Welcome to the latest monthly roundup of news from the world of aid and development transparency.

Who actually uses aid and development data?

Publish What You Fund has long campaigned for more and better aid and development data. And our recent research has indicated that improvements in publication mean that we now have a global dataset that can be used for a range of purposes. But who is actually using this data, and why?

We’ve just compiled a list of real-life examples of how organisations are using aid and development data to inform evidenced-based policy and funding decisions, research and campaigns, to facilitate media scrutiny and donor efficiency. It features examples such as a Cambridge University led study of the role of private contractors in international development, the Climate Policy Initiative’s tracking of climate finance flows, the Liberian government’s use of aid and development data through the Liberian Project Dashboard, a Devex story on the ODA spending of the European Union, the Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation work to understand development assistance for global health, the Follow the Money campaign monitoring the implementation of aid programmes in Africa, a CNN investigation into donors who have funded churches in Ghana that support an anti-LGBTQI+ bill, and Save the Children tracking aid to nutrition to hold donors accountable for their commitments. It’s not an exhaustive list, so if you know of other examples please get in touch.

What’s missing from the World Bank’s draft gender strategy? Transparency

As the World Bank prepares to finalise its new gender strategy, we ask how you can identify World Bank projects targeting gender equality, their location, sector, amount of funding and most importantly their impact. In short, you can’t. In a new blog, Alex Farley and Sally Paxton set out why this matters for accountability and how the Bank should address the transparency gaps in its gender strategy and implementation plan.

Other news

Here’s a quick roundup of other news and publications we’ve been reading over the last few weeks:

The Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) has released final official development assistance (ODA) figures for 2022, which show that assistance from all official providers, non-Development Assistance Committee (DAC) and multilateral organisations reached US$245 bn (a 24% increase over 2021). ODA from DAC member countries in 2022 rose to an all-time high of US$211bn, which represents 0.37% of member countries combined gross national income (GNI). Four countries – Germany, Luxembourg, Norway, and Sweden – met or exceeded the 0.7% ODA/GNI target. Spending on “in-donor” refugee costs amounted to US$31bn or 14.6% of ODA and aid for Ukraine amounted to US$17.8bn. You can also watch the launch event and discussion.

The ONE Campaign has also analysed the OECD data and highlights that 30% of total ODA went to Ukraine, in donor refugee costs and for COVID-19. All other aid actually decreased between 2019 and 2022 by 3.6%. It also points out that only 25.6% of ODA went to African countries, while 15.3% went to low-income countries.

Transparency International has launched the Corruption Perceptions Index (CPI) 2023, which shows that corruption levels remain stagnant globally. Only 28 of the 180 countries measured have improved their corruption levels over the last twelve years, and 34 countries have significantly worsened (including Sweden and the UK). The CPI uses a scale of zero to 100, where zero is highly corrupt and 100 is very clean. The average global score was 43. For the sixth year in a row, Denmark heads the ranking, with a score of 90, followed by Finland and New Zealand. Somalia, Venezuela, Syria and South Sudan are at the bottom of the index.

The European Parliamentary Forum for Sexual and Reproductive Rights (EPF) has launched the SRHR Donor Funding Atlas 2023. The Atlas scores 30 donor countries on their development funding for sexual and reproductive health and rights (SRHR) based on political commitment, policies in force and funding. It ranks Germany as the best performing country, while the Slovak Republic is the worst. The Atlas also considers the goal (set in 2002) that at least 10% of ODA is dedicated to SRHR and finds that the US is the only donor to meet this benchmark. Overall, it states that the current funding is manifestly unable to match the SRHR demands in lower and middle income countries.

The Institute for Journalism and Social Change has released a new report which uses OECD data to examine the decline in humanitarian and development aid for Palestine between 2013-2022. According to the report, ODA for Palestine decreased by 10% over the decade (to under US$2.4 bn in 2022). In contrast, aid from all official donors increased by almost 69% between 2013 and 2022. It also used IATI data to identify aid-funded health and education facilities recently damaged or destroyed in Gaza.

The Clean Air Fund has analysed funding from philanthropic foundations to tackle air pollution between 2015 and 2022. A total of US$330m of known funding went to air quality projects over this time range and stood at US$71.3m in 2022. However, this accounts for less than 0.1% of all philanthropic foundation funding. The research identified 79 foundations providing funding for air quality initiatives between 2015 and 2022, but Africa received only 1% (US$1.9m) and Latin America 2% (US$5.7m) of the total funding.

In an opinion piece for Development Today, Simon Scott, a former head of the Statistics on Development Finance Division of the OECD, criticises new OECD rules on how private sector instruments (PSIs) will be counted as ODA. He writes that PSIs are “simply the non-concessional flows that ODA always left out as they involved no wealth transfer to developing countries”. He questions the validity of scoring ODA on transactions that make money rather than cost money and warns that the aid community will need to look beyond the DAC for an objective measure of aid performance.

And in a follow-up piece for Development Today, Jon Lomøy, former Director of the OECD Development Cooperation Department and former Director General of Norad, argues that the group responsible for deciding on ODA rules and reform would take better, more legitimate decisions if it was widened to include aid recipient countries.

Devex has been tracking which donors have announced funding support for Gaza – and has also tracked current funding appeals as well as ODA received previously by the West Bank and Gaza Strip.

A Center for Global Development (CGD) blog looks at three problems with the UK’s aid target (currently to spend 0.5% of GNI) and how it is put into practice. The authors propose three improvements to the design of the aid target that would help to ensure the aid budget is managed and spent well.

Humanitarian Aid International has announced the launch of the Dashboard for Aid Transparency and Accountability (DATA). The primary aim of the dashboard is to enhance the financial transparency of humanitarian funding in India and track the funds reaching grassroots organisations. It provides a common platform to humanitarian organisations in India, and donors worldwide contributing funds to India, to publish their financial data.

Another CGD blog looks at how multilateral development banks (MDBs) measure their success. Looking at how impact is defined on the corporate scorecards of seven MDBs, the authors found it hard to assess the MDBs’ contribution to development or climate goals. They make the case for stronger, more consistent measurement.

The Trust, Accountability and Inclusion Collaborative (TAI) has shared new research on funding for anti-corporate capture work. Corporate capture is defined as the undue influence of private organisations on decision-makers and public institutions. The report finds that anti-corporate-capture efforts receive relatively little funding (US$20m from 2018 to 2021) compared to private sector development.

Donor Tracker is launching a series of donor budget toolkits, to help readers understand the budget timeline, how it translates into ODA spending and decision-making processes. Spain and Australia budget profiles have been published, the 12^th and 13^th largest OECD DAC donors in absolute terms.

New research from the Center for International Media Assistance found that OECD DAC donors contributed 0.3% of ODA to media freedom, pluralism and independence between 2010 and 2019. The authors argue that this does not match with the policy statements made by donors in support of quality, independent media.

ODI has looked into the 2023 update of the World Health Organization Global Health Expenditure Database (GHED) and says it shows a reversal in the long-run de-prioritisation of spending on health by governments in sub-Saharan Africa. While the GHED is the best source of such data, ODI states that improvements in timeliness, completeness and the quality of the data are needed to inform global efforts to achieve universal health coverage.

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