impact.

But is there any value in focusing on impact measurement if development objectives, results and lessons learned are not transparent? Can you measure impact without transparency? In his latest blog, Gary Forster considers the transparency of development finance institutions and asks if you can measure what you can’t see?

How can we get more people to use global aid data?

Ruth Levine and Joseph Asunka of the William and Flora Hewlett Foundation have come up with six practical ideas to increase the use of aid transparency data. In their guest blog they set out six solutions to get more governments, citizens, donors and the aid effectiveness community using the data. Check out the blog to see if you agree, and let us know if you’ll be taking action, and what success or failure will look like.

Other reads

Here’s a quick roundup of what we’ve been reading this week…

The World Bank has produced A Year in Review: 2018 in 14 Charts, which tells a story about the challenges we face (including extreme poverty, global warming, air quality and displacement) and the actions needed to create a more inclusive, sustainable world.?

OECD’s Perspectives on Global Development 2019 tracks the shift in global wealth and its impact on developing countries. It investigates what China’s transformation has meant for global development perspectives, and how shifting wealth has affected countries beyond economic terms, exploring well-being across the developing world.

The Center for Global Development’s paper on UK Aid Quality Indicators discusses the UK’s foreign aid quality based on an updated assessment of Official Development Assistance. It finds UK aid quality has decreased from 2012 to 2016 and now ranks 15th out of the 27 countries assessed.

Eurodad’s Reality of Aid 2018 Report examines recent changes in the direction and prospect for international aid in the context of Agenda 2030, as well as the persistence of poverty and growing inequalities within and between countries.

Brookings Institution has published ‘Don’t undermine the basic architecture of OECD-DAC statistics: a letter of warning’. Written by three former OECD-DAC chairs in response to ongoing efforts to rethink ODA measurement and broader development finance, concerned that the basic role of the OECD-DAC in measurement is eroding.