In July 2020, our DFI Transparency Initiative team hosted a webinar to discuss the findings of our first work stream, focusing on basic project information. You can watch a recording of the webinar below.

You can download our slides here.

We have also produced a working paper summarising the findings from this work stream, which can be downloaded here.

Over the past eight months, Publish What You Fund has been working collaboratively with Development Finance Institutions (DFIs) and other stakeholders to increase the transparency of DFIs. The DFI Transparency Initiative team has put in place a solid base with a Project Advisory Board and established five key areas to focus on.

Our first work stream examines basic project information, which incorporates all of the fundamental information about an investment or project by a DFI. This may include project-level information (such as project titles, descriptions, planned and actual project dates), project level financial information (type of finance, commitments, disbursement), other partners, objectives and project design, sub-national location information, gender data, and sector identification. This information represents the fundamental building blocks from which other forms of transparency, including those addressed in later work streams, are built.

We started the research on this work stream in March 2020. We conducted interviews with a range of stakeholders and produced a landscape analysis on the disclosure of basic project information. In May we convened the first Expert Working Group with representatives from DFIs, think tanks, NGOs and the private sector who provided further insight and gave us feedback on our findings.

This 2.5-year project has become even more significant in the time of COVID-19 as Rob Mosbacher, our Project Advisory Board chair, highlighted in his recent blog post. He revealed that there is likely to be greater demand for DFI financing than ever before and that transparency is crucial so that stakeholders know whether these funds are invested in a way that maximises development impact.